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2013 Nissan Pathfinder: February 2013

I took the keys to our long-term 2013 Nissan Pathfinder from Editor-in-Chief Neff (who left me with an empty gas tank, for the record) directly following the Detroit Auto Show. That means that, by the time you all read this, I'll have been in possession of the Pathfinder for more time, and driven it more miles than any Autoblogger so far. I'd like to think that I've made good use of it... with one small exception.
For those of you that live outside of the Snow Belt and who may routinely ignore the Weather Channel out of cocky certainty - I'm looking at you, American Southwest - there's been some real weather in our part of the world this winter. A year ago, I'd basically packed up my shovel and my driveway salt by Valentine's Day; while the last quarter of 2012 and beginning of 2013 have seen back-wrenching piles of snow fall on and around my Michigan home. Good times, in other words, to test the all-weather capabilities of our all-wheel-drive Pathfinder.

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

2013 Nissan Pathfinder: Wrap-Up [w/video]

Despite our tendency as enthusiasts to clamor for things like wagons and hot hatchbacks, it's hard to argue with the buying public's increasing demand for functional crossovers. In fact, the great SUV craze of the late-1990s has all but faded in favor of the easier-driving, better-packaged, more-efficient crossover. That's even true at the larger end of the market - just look at what happened when Ford redesigned its body-on-frame Explorer into a stylish and well-equipped CUV. And now look at the similar success Nissan has had in repurposing its rugged Pathfinder sport-ute as an appealing crossover.
But happily, we report the following line: out of every long-term vehicle Autoblog has ever tested, not a single one has been as in-demand as the 2013 Pathfinder Platinum you see here. After 13 months of solid use, we added 24,372 miles to the Pfinder's odometer - and that's without the vehicle ever leaving the hands of our Detroit-based team (sorry, West Coasters).
There's good reason for that high-demand usage, too. After spending a little over a year with our Mocha Stone tester (a color that earned this Nissan the nickname "Sweet Brown") we came to appreciate its vast versatility, comfort, all-weather prowess, and the way it absolutely ate up the miles on long trips. We drove it all over the United States, in all four seasons, filling it with our families, friends, and occasionally using its capacious cabin for sleeping on the road. Through good and bad, the Pathfinder was a trusty friend. But like any good friendship, that wasn't without a couple of fights.