When discussing its vehicle marketing,
Nissan employs what it calls a 3-sedan strategy. Which means, not surprisingly, the Japanese automaker is offering its U.S. audience three sedans in three different sizes and three different price ranges for the 1995 model year.
At the top of the list is the popular Maxima. Slotted beneath is the even more popular Altima. And rounding out the trio, the smallest and the least expensive of the Nissans, the all-new Sentra.
Now the key word when talking about the Sentra is sedan. There are no longer any coupes in the Sentra line, only 4-door sedans. There is a marketing strategy at work here as well. Sedan and coupe buyers are of two different types, according to Nissan, and the company found that the Sentra coupe turned off those buyers who associated Sentra with a sedan. As a result, there is a new coupe for those folks: the Nissan 200SX. It is a Sentra under the skin, but with a coupe-only name.
To insure all bases have been covered in this highly competitive small-sedan market segment, Nissan is offering the all new Sentra in four flavors: base, XE, GXE and GLE. We tested a Sentra GLE that came in priced at $14,839.
Your first impression as you view the
Nissan Sentra is that this is one fine little sedan. Clean lines abound, although the Sentra very much resembles what has become the look of most Japanese cars these days: low nose, high tail, arched roofline and rounded shoulders.
There is also plenty of room inside, high-quality materials and good fit-and-finish inside and out. The new shape has a more aerodynamic quality than the previous model, leading to better visibility and more trunk space.
The difference between the four models, of course, comes down to equipment. The base model is not very well-equipped, and one would do well to overlook it. In fact, it is so unappealing that Nissan predicts the model will represent only about 5 percent of the expected +95 Sentra sales.
The XE, by contrast, has a wealth of standard equipment, including air conditioning, AM/FM/cassette, full wheel covers, outside mirrors and body-color bumpers, making it a pretty good package.
Move up to the GXE and add cruise control, power assists, split rear seatbacks and black side moldings. And for the GLE, add to that list a sunroof, velour seat cloth, remote keyless entry, security system, alloy wheels, larger all-season tires and body-color side moldings.
All Sentras are powered by a 1.6-liter 16-valve DOHC 4-cylinder engine that produces 115 hp. The engine has had some refinements that have increased horsepower by five and fuel economy by a couple of gallons over last year's numbers. A 5-speed manual transmission is standard, though a 4-speed automatic is optional on all but the base model.
The front suspension hasn't changed, but the rear suspension is now a version of the multi-link beam design currently in use on the 1995 Maxima. The idea was to give the small Sentra sedan the ride and handling of a larger vehicle.
This new design, because it takes up less space, allowed for an increase in the Sentra's wheelbase to 99.8 in. That means a more roomy interior, especially in terms of rear-seat legroom - 1.5 in. more, to be exact. Also, fewer mounting points and soft-mount shock absorbers mean less noise transmission into the passenger compartment.
