| Pictures from Picture Gallery |
1999 |
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Suspension is independent with struts up front and an advanced multi-link rear, with stabilizer bars at both ends. This helps make the Quest fairly nimble for a minivan.
Brakes are vented discs with ABS all around, and you also get brake assist and electronic brake force distribution. Stopping power is good, with good pedal feel.
The Quest's steering is power-assisted rack and pinion and the steering wheel of my tester contained audio and cruise control buttons.
The traction control works well, as I discovered on our snowy and icy roads. The Quest was as stable and predictable on slippery city streets as it was on blustery and drifting highways, making for a pleasant driving experience over all.
The outside rear view mirrors are big, and heated, and provide a good view behind. I complained last year that the dashboard reflects in the windshield under bright sunlight, but, since we had no bright sunlight in my blizzardy time with the '07, can't comment about whether or not that has been addressed.
Other handy features include a power right hand passenger door (though I don't know why they wouldn't offer power for both sides, other than the space the extra button would take on the key fob) and a power rear liftgate, both of which are marvelous when you approach the vehicle with arms laden with stuff (as long as you have the key fob out of your pocket!) My tester also had rear sonar parking assist, which is always a nice touch and which is actually more practical than a rear back up camera.
Another thing I like about the Quest is its nifty radio preset system. With most vehicles I've tried, you can store radio stations in memory organized by AM or FM (and you often get multiple "banks" of AM and/or FM presents). Nissan gives you the best of both worlds: any button can store any station from either band, and you can use multiple banks as well. There isn't a lot of quality radio where I live, so I stored my three favorite AM and three favorite FM stations in the six buttons. From then on, I could surf my favorite stations without having to change bands.
Nissan has also included such thoughtful touches as "dual zone HVAC," which in this case means front and rear rather than the more often seen side-to-side control. This is nice, though during my test it was so cold (we broke a 100 year old record) that no amount of HVAC was going to provide a shirt sleeves atmosphere. This obviously wasn't the Nissan's fault, but God's - or maybe Man's if you believe the enviro crowd.
Or maybe it was George W. Bush's fault.
Another thing I found quite interesting was the lights mounted on the Quest's front corners that come on and shoot sideways when you activate the signal lights. I'm not sure they do as good as job as rotating headlights, but they do light up the side reasonably well and may be good for freaking out pedestrians.
Nissan says the Quest achieved a 5 star safety rating, and as one might expect it includes the usual assortment of bags, belts and tethers, and active head restraints. It also has a tire pressure monitoring system I wanted to rip out of the vehicle, since during our extreme cold it whined that I had a low tire (by one PSI) for days on end. Weird things happen to machinery when things get that cold, though, and last year's tester gave me no trouble at all, so perhaps the real blame should be aimed at Person Nature.
Or George W. Bush.
The Quest turned out to be an excellent choice for hauling all our accoutrements and paraphernalia to another city. It was roomy and comfortable and very nice to drive. And for what more can one ask of a minivan?
The Nissan Quest starts at $ 24,350 U.S./$32,498 Canadian for the base model; the top of the line SE starts at $33,900 U.S./$46,998 Canadian.
Copyright 2006 Jim Bray, TechnoFile.com Magazine
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