2021 Nissan Rogue Review _ A brand-new best-seller

You know the phrase, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? Yeah, that doesn't really apply to compact crossovers. Just take this as an example. Nissan has sold well over a million Rogues over the last four years. It's perennially one of the best-selling cars in the United States, but it also faces some stiff competition from some of the most popular vehicles in the market. When Toyota redesigned the RAV4 for the 2019 model year, it meant the clock was ticking for a new Rogue. And here we are, an all-new 2021 Nissan Rogue. This is it. But before we get into the details, be sure to subscribe to the CarGurus YouTube channel. We've got lots of video reviews of some pretty great cars, and if you're in the market, we can help you find one at a great price. The new redesign keeps the V-Motion grille but slaps it on a more upright profile. This car is handsome. It's much chunkier, bulkier. Compared to the previous generation Rogue, this one looks less like an elusive halfback and more like a bruising fullback, and that's good. Tough is in. Our tester is an SV trim with 18-inch wheels. It's got this big slab-sided design, but it's not quite as visually stimulating as the last generation Rogue was. However, it probably has more mass appeal. Nissan has ditched the big headlights from the second generation Rogue in exchange for this four-eyed look, and I'm not so sure about this. The lamps themselves look nice, but the space between the top and bottom housings throws off an otherwise balanced design. Am I wrong? Let us know in the comments. Not that I really even had to ask. In the back, we've got the wide-spaced letters. You're starting to see this everywhere. Land Rover made them popular, Porsche made them cool, and the Ford Escape made them ubiquitous. Nissan continues this trend with the Rogue, and I'm sure this isn't the last car we will see with its name spelled out in wide letters across the back. Now this Rogue is the one you are going to see everywhere, the SV trim. It sits one level above the base S trim, and the S trim keeps things pretty basic. It also sits below the SL and Platinum trims, and those two trims, they have a little more panache. The 18-inch wheels, they grow to 19 inches, and both of those more expensive trims include roof rails as standard equipment. Every trim gets keyless entry, and while the Rogue is handsome on the outside, it's the interior where things get interesting. I mean, look at the fabric on these doors. This is what we call inspired. It looks like the sort of fabric you'd find on an expensive mid-century modern armchair being advertised on Instagram. The top-shelf Platinum trim comes with impressive semi-aniline leather in high-contrast tan, but that's a predictable play for a top trim model. I mean, this fabric on the budget-friendly SV trim, it's like Nissan's playing Volvo's game. This is memorable, and it is cool. All right, let's do five things to know. First, the 2021 Nissan Rogue is all new. This is not just a refresh, but the engine and the power chain is very similar to what you would have gotten in a second-generation car. Next, the Rogue is affordable. Prices start at $25,650, and that's cheaper than the price of a base-spec Toyota RAV4. Three, the Rogue needs a powertrain upgrade. Put simply, the four-cylinder in this car just doesn't have the guts to handle high elevation or hilly driving. Four, the infotainment system is easy to use. I'm not saying it's flip phone levels of rudimentary, but it will give you pretty much everything you want and nothing you don't. Five, the Rogue delivers on safety. Keep watching to hear how Nissan has packaged its advanced safety tech for every Rogue buyer. Oh, and these seats. Holy guacamole, these seats. Nissan calls them Zero Gravity, and they're NASA- inspired and designed to reduce fatigue. They're not exactly new, but they're marvelous, and the back seat uses the same technology. It's hard to tell just what makes these seats so comfortable, but I will say they provide just right support underneath my rear end, and I feel like I can sit in this chair and drive this car longer and farther than I can most cars without feeling like I need to get up and stretch my legs. Now, there are some demerits in here. I don't love that this housing that surrounds the gear shifter and the cup holders doesn't stretch all the way back to the center console. That said, I do really like this rubberized storage unit up front, and I like how the center console has this butterfly-style opening. That makes it really easy for people in the back to get what they need out of