The value of a dollar seems to increase the closer you get to having none. At one point in college I was getting five different paychecks, and I still got tight. A dollar meant quite a lot to me then. Currently, I’m paying for a monthly subscription to a digital drum lesson service that neither my daughter nor I am actively using.
When writing about cars it’s easy to say that everyone should buy a specific model, even if it’s a little more money. That’s a harder argument to make when it comes to affordable cars, especially if someone is financing it. The difference between a Honda Civic Hybrid and a Toyota Corolla Hybrid is as much a measure of preference as it is any objective quality. That’s not true of the Nissan Sentra.
Either of the two class-leading hybrids is going to be better. It’s a little different when you compare the Sentra to the base non-hybrid Civic or Corolla, which don’t quite distinguish themselves as well as they once did. There, the Sentra is a little more competitive, and a little cheaper. For what you get, the Sentra looks more and more like a value and less and less like a compromise.
If you’re in the market for a new car and you can feel a single dollar leaving your pocket, the sensation of retaining a thousand or more of them by opting for a Sentra is probably overwhelming. The good news is that there’s nothing pound-foolish about choosing the Nissan.
The Basics
Engine: 2.0-liter inline-four
Transmission: CVT
Drive: front-wheel drive
Output: 149 horsepower, 146 lb-ft of torque
Fuel Economy: 37 mpg hwy, 30 mpg city, 33 mpg combined
Base Price: $23,845
Price As-Tested: $30,375 (including $1,245 destination charge)
Why Does This Car Exist?
Nissan spent years slowly drifting away from just about everything that made it a good brand, opting instead to be the company that made cheap things you could easily finance. The last couple of years it’s felt like brand has started to inch back toward a cohesive identity, and I’m cautiously hopeful about what comes next after driving a few of their newer products.
While Nissan has cut back a bit from the time when it sold four different sedans (RIP Maxima), it’s never stopped selling the Sentra. Some people prefer sedans or, at least, some people prefer to have a usable vehicle that doesn’t cost a lot of money.
This generation Sentra is an improvement in a lot of key areas over the previous car, which itself wasn’t that bad. It’s also basically the same car under the skin as the last one.
How Does It Look?
About a day after I parked the Sentra, New York got demolished by a winter storm that dropped a hefty coating of snow and kept temperatures below freezing for more than a week. This left the Sentra looking a bit like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
Chilled water molecules aside, the Sentra manages to appear both entirely new and completely familiar. There’s no wondering what it is when you see it, especially from the rear, where it carries over the same swoop of window that gently cascades into the trunk. This is both an aesthetic choice and a functional one, as the Sentra tries to squeeze as much passenger area into the car’s small footprint while retaining an aerodynamic profile that allows it to get 37 mpg on the highway.
There’s a little more action up front, where the car’s “V-motion grille” blends into the car’s lighting signature, which is like a hatchet version of the Volvo “Thor’s Hammer” design. The car feels lower, longer, and sleeker than the somewhat dowdy previous Sentra.
There’s a version in red with a two-tone black roof, and I think it looks great. Not to be the guy who always asks for fast versions of compact cars, but that with a little more horsepower and a manual transmission would make for a fun NISMO version. Why does a halo car have to be the most expensive model?
What’s The Interior Like?
Everything feels nice inside the Sentra. Not expensive. Not luxurious. Just nice. The ersatz leather seats are wide enough to fit my American-sized butt, the heated steering wheel in the SL trim kept my fingers from turning into little frozen turkey breakfast sausages, and the contrasting colors on the dash give a sense of style.
Nissan’s version of a single wide screen is quite simple, and I appreciate that it pushes Apple CarPlay to the front, because that’s all I want.
Did Nissan move some of the controls from the center console to a screen? Yes. Of course. There are none of the super annoying culprits here (vents, gloveblox), but the touch-capacitive buttons below the manually adjustable vents are a little slow to respond:
You can’t always get what you want, I suppose. The fact that this little is piano black also adds insult to injury, especially because the outgoing model had some sweet knobs to twist.
This is a really good steering wheel with redundant controls and actual buttons. I will forgive a little bit of screen if you give me a steering wheel I can use without thinking about it too much. It’s also basically the same size in here as the last Sentra, which is to say that it has as much room as any four normal humans need for most trips.
How Does It Drive?
Nissan isn’t a company that has endless R&D funds to spend redeveloping a car, and it’s a bit comical how little difference there is mechanically compared to the previous Sentra given how much work has been done aesthetically. If you enjoyed the 2.0-liter naturally aspirated four-banger on the last generation, you’ll be pleased to find out it’s basically the same motor.
Also, you’re lying if you said you enjoyed it. The last enjoyable Sentra was the SE-R SPEC-V. This is a palatable motor. What’s changed here is the CVT. Sam drove this car during its launch last year and he promised me it’s a CVT that doesn’t feel as bad as the other ones. Having had a full week with the car I agree. It’s not jerky at low speeds, and it simulates a shifting feel as you accelerate. I don’t know if there are any Xtronic CVT fans here, but my guess is, if such a person did exist, they’d be quite pleased.
Because there was snow everywhere, I did get to test the limits of the car’s all-season tires, and it was less bad than I’d have expected. I never got stuck, at least. This is not a dynamically exciting car unless you’re sliding across ice, though that’s not a form of excitement I’d recommend to a person desiring to keep their insurance payments low.
How Is All The Tech?
The Sentra is one of those cars that trades on its spec sheet. There’s a lot of stuff here, and it’s decent stuff. In some ways, the Sentra is the inverse of the Chevy Trax, an affordable vehicle that’s better than the sum of its parts. Here, the parts maybe outshine the car a little.
In SL or SR Premium trim, there’s an eight-speaker Bose system that sounds as good as something you’d find in a lot of entry-level luxury cars. I’ve always been a big fan of Nissan’s “around view” monitoring system, which gives you a bird’s-eye view of the car. Does something so small need that kind of help? Some people would probably benefit.
All Sentra trims get intelligent cruise control, and the higher grades get ProPILOT Assist, which adds lane-keeping assist to help point the car in the right direction. It’s quite insistent on having your hands on the wheel, even when they are, but it’s about as good as anything else you’ll get in this class.
Does It Fulfill Its Purpose?
Most automakers have discovered that making your entry-level car feel cheap doesn’t work now that there are brands willing to invest a little bit of money into design. In SL trim, the Nissan Sentra didn’t look or feel like a bargain basement car. The driving experience is unmemorable, which is better than so bad you can never forget it.
As with a lot of cars, the sweet spot is probably in the middle, where you get a lot of desirable features and can shave a few dollars off the total cost. As configured here, you could maybe sneak into a hybrid XLT Maverick, which is a lot of vehicle for the price. I’m a weirdo, though, and not everyone wants a Maverick. A lower trim Civic Hybrid is also a possibility.
I’m guessing that the average Autopian reader would probably go for the Maverick or Civic, but your cousin might feel differently. Your cousin (or aunt or uncle) may ask you, their relative who cares about these sorts of things, if a Sentra is a bad idea. Have no fear responding that it is not. I cannot speak to the longevity of such a thing, but as a new car experience it’s totally good enough, and that’s the role the Sentra is supposed to fill.
Though, a NISMO version could be sweet. Just saying.
All photos Matt Hardigree unless otherwise noted.
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