Old Navara could become the new NP300
Nissan is going through its worst cash crisis in history. It is forcing the company to reshape itself for survival. And that means more bakkies, like Navara. But why no new Navara for South Africa?
In South Africa, the Nissan model portfolio has shrunk alarmingly. The only models on sale that really generate money for Nissan dealers are X-Trail and Navara. But mostly, it’s Navara.
Legacy models like Hilux, Ranger and Isuzu’s D-Max dominate the local bakkie market. Then there’s the flood of new Chinese double cabs, offering advanced petrol/electric powertrains and unmatched cabin infotainment. All of this puts a lot of pressure on the current D23 Navara, which is now more than ten years old. In bakkie years, that’s a lot.
To remain relevant Nissan needs to keep trend with bakkie tech. That’s why there’s a new Navara that’s a rebadged Mitsubishi Triton. Because Nissan really didn’t have the money to develop an all-new Navara on its own, it’s doing a deal to borrow technology.
Strangely, there is no commitment to bring this new D27 Navara to South Africa. It is weird, but nothing new from Nissan. But does Nissan South Africa have good reasons for not importing the D27 for South African buyers?
‘Old’ Nissan bakkies aren’t anything new
Nissan has an established presence in the bakkie market. And for decades, it traded on loyalty. And product legacy. It’s why the Nissan 1400 Champ was kept in production for 37 years, well beyond its technology lifecycle.
It’s also why Nissan kept producing the NP300 locally, in parallel to Navara, until 2021. Recycling older technology with a continuation model, in the same way Toyota did with Corolla Quest and VW has perfected, with the Polo/Vivo model lines.
The current D23 Navara was launched in 2014, but arrived very late in the South African market. It only went on sale here in 2017. Bizarrely, the D23 Navara was available in the UK, two years before South Africa, which is a much bigger bakkie market.
And it’s not just South African bakkie buyers who have suffered from delayed Nissan products. Americans have been buying the NP300-based Frontier from 1998-2021. One of the longest bakkie lifecycles in history.
Do some buyers prefer old tech?
The D27 Navara is a Triton. And that’s not a bad thing in the bakkie world, at all. Triton is one of the best double cabs available.
With a proven 2.4 turbodiesel engine and one of the best transfer case systems of any bakkie, the new Navara gets a lot of great stuff from Triton. With an ability to run in all-wheel drive, at high speeds, on tar roads and gravel, for added traction. And when towing heavy trailers or caravans.
Triton’s ability to operate in all-wheel drive on tar, up a steep mountain pass, is invaluable when you are towing. Especially in the rain, when having to round sharp corner, climbing a mountain pass with a heavy trailer or caravan.
But do some bakkie buyers want old-school technology? They want in-cabin screen functionality and device pairing, but don’t want invasive driver-assistance systems. Or warning buzzers that trigger at every possible action and interaction with the vehicle. Especially in chaotic South African road conditions, where haphazard animal movements and pedestrians, not to mention high-risk traffic, can easily overwhelm a driver assistance system designed for European road conditions.
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Old Navara – better suspension?
Nissan’s D27 Navara uses a similar rear suspension set-up to most other double-cab bakkies: a solid axle with leaf springs. Commercial vehicle and bakkie engineers have been using this design for more than a century. It’s robust and more importantly, it’s cheap.
But the truth is that most double cab bakkie owners never use the full load capacity of their bakkies. And unladen leaf-sprung live axle rear suspension is ultra-stiff and rides very harshly. Which is annoying when driving on a poorly surfaced highway and even worse, on a corrugated dirt road, unladen.
When it launched a decade ago, D23 Navara’s standout technical feature was its coil-sprung rear suspension. This rear-axle set-up is much better at mitigating the effects of corrugations and other surface irregularities. Ride quality is less harsh, and high-speed tracking stability on corrugated dirt roads is much better.
Ford’s Ranger Raptor is the most advanced double cab on sale in South Africa, if high-performance suspension design and components mean something to you. And it has coil-sprung rear suspension for a reason. So do some of the new ‘premium’ Chinese bakkies. Nissan’s engineers clearly knew something in the early 2010s, when they were finishing the design of D23 Navara, and chose a coil-sprung rear suspension.
Suppose you are a South African double cab buyer who wants the ride quality, superior steering authority, and towing stability of a coil-sprung rear axle, especially on dirt roads. In that case, the ‘aged’ D23 Navara is arguably better than the new leaf-sprung D27 version.
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Nissan doing what Toyota does
New designs and technology integration drive the vehicle market. Bakkies are not different. Customers want more cabin comfort, better seats, improved ventilation systems, better infotainment, and enhanced crash safety.
They also want better sound insulation, improved ride quality across all terrain types, and powerful, efficient engines. Those bakkie buyer demands mean new technology is required. And Chinese bakkie models are providing an abundance of the latest tech. And at times, too much tech.
The global standard by which all bakkies are measured is Hilux. And Toyota’s shown, again, that the market accepts its conservative product development approach. New Hilux has a great deal of carryover tech and features. And it’s going to be a huge sales success.
Money and price sensitivity are possibly the main reasons why Nissan doesn’t want to commit to a new D27 Navara for South Africa. These bakkies would be imported and subject to import taxes, making them more expensive than locally built market leaders like Hilux, Ranger, and D-Max. Continuing with the current D23 Navara allows Nissan to keep its double cab bakkie in the market, with all the pricing benefits of local production and the government incentives that support South African manufacturers.
Can South Africans really judge Nissan for continuing with the D23 Navara? Especially when Toyota has just revealed a Hilux that will be hugely influential in the bakkie market until 2035 – with engines dating back to the mid-2010s?
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