The Pro-4X Warrior is the new top dog in the Nissan Navara line-up.
It’s a hard-core 4WD collaboration between Nissan Australia and Melbourne-based vehicle engineering company, Premcar and, as such, has undergone conversion work and added a stack of adventure-ready accessories – more than $9000 worth of engineering and gear.
So, it’s purpose-built and Aussie-tuned and -tested for off-road action, but is it any good?
Read on.
Nissan Navara 2022: PRO-4X Warrior (4X4)
| Engine Type | Diesel Twin Turbo 4, 2.3L |
|---|---|
| Fuel Type | Diesel |
| Fuel Efficiency | 8.1L/100km (combined) |
| Seating | 5 |
| Price From | $64,460 - $74,140 |
| Safety Rating |
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Does it represent good value for the price? What features does it come with?
The Nissan Navara Pro-4X Warrior auto has a listed price of $69,990 plus on-road costs. It’s available only in dual-cab pick-up style, but you have a choice of a six-speed manual gearbox or a seven-speed automatic transmission with a manual mode. We tested the auto.
Standard paint is black star; premium paint choices are white diamond and stealth grey (on our test vehicle) at a cost of $650.
Standard features include 8.0-inch multimedia touch-screen with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and sat nav, dual-zone climate control, AEB, lane-keeping assist, around-view monitor, and a rear diff-lock.
There have been no mechanical or performance changes.
As part of the Premcar engineering upgrade the $9360 worth of extras in the Warrior over the Pro-4X, include a winch-compatible bull bar with integrated light bar, a Warrior-specific tow bar, a larger 3mm steel bash-plate, Cooper Discoverer All Terrain AT3 275/70R17 tyres (and a full-sized alloy spare), a 100kg GVM upgrade (now 3250kg), 260mm ground clearance (up 40mm, with springs and tyres making up 15mm and 25mm respectively), 30mm-wider tracks (to 1600mm), revised suspension with new spring rates and dampers (aimed at improving ride and handling), and a larger and taller jounce bumper for less impact harshness at full suspension travel.
It also has a Nissan Genuine towbar as standard.
Call me old-fashioned but that price-tag – in fact, any modern ute price-tags – stings more than a fair bit.
Is there anything interesting about its design?
The Warrior is 1895mm high, 1920mm wide, 5350mm long and has a listed kerb weight of 2298kg.
It is taller off the deck, with 40mm more ground clearance than its Pro-4X stablemate and the wheel track has been extended by 30mm (from 1570mm to 1600mm) giving the Warrior an all-round aggressive posture.
The bullbar, eye-catchingly red steel bash plates, wheel arch flares, chunky Cooper Discoverer All Terrain AT3s and black stainless-steel double tube sports bar with sail panel all add to that tough look.
It certainly looks like the coolest and toughest Navara there is.
Nissan Navara 2021 review: Pro-4X off-road test
Nissan Navara 2021 review: Pro-4X snapshot
Nissan Navara 2021 review: SL GVM test
Nissan Navara 2021 review: SL snapshot
Nissan Navara 2021 review: ST off-road test
Nissan Navara 2021 review: ST snapshot
Nissan Navara 2021 review: ST-X off-road test
Nissan Navara 2021 review: ST-X snapshot
Nissan Navara 2022 review: Pro-4X GVM test
Nissan Navara 2022 review: Pro-4X Warrior
Nissan Navara 2022 review: Pro-4X Warrior - GVM test
Nissan Navara 2022 review: Pro-4X Warrior - off-road test
Nissan Navara 2022 review: Pro-4X family review
Nissan Navara 2022 review: ST-X
Nissan Navara 2023 review: SL Warrior - GVM test
Nissan Navara 2023 review: SL Warrior - off-road test
Nissan Navara 2024 review: Pro-4X Warrior - off-road test
Nissan Navara 2025 review: SL - GVM test
What are the key stats for the engine and transmission?
The Warrior has a 2.3-litre four-cylinder twin-turbo-diesel engine – producing 140kW@3750rpm and 450Nm@1500-2500rpm – and it has a seven-speed automatic transmission.
