2026 Nissan Armada PRO-4X Off-Road Challenge

It was about a month ago that I got a call from Nissan, and they said, hey, do you want to go on an overlanding adventure? And I said, sure, why not? So here we are in Arizona, just outside, oh, I guess we're actually crossing into Utah. So here I am in Utah, driving the new Armada Pro 4X, and we're going to go on a little adventure. If you are a regular watcher of the show, you know my voice is sounding a little odd today, and that is because I am getting over a cold. And yes, my voice is going to be all sorts of all over the place. This adventure is actually going to take two days, and I'm going to be driving a couple of different vehicles. We're starting in this Armada, and then we're going to jump into the Frontier Pro 4X. That is going to be a separate video. Today, we're just going to focus on this first part, where I'm driving the Armada up to an epic viewpoint, where we're going to grab some lunch. And I am going to be logging this adventure in OnX OffRoad, so let's go ahead and start tracking. And I will share these tracks with you down in the description below, if you want to follow the same route. One thing I do like about this Armada, aside from the twin-turbo V6 under the hood, is the fact that this thing has 542 miles of range on a full tank. Yes, it actually has a seriously sized fuel tank. I think it's about 23-24 gallons. A big contrast to the Land Cruiser, which I own, which is almost 18 gallons. For 2026, the Armada is a carryover, so everything from my 2025 review, yes, it is still applicable to this one. The biggest difference between this Armada and the one that I reviewed last year is this one has the optional Nismo wheels. They're 18-inch alloys, and they are wrapped in BFG KO2 all-terrain tires, which apparently you can order from the dealer when you order an Armada. If you want to get the KO2s, you can. The Armada starts at $76,545 including destination, which is, of course, coincidentally about the same price as I paid for my Land Cruiser edition in 2024. I'm going to go up Altstrom Point, which is apparently up there. It's going to be really dusty, really rough, and hopefully a lot of fun. And I am not allowed to fly drone for a lot of this, so you're going to have to deal with me in the cab. So for settings here, we don't have a lot we have to work with here because this is a full-time four-wheel drive system, so I don't have to really dial anything in here. I do have this big dial though, so let's see what our options are. We got sport, tow, rock, sand, mud rut, and snow. Well, let's go ahead and, uh, let's just do a mud rut because it's probably going to be muddy. It's probably gonna be ruddy. I get this really cool surround view camera front view up here, which I really like. It tells me it's not live, but it's pretty close to live. And I think if I hit that button, yeah, it moves to the full screen, which how crazy is that? But once we get underway, it shuts off, so it's not going to keep coming up. Now I am using Onyx Offroad. If you want to save 20% off a subscription to Onyx, use our code DSTV. That way you'll have access to all these great trails, all the information, find out if they're open or closed before you even come out. It's really a great piece of software. And we're, of course, running the tracks today, so I will share those with you down in the description below. So they did not have us air down our tires. We are on a manufacturer event here, so I don't have a lot of control over the variables. There's also a lot of rattling in the back. Those are the lawn chairs that they threw in here for us to enjoy the epic view up at the top of Alstrom Point. Now we are a little slippy here. So going into mud ruts, it did switch our four-wheel drive system from four auto into four high, so we have locked that center up. And that's going to give us basically a 50-50 distribution. More important, it's not going overheat the center clutch. You'll have to gap it fairly wide here. Now it's pretty crazy. I drove part of this road like several years ago when I owned the Ford Maverick. And it was actually on this road that I decided I was going to trade it in for something more aggressive, more capable. And I traded it in on a Ranger Tremor Edition, actually. This was the road that made me decide that I needed to do that, which I think is pretty awesome. We are back here today, and it's just coincidental. Of the thousands of roads out here, this just happens to be the one that we're doing today. It's cool. I always did want to come back here with something more capable. And I don't think it, you know, honestly, can't complain about being in an Armada Pro-4X. Now historically, the Armada Pro-4X was different than the international versions of the Armada, but now it is sharing a lot of the similarities as the international version of the vehicle. It's same chassis. It has air suspension that is adaptive. It's so far doing fine on this gravel segment, although obviously this is not challenging at all. And I am in the back, back, back of the pack. All the way in the back. I only have a couple Nissan brand reps behind me, so lots of dust. So much dust. So let's talk about what I like and don't like about this vehicle. Overall, I really do actually like the Armada. I talk a lot about my Land Cruiser because, of course, I bought one for the show, and I have so many more miles in that than I do pretty much anything else in that category. But this is a nicely put together vehicle. That doesn't mean, however, that there's not a few things that could use improvement. First off, the center cluster, way too much piano black. It will reflect on my eyes at some point today. I just know it. Just waiting for that to happen. Piano black needs to go away, or at least they need to do the outer section so there's just less of it. That would be nice. Also, there's the seating position. I said high, which is nice, but