this without bothering the driver who's going 70 on the interstate. And then there's this travesty. The Platinum trim Rogue has a 9-inch touchscreen, but the SV has only an 8-inch touchscreen, and in engineering the Rogue to suit either size screen, Nissan went with this cheap plastic housing where the screen meets the dashboard. It doesn't feel good, you can hear how much it squeaks, and it overall just doesn't match an otherwise very upscale cabin. Let's talk about safety, because for better or worse, compact crossovers are the new family sedans, and that means the people who buy these cars care about safety. Well, Nissan doesn't disappoint. Adaptive cruise control doesn't come standard, but that frankly is just about it, and arguably adaptive cruise control is as much a convenience feature as it is a safety feature. Whether you buy a top-tier Platinum trim or a bare-bones S trim, expect to find automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane departure warning, blind spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, rear automatic braking, and a driver attention monitor. All standard. That's incredible. Last week I was driving a Subaru WRX, so subscribe to the YouTube channel and keep an eye out for that review. But the Subaru WRX doesn't have any safety features. It's also a performance car. It's about as far from the Nissan Rogue as you can get. Under the hood is a 2.5-liter 4-cylinder making 181 horsepower at 6,000 RPM, but you don't want to take a Nissan Rogue to 6,000 RPM. You also get 181 pound-feet of torque at 3,600 RPM. This is a 3,500-pound car. This is a slow car. The engine isn't particularly smooth. You can feel it through the pedals, and I noticed that the side-view mirrors shudder softly when driving down the highway. It also employs a continuously variable transmission. The CVT manages what power the has pretty well, and it's programmed with gear ratios to make it feel like more of a regular automatic transmission. Nissan's been committed to the CVT for longer than most automakers, so I'd be pretty disappointed if this one wasn't good. Luckily, it is good. What's impressive is the Rogue's fuel economy. Last year the EPA rated this front-wheel-drive powertrain at 26 mpg city, 33 highway, 29 combined. Not long ago, those were sedan numbers, and now we're getting them out of a compact crossover. What's more, I actually beat those numbers on my test loop to the tune of 32 miles per gallon. Of course, when Chris Wardlaw tested the Rogue, he only saw 27.5 mpg, so your mileage may vary. But then again, as we all know, Chris Wardlaw's a wild man behind the wheel. The new Rogue's infotainment system reminds me of Apple's old slogan, it just works. You've got Bluetooth, you've got Sirius XM satellite radio, you've got Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. If that's all you need, then that's all you get. It's a touchscreen, so it's immediately easy to use. There are also knobs for volume and tuning, so it won't frustrate you. The menu buttons here have redundant hard buttons below. This tech isn't out to wow you like a BMW or a Mercedes system will. It's just there to make life easy. My biggest frustration is the aesthetic. I just hate this plastic housing. You get some more features as you move up the trim lineup. In the SV, we've got Google Assistant integration and a Wi-Fi hotspot. There's also Nissan Connect services at this level, which lets you remote start the car or set speed and boundary limits, just in case you let your teenager take the Rogue out for a spin. The 2021 Nissan Rogue is here to say stop spending your money on subcompact crossovers. The as-tested price of our car today is only $28,820, including the destination fee. That's less than the Kia Seltos I drove earlier this year, the Mazda CX-30 Cliff-reviewed, and way less than the Buick Encore GX I liked so much. All those subcompact crossovers were top-level trims with all the bells and whistles, so there is value in that. But if you're looking for cargo space, then the Nissan Rogue is going to be a better bet. Now, there's a reason that this car and the Honda CR-V and the Toyota RAV4 are always towards the top of the annual sales charts. It's because they offer incredible value. And if you're shopping for a new car, there's a good chance that one of them is already on your to-test-drive list. Well, thanks to its 2021 redesign, make sure that the new Rogue is on that list, too. Thanks for watching. For more video reviews, be sure to subscribe to the CarGurus YouTube channel, and to read Chris Wardlaw's review of the 2021 Nissan Rogue, head to CarGurus.com. We'll see you next time.