It has a part-time four-wheel drive system with high- and low-range 4WD, and a rear diff lock.
How practical is the space inside?
The rear seat, while comfortable enough, is really the realm of two adults only or three children. It’d be a bit squeezy for three adults.
There is a fold-down arm-rest cupholders, bottle holders in the doors, map pockets on the seat-backs, directional air vents and USB charging points on the back of the centre console.
The front of the cabin is anchored by the new updated dash – with an easy-to-use 8.0-inch multimedia screen, which has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
The cabin is a well designed space, a nice combination of nice materials and good build quality. The soft-touch leather accents are nice touches.
There is ‘Warrior’ embroidered branding on the seat head-rests just to make sure you don’t forget what vehicle you’re in.
The seats are manually adjustable – in a $70,000 vehicle – but there are plenty of storage spaces, cupholders, bottle holders, and some hidey-holes for your everyday carry gear.
The seats are quite comfortable – ribbed for your pleasure – and though some people might whinge about them being undersized I reckon they’re okay.
Overall, the interior is nice and functional, but it’s feeling a bit old and a little smaller and squeezed for space inside than some rivals. It's a practical space, but it lacks a real premium feel about it – especially for a top-shelf variant. Sure, it's supposed to be an off-road action machine but for something that costs $70,000 it could have had a bit more prestige pumped into it.
What's it like as a daily driver?
For a vehicle that has been engineered as a real hard-core 4WD, the Warrior is actually surprisingly decent on road.
Steering is nicely balanced, there’s plenty of visibility, the 2.3-litre engine offers lots of torque across a wide rev range and the coils-at-every-corner suspension set-up and upgraded (and Premcar-tuned) dampers, all aimed at yielding a better ride off-road, does pretty well on sealed surfaces.
But even with all of these changes though, it's still a Navara under the metal, and it's not the most dynamic vehicle to drive, not the liveliest sealed-road experience around, but I don't mind it.
There are no performance improvements in this Warrior over the Pro-4X because they share the same engine and there have been no mechanical changes, but that's okay because that engine and auto work really well together. However, this is more of a subdued, quietly effective partnership than an exciting one.
For a 4WD with such an aggressive, in-your-face appearance, it really is nice to drive and it's also quiet inside, exhibiting noticeably better refinement than you might expect in something designed for the dirt and riding on fair-dinkum all-terrains. Sure, it’s not as refined as some of its rivals, such as the Ranger or Amarok, but it does a pretty good job.
What's it like for touring?
Premcar’s work has focussed on the wheels and tyres and the suspension – new springs and shocks, adding a 40mm total suspension lift – is Warrior-specific and aimed at yielding a more controlled, more compliant ride and more comfortable ride. The benefit of that package is really only obvious when you hit dirt tracks or gravel roads that are minefields of deep ruts and severe muddy potholes.
The Warrior’s suspension package really does take the edge off a lot of harsher lumps and bumps. It’s not in the realm of something like a Ford Ranger Raptor, but it’s doing okay.
When you're on the dirt, the Warrior has a nice, settled feel to it. In fact, it rides as smoothly as possible for a ute through pretty ordinary terrain.
The Warrior is wider and taller, so as well as having more ground clearance and better, more off-road-friendly angles – approach (36 degrees), departure (19 degrees), and ramp-over (26.2 degrees) – you have a more natural, planted stance and it sits really well on tracks, giving a little bit more control through trickier routes.
Steering retains a nice lightness to it, so for a reasonably big ute, it gets around quite nicely. Put it this way, it never feels too cumbersome to steer around on bush tracks.
Low-range gearing is good (2.717:1) and there's plenty of torque across a nice spread of revs, so you can tap into that pretty much whenever you need to when you're low-speed, low-range, four-wheel driving.
Don’t forget the rear diff lock, always a crucial part of any 4WD’s track-tackling toolkit.
As well, hill descent control is effective, holding you to a sustained low speed when you are going down a hill and there is a hill-hold function for steep ascents, too.
Beyond any of its other mechanical or driver-assist tech attributes, what really sets the Warrior apart is its pure physicality that makes it suited to four-wheel driving: raised suspension, better ground clearance (260mm), and a wider wheel track, among other things, give it a stability, give it the ability to get up and over hard-core rocks steps and anything else you could likely point it at.