when the steering wheel is in a comfortable position, even though I'm at my lowest seating position possible right now, I can't see the top half of the gauge cluster. Not unless I really tilt this thing up here, and now that just, that feels ridiculous. So let's do a bit there. There, that's nice right there, I guess. No, no, I need it lower. I need it lower. So if they could just put this seat down like another inch or two, that would be huge. Unfortunately, can't do that. But the seats are very comfortable, and visibility is great. Where we lack visibility on the long hood, there is at least a surround view camera system. I want to see off-road data. Oh, the washboard here is wicked. Let's see, what do we have? Do we have off-road data page? You can just feel the, you know, the ancient nature of this rock. It's just, it's quite amazing here. It's like, it's very otherworldly, and I know that everybody uses that to describe these locations, but honestly, you feel like you've left the earth here, which is pretty amazing. One of the most important bits of news dropped recently from a Nissan executive. They said that by the end of 2028, there will be a new Xterra, and I am stoked for that. The Xterra, if you remember, was their body-on-frame, off-road focused version of the Pathfinder. Even though it was already pretty capable off-road, the Xterra just leveled that up, and they have announced that a new one is coming, and that actually finally puts Nissan back on the radar as something that I might want to actually buy for the show. An Xterra, I would jump on that if the price is right and if the features are right. If they announce it and it turns out to be a crossover, yeah, I'd have to think twice about that, but if it's a proper body-on-frame midsize, we might just have to add one of those to the long-term lineup. But that's all we know. We just know that it's coming. Don't know any of the details, but it is telling that Nissan on this press ride and drive did bring out a last generation, final generation prior Xterra for us to drive, so hopefully I'll get some wheel time in that while we're out here too. So far, this has been really nice to drive, actually. It's smooth. It's has lots of power on tap, and the suspension's done a decent job of smoothing out this pretty irregular gravel road. Now granted, we don't actually have like super harsh washboard. Kind of comes and goes. There's been a little bit of it, but not so much as to rattle my feelings out. Really comfortable, nice, composed, quiet, very quiet actually, and the screen is quite good. So obviously we have OnX running here. We're going to be exiting the National Park area in a moment, which is awesome. We're taking a right here on the near Glen Canyon. Where are we on? So now we're on the Glen Canyon Rec Road 340. Of course, in addition to having Pro4X badges and looks, this actually does have functional underbody protection. It also has recovery hooks front and back, all the off-road modes. It really is set up for off-road adventures, which is what I love to see. They really did, I think, a great job with this remodel of this vehicle. There's just those couple things that I'd like to see them address in a follow-up refresh. Ooh, washboard, man, that's tough. Washboard is brutal. Now we have not aired down the tires, and that's simply because Nissan did not ask us to air down the tires, and it is their vehicle and their event, so I'm driving them as is. Honestly, with this washboard, I'd probably take the tires down to around 20 PSI just to kind of soften things up a little bit, but the suspension does do a good job with what it can do. Let's play with some of the air conditioning features here. Oh, we got cooled seats. Let's go ahead and turn those on. I always feel super bougie doing cooled seats off-road. Oh, man, look at this. Look at this section. This is crazy. Now, of course, below the aircon, we do have manual controls for the rear locker, traction control. We can also do auto, four high, four low. Don't need to do four low yet. And then, of course, on top of that, we have the kind of off-road mode dial, which optimizes the vehicle for the conditions that we're encountering, which is nice. And then in the middle, we do have a hill descent control button. That looks like we finally have a little thing to play on here. Test out the four-wheel drive climbing capabilities of this beast. So I was in mud rut mode. I'm going to go ahead and switch to rock mode. That's going to give us the maximum ride height. Is it going to switch us into four low? Neutral, four low. Did not. Let's switch this into four low. Okay, so we're in four low. I'm going to drive and let's do it. I'm going to use the front view camera here. Place my wheels precariously. Actually, that works pretty good. I can kind of see what's going on here. Let's see if we get any bumps in the process. It's like looking at the world through a fishbowl. Up and over, no problem. There we go. A little smooth on the throttle. Then we got to climb right up here. Yeah, I mean, honestly, it makes easy work of anything that you're reasonably going to take this on. Nice. Let's see, can I turn on rear locker while in four high? No, cannot. Just to note. Oh yeah, a little rocky. Rock mode traction control kicks in, gets us moving forward. Didn't have to do four low. Didn't even have to lock that rear. Easy. All right, that one's done. Okay, we've got a little stair step down. Let's see how this does. Should we use hill descent control? No, honestly, I don't think it's necessary. We'll just roll down it gently. Yeah, no problem. But check out that view. What? One guy here in his Bronco probably like, oh, I have it all to myself. And 20 Nissan's just showed up. You know, it happens. This is sweet. Oh man, this is beautiful. For Driving Sports TV, I'm Ryan Douthit. Thanks for coming along on this drive. We'll see you again right here on the next one.