Gadgetory

the dictionary defines a rogue as a dishonest unprincipled man a scoundrel cheat or Nair do well well the 2014 Nissan Rogue is about as roguish as a maul polished up smooth Dover and more sophisticated not sure what they can do about the man let's drive the SL all-wheel drive version and check the tech now it's easy to spot this new generation rogue it doesn't look at all like the outgoing generation you've got this more sophisticated presence to its styling and its details they tell me it's also a three row optional vehicle I actually find that hard to believe looking at this one which only seems to have two rows you can easily put the second row seats down to create a flat load floor and they have this divide and hide stowage system in the back - all of which are nods - keeping it practical and not just better look now inside the new rogue they've really redone the interior and the quality of the materials they've really brought the rogue up the minute you sit in here I've been griping about Nissan head units for some time this one is a substantial step forward first of all it's nice smoothly rendered beautiful dot pitch on the screen nice and bright it's actually got a bit of an infinity quality to it as you run through your media choices you see you've got a whole new layout on the screen if you've been paying attention to infinity does a pretty good job with metatags for example there's room for the full spell out and they let it do that a one-note where you do have satellite and AM and FM radio of course CD aux bluetooth plug-in and bluetooth streaming your interestingly missing HD radio which on a car like this which is the highest trim of its family that's kind of an auto mission as you get to your navigation screen this is also nice big buttons and the thing I love quick response to the touchscreen you just get on it and as soon as you hit that button you get a response that's the way it should be let's see how the voice command works street address 235 second Street San Francisco California please wait street address showing matching locations one one status destination show on now or indirect set as destination so on the upside it took an entire phrase address without me having to use any particularly tortured language that's great on the downside you saw a long processing delay between each step and like so many cars it still does dumb stuff like okay we found your address do you want to go there or do something else with it I want to go there Tesla's the only car maker that really gets your right to that most others give you a bunch of additional choices to take my mind off driving but they've made big improvements now the apps is a very interesting area hit this other button in the upper right and frustratingly you get some media app to me I Heart Radio and Pandora are forms of radio yet they're not even remotely related in the interface to radio which is over here under satellite and broadcast that's a hodgepodge but so be it once you get there just hit the Pandora button it will invoke the Pandora app automatically on your phone believe it or not some cars make you start it in both places this one blessedly doesn't again I find slow response time as it makes the handshake between the two but once it comes up again we're seeing the nice metatag display album art looks good in this case and your usual Pandora functions are available as well and of course notice here we have Google online search which lets you either search via a keyboard for entry or use voice search but notice this it's a different button not the one on the wheel and it's a different platform it goes out to nuance as opposed to the Nissan onboard which is only for phone calls and navigation so again we're seeing kind of a confusing mess of expectations and interfaces here and because we're doing Google search I've got fairly familiar ways to sort by category by distance or by ratings put this guy in Reverse on that screen of course becomes a backup camera but notice you've got a split screen here your traditional backup on the left this is the around view monitor on the right a big Nissan Infiniti thing using front rear and under mirror side cameras and when you're underway at very low speed you can invoke the camera on demand like so with this button and pushing it again gives you a side view on the right for things like curbs cyclists approaching or someone stepping off the sidewalk towards your car another sees little flags right here mo D that's moving object detection this will also alert you to things moving within your camera view in case you missed them in terms of your in-cabin driving controls very straight forward on this car because we have a CVT we have a very traditional looking shifter from Park down to low and the classic PR nd L layout no paddles on this car even though it's the top trim over here is a tiny very little sport button that extensively improved response a little bit it gives you a tiny little icon over here clearly the sport mode is not a big headline in this car you can enable and disable most of your driving assistance technology divided this button on the left or you go into a menu here in your center screen your forward collision warning which works above 10 miles per hour and warns only does not stop you lane departure warning again that's passive and blind spot warning also passing now under the hood of a modern US spec rogue you find out rather modern but unremarkable engine it's a two and a half litre inline-four so big as fours go but small as engines go standard configuration is sitting sideways like this driving the front wheels or you can also get all-wheel drive as an option the numbers on this guy are 170 horse 175 foot-pounds of torque you know fine there's nothing tricky going on here no direct injection super charging turbo charging it's got variable valve timing lawnmowers at that now you're gonna see about a 3,500 pound kerb weight on this vehicle it gets up to 60 and 9 seconds which is just fine your mpg you're gonna have 2633 front-wheel drive lose 1/4 all wheel drive 25 32 where the whole rogue rubric really falls down is in the driving nothing devilish here the throttle response is tepid and laggy partly because the power is barely adequate and partly because having a CVT between the engine and the wheels isn't helping matters these can be good gearboxes and Nissan's hands but not in this case as it surges and dives and hunts for the right rpm putting it in sport mode here I am not sure what it's doing I can't really detect anything active trace control is interesting that's where it uses the brakes automatically pinpoint to yo you through a corner and I swear I actually feel it when I'm going around the big sweeping corner here and I turn into it some speed I'm actually feeling the car kind of rotate a little bit more than I think it's actually capable of oh that must be that trace control then there's active engine braking it's basically the transmission being told to downshift and use compression braking more than just letting the car rely on its service brakes and finally there's an active ride control that uses the gearing as well as some braking to counteract that sort of body bounce you get when you go over a big undulation in the pavement or a speed bump I don't really get as much bounce and porpoising as I would expect finally the forward collision warning lane departure warning and blind spot warning technologies wall passive seem well calibrated reacting neither too sensitively nor too numb Lee however the small indicator lights or generic sounding beeps they issue to alert you don't mean a lot car's beep and flash indicators for everything from low tire pressure to low fuel to to radio preset confirmation ok pricing the new Road you're looking at about 29,000 or so base for an SL that's a high trip car before you add all-wheel drive that's thirteen fifty more now to get it seen that style just one thing you have to do get the SL premium package that's gonna bring you that big panoramic roof that basket of a handful of passive driver assistance technologies and the LED headlights all the other media and nav gears included as part of the SL trim weird about 32 v all in