It has a listed wading depth of 600mm and, while we didn’t go through any creek crossings, we did go through several mud holes which would have been tickling that measure in terms of depth.
Showroom-standard 4WDs often leave the car yard with road-friendly rubber, to give customers a comfortable and reasonably quiet ride, but those are far from ideal if you’re planning to use your vehicle as an off-road tourer.
The Warrior is shod with Cooper Discoverer AT3s, a light truck tyre, very decent all-terrain rubber and pretty well matched to any situation you can drive yourself into. These tyres offer plenty of bite, aren’t too noisy on the blacktop and don't seem to affect ride and handling in any pronounced negative way.
Niggles? The steering is not reach-adjustable, which means I couldn’t quite dial-in my driving position; and the 2.3-litre engine becomes a bit noisy when pushed hard.
In terms of packability for touring, it’s okay.
Payload is listed as 952kg.
The tub itself is a decent enough load space. It measures 1509mm long, 1560mm wide, 1134mm (between the wheel arches), and 519mm deep.
It has a durable tub-liner, the Utili-track load-restraint system (basically a rail mounted to each tub side wall with two moveable tie-down points in each rail), plus four fixed tie-down points lower down on the tub’s inside wall.
Towing capacity is 750kg (unbraked) and 3500kg (braked).
This Navara has a 100kg gross vehicle mass (GVM) upgrade to 3250kg and a GCM (gross combined mass) of 5910kg.
How much fuel does it consume?
Fuel consumption is listed as 8.1L/100km on a combined cycle.
Fuel consumption on this test was 9.9L/100km. That’s fine considering we included a lot of high- and low-range 4WDing during this test’s hours-long off-road section.
The Warrior has an 80-litre fuel tank, so, going by those fuel-consumption figures, I’d expect an effective touring in range of about 760km, but remember that figure includes a built-in 50km safe-distance buffer.
That's a fair travelling distance for a contemporary dual-cab ute, but keep in mind that your fuel-consumption will be higher than that because you'll be carrying a lot more gear than we had onboard during our test, which included vehicle-recovery equipment, a portable air compressor, tool bag, puncture-repair kit, tyre deflator, food and water.
Warranty & Safety Rating
What safety equipment is fitted? What safety rating?
The Navara line-up has a five-star ANCAP safety rating from testing in 2015.
Safety gear includes seven airbags (dual front, front-side, curtain and driver’s knee SRS items), AEB, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, intelligent lane intervention, blind spot warning, a surround-view monitor (with moving object detection), rear cross traffic alert, and more.
The rear seat has three child-seat anchorage points and one ISOFIX point each on the left and right seats.
Off-road driver-assist tech includes off-road monitor, tyre pressure monitoring system, hill start assist, trailer sway control, hill descent control and an electronic locking rear differential.
It’s missing adaptive cruise control, and is not quite as comprehensively equipped with driver-assist tech as some of its rivals.
What does it cost to own? What warranty is offered?
The Navara range is covered by a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, and capped price servicing.
That’s adequate in terms of years, not the best, but the unlimited kms factor is in its favour.
Service intervals are set for 12 months or 20,000km.
Capped price servicing is available for up to six years. Prices range from $502 to $783 per service.
Rivals, such as the Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi Triton, offer servicing costs at a fraction of the Nissan’s, which comparatively seems a bit pricey in the dual-cab ute ownership stakes.
Verdict
Many keen 4WDers prefer to cherry-pick their own aftermarket accessories and custom-design their own vehicle, but for others the Pro-4X Warrior is an appealing option because it’s a ready-made, purpose-built adventure machine.
And it makes a whole lot of sense because all of this engineering work and accessories are covered by Nissan’s five-year warranty.
The Warrior designation introduces a stack of very worthwhile add-ons to a modified Pro-4X platform and the result is a nice mix of style and substance: it looks the part and it’s more than capable of tackling hard 4WDing.
The Pro-4X Warrior is a very decent bush-ready tourer, straight out of the showroom – and it’s also the best and toughest Navara on offer.
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