All of the rain that we have had in Sydney lately has meant two things, the potholes in our roads are getting bigger and there is plenty of mud. Luckily the Navara SL Warrior was well equipped to deal with them both!
Built around the standard Nissan Navara SL ute, the Warrior version has been feted by Melbourne-based company Premcar resulting in a ute that is longer, wider and higher than the donor car. In off-roading terms this means the Warrior version of the SL has a greater approach angle by 4.0 degrees and a greater ramp break over angle by 3.3 degrees.
The exterior has also been given the Warrior treatment with a black hooped bullbar with integrated LED light bar, black fender flares with bullbar finisher, black bash plate – Navara branded, and SL WARRIOR decals. The Warrior rides on 17″ cast aluminium PRO-4X WARRIOR alloy wheels with Cooper Discoverer All Terrain Tyres – 275/70/R17, including a full-size spare wheel (alloy). A fitted Towbar (towbar cross member, tongue, harness only) and a hard tub plastic lining also come as standard.
The Navara Warrior utes have the same 2.3 litre intercooled twin turbo-diesel engines that are fitted to the standard Navara utes. The maximum power is a modest 140kW @ 3,750rpm and maximum torque is 450Nm @ 1,500-2,500rpm. The official combined fuel consumption is 7.9L/100km and for my week I used 11.1L/100km. But this was a brand new vehicle with only 500km on the odometer when I picked it up and I did do some off-roading in it.
This Navara looks good with the Warrior bits on the outside, but it still sounds like an old school diesel inside and out of the cabin. There’s a selection of 2WD, 4H and 4L, but no 4A for constant all-wheel drive meaning you need to drive in 2WD on the road. The Navara also has downhill decent control and you can lock rear diff and I found that it did ride over the potholes better than some other utes I have driven thanks to the trailing arm and coil spring rear suspension setup.
Being this Navara is 40mm higher I do miss not having a running board to help me step up into it and once in the cabin the features continue to be quite rudimentary. To begin with even though this Navara was fitted with the remote central locking kit I still needed to insert a key to start the ute up.
There’s a lot of hard plastic on door trims and dash and the steering wheel in vinyl covered, as are the sun visors that also have no vanity mirrors. The floor is covered with vinyl as well and the Warrior SL comes with all-weather floor mats front and rear. The upside of all of this plastic is it’s much easier to clean out the Navara after a muddy adventure with a cab full of children who really don’t care about these things. I was even pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to clean the cloth seats and wipe the mud off them.
Both front seats only have manual adjustment for recline and forward/back with the driver’s seat also getting manual seat height adjustment. There’s only single zone climate control with manual rotary controllers, but you do get good sized drink bottle storage cubbies in front doors and two rigid cup holders in centre console.
From a technology standpoint the Navara has wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which is good because the SL does not come with sat nav. There’s one USB-A, one AUX, and one 12V socket at the front of the centre console, but this cubby is lined with hard plastic and not large enough to fit a modern sized smart phone. Under the arm rest there’s another USB-A, one USB-C, and one 12V socket. The driver’s dash has an analogue taco and speedo with a 7.0” digital screen between them that displays a variety of information. The media sources available include AM/FM radio, USB, Bluetooth, AUX, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, but no DAB radio. I found that the voice control worked well for making phone calls and changing the radio station.
The rear seats have good amount of head and leg room, but I would have liked more under thigh support. There are two ISOfix/three rear tether points with the confusing loop tether system that requires you to take the tether to central fixing point. Rear passengers get two central air vents with individual direction control and a single speed controller and one USB-A port under the air vents. I do like the single rubber mat over the vinyl floor that makes cleaning a lot easier.
The Navara SL Warrior has a 1,026kg payload capacity and for a trailer without brakes a 750kg towing capacity and for a trailer with brakes 3,500kg with a maximum towball download of 350kg. I liked that there was a step at the rear of the Navara to make it easier to get into the tub. The Warrior SL comes with a HSP Roll R Cover fitted, which is 100% Australian-made, and did not leak thankfully for my groceries, although I do wish that a car company could install some hooks on the side of the tub or a partitioning setup to stop the grocery bags from falling all over the tub. Additionally, when you lock the vehicle using the fey fob it also locks the tub and when you press the touchpad buttons to open the roller cover the key needs to be close by.
At its narrowest point between the wheel arches the tub is 95cm wide and the tub depth is 145cm. The roller cover protrudes approximately 30cm over the tub and the two front tie down points are at the base of the tub under the roller cover, so care would need to be taken when strapping items down. There are another two substantial tie down points at the rear of the tub and one long light bar on the roller cover, but there is no 12V outlet.
The current Nissan Navara ute is unrated by ANCAP, but does come with seven Airbags (Front, Side Seat, Curtain, Driver Knee), Intelligent Forward Collision Warning, Intelligent Emergency Braking, and Intelligent Driver Alert. The Navara SL was standard cruise control and a standard rear-view camera with dynamic guidelines, but no front or rear parking sensors. For convenience it also has auto lights, but no auto wipers and manual high beam control.
The Warrior SL is covered by Nissan’s 5 Year /unlimited kilometre Warranty on base vehicle and Premcar matches Nissan’s 5 Year Warranty on conversion and this also includes 5 year/24-Hour Roadside Assistance. The Navara has Capped Price Servicing with 12 month/20,000km intervals (whichever comes first) for up to 6 year or 120,000km or a 5-year pre-paid servicing plan can be purchased up front for $2,975 for the automatic Navara, saving $330 compared to the equivalent capped price service costs.
The basic nature of the Navara SL Warrior does have its advantages especially if you plan to do a lot of off-road driving. The Navara SL Warrior automatic starts at $61,750 excluding on-road costs and as tested with Metallic Paint in Brilliant Silver ($700), my Navara SL Warrior was $62,450 plus on-road costs. Visit your preferred Nissan dealer for more information.
| Pros | Cons |
| Comes with plenty of kit as standard | No current ANCAP safety rating |
| The ride is better than some other utes | The level of technology on offer |
| There’s a lot of plastic in the cabin | There’s a lot of plastic in the cabin |
Photographs by Driven Women Magazine.