Nissan Kills Quest, QX56; Sinks Armada
Nissan is wasting no time wasting the Quest minivan, and platform sibs Armada and QX56. All three vehicles are a drug in the marketplace– and it ain’t cocaine. Motor Trend almost connects the dots, “Nissan has partnered with Chrysler to shift the full-size Nissan Titan truck to the Dodge Ram platform, and it appears now that more changes are underway for Nissan’s large vehicles.” Hmmm. Do you think that any new SUV for the U.S. market might be based on that platform, rather than what they done built down in Canton, Mississippi? You know, kinda like the Sequioa sits on the new Tundra? Could be. But I reckon MT’s right on the money (or lack thereof) when they suggest that the Quest and QX are being KOed completely. And here’s why… “Nissan and Infiniti sold a combined 72,450 of all those three models in 2007. The Armada posted a whopping 70.5% drop in November and is down 49.1% so far this year. QX56 sales fared slightly better, dropping only 53.3% in November and 33.6% this year. The Quest was by far the worse off of the three with sales dropping a catastrophic 81.3% in November and 33.3% this year.” Sayonara. Over and out.
More by Robert Farago
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The QX56 is nothing short of desirable, amazing and grotesque display of absurdity. It's a god damn rolling oasis of tranquility, technical splendor and dominating power. Would I love to have one as a second vehicle. (note: not pay for or make payments, but magically given one).
All of the Nissan models coming out of Canton have had problems in the past. (Our 7th Nissan was a troublesome 2004 Quest, and as a result our 8th Nissan is a Hyundai). These bugs - as well as the cheap-ass interiors - are mostly gone now, but there's a bigger story here. Is it possible that Canton was never intended as more than an experimental facility - an automotive purgatory for pie-in-the-sky projects - whose ultimate purpose was commercial vehicle production just as soon as Detroit would fall? Now that Detroit is swirling down the bowl, Nissan seems perfectly poised to start local mass production of commercial trucks and vans ahead of Toyota. The wild card is what happens to Detroit's commercial production capacity. It seems unlikely that those factories will be liquidated and converted into Starbucks outlets. I'm sure we'll see Toyota and others sniffing around the great yard sale which is about to take place.
The Quest is FWD and based on the Maxima platform(FF-L?), the Armada and QX share a rear wheel drive platform that's body on frame, I think it's the F-A or F-Alpha platform. They do share the plant for assembly in Canton but that's about it. The Canton facility was not an experiment, it's a purpose built auto plant just like an other transplant facility. They did have major teething problems for the first few years as they tried to scale up to larger vehicle production. (Heard that directly from an engineer who had worked in several nissan plants and was in Canton). The Canton plant itself was a gift from Senator Trent Lott on his way out the door, the incentive package was wayyy over the top on this one. Even with a fire sale on domestic infrastructure, the imports are more likely to build their own plants. The entire ecosystem is completely different regarding the locations of suppliers, tooling, workforce, etc. The imports choose NOT to locate suppliers in the back yard, preferring a ringed approach so that labor costs are not increased and one disaster doesn't take out too many at the same time. (taken directly from a Honda manager) Besides, would you want to be the manager who took over a former union shop with very little non-labor union workforce in the area to hire from? The workers would organize in short order and you would be stuck with a unionized workforce with a major vendetta and revenge on the mind.
i actually liked the quest. wit the skyview roof and dual dvd players. my grandma had a black one wit red or burnt orange leather. pretty impressive in my eyes. but the armada and qx56 are another story. the qx56 interior materials are terrible at that price point. basically an armada interior wit a "classy" infiniti clock in the dash