Nissan has done the absolute minimum to refresh the 2020 Patrol - yessssss! But they have managed to go all-out botching the English language and applied science. So that’s nice. And yet, the new Patrol might still be actually worth buying - full details next.
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Patrol is like kinda Joan Rivers - ongoing exterior upgrades, but same old bones. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. They’ve been quite durable. And so also with the Patrol. It’s pretty tough too.
This time around, all you get is: new lights, new bumpers and some bolt-on safety tech. Ugliness has gone up at least one order of magnitude - almost to elite LX 570 visual abomination levels. Especially the Ti-L. It’s bean beaten with the ugly stick, and left for dead. Well done there.
No fundamental changes, however - same powertrain, same body. Significant price-hike.
Nissan Shitsville is simply milking Patrol for all it’s worth before phasing the old girl out, basically.
They’ve also changed the wheels - but they’re still 18s; just a different design - and added all the borderline-annoying safety features that the car industry is yet to think through properly. Like auto emergency braking, lane-keeping assistance, rear cross-traffic alert and blind-spot monitoring.
About the only worthwhile inclusion there is adaptive cruise control on the low-spec Patrol Ti. (Previous Ti-L already had that.) But brace for impact on the price, because it has ramped up again, for the third time in two years.
Let’s look at the economics, though, because that’s actually still pretty strong.
Top-spec Toyota Landcruiser Sahara diesel is a more or less direct competitor that costs $133,000, drive-away, and the latest Patrol Ti-L is $103,000.
Diesel Landcruisers offer more range on a full tank, and diesel is safer for refuelling at the roadside from portable containers, if you’re a proper outback adventurer beating the desert into submission, or something.
The diesel is also better for towing, obviously, with more peak torque, but the Patrol has more peak power, so it’s better for highway overtaking. And this ‘dusting’ issue does hang, like a cloud, over the Landcruiser.
Based on the official fuel tests, Landcruiser drinks 9.5 L/100km combined cycle, while the Patrol is 14.4. The $30,000 price difference and the consumption difference are interesting: Out there, in the future, there’s a point on the odometer where the Patrol buyer and the Landcruiser buyer reach fuel and capital cost equivalence.
The Patrol starts out cheaper and then the higher cost of fuel kicks in, while the Cruiser starts out expensive, but, kay-for-kay, you pay less for fuel. Have a guess how far you have to drive for those costs to become coincident?
It’s about 400,000 kays. So, ballpark estimate, for the first 10 laps of the planet, the Patrol buyer remains in front on price. This is a powerful incentive to prefer the Patrol, I must say. When you run the numbers.
