2025 Nissan Frontier Reviews, Pricing & Specs

Afterburn Orange is a new paint colour for the 2025 Frontier, and it reminds us of a quirky and lovable aunt. In the 1970s, she traded a brown wood-paneled Ford LTD station wagon for a pumpkin orange Chevy stepside pickup truck with white bumpers. When asked why she got a truck, and in that eye-searing colour, her reply was: “So I don’t lose my car in the grocery store parking lot, silly”.

Orange is hard to lose in a parking lot, that’s for sure. And it looks great on the 2025 Nissan Frontier PRO-4X Luxury. That’s the off-road-ready version of Nissan’s pickup truck, which is also available in Canada in SV, PRO-4X, and SL trim levels.

Depending on the trim level, the Frontier is available in King Cab (extended cab) or Crew Cab body styles, paired with either a standard or long cargo bed. Prices in Canada range from $50,875 to $59,375, including the destination charge of $2,030 and other fees.

The base price of our Frontier PRO-4X Luxury test vehicle is $59,295, including fees. The optional paint and great-looking two-tone beadlock-style alloy wheels bring the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) to $61,675 including the destination charge.

This year, Nissan makes a few minor styling updates, inside and out. On the PRO-4X Luxury, the changes include more black exterior trim front and rear, and the test truck’s wheels had a machined-finish outer-edge surface. Inside, dashboard changes, new orange colour accents, and the larger infotainment screen give the truck a more modern appearance.

One great thing about the Frontier’s cabin is the switchgear. It’s everywhere, meaning you can operate the stereo, radio, climate system, and numerous other features without touching a screen or using a voice recognition system. Better yet, you can use the knobs, buttons, and switches while wearing gloves. Sometimes, an old-school approach is the better approach.

Additionally, although hard plastic surfaces are the rule rather than the exception, many of the materials in the Frontier appear and feel higher in quality and construction than those in the Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon, and Toyota Tacoma. Not only that, the test truck displayed rock-solid construction with nary a rattle, squeak, or flimsy panel. That sense of quality, combined with a traditional approach to the controls and displays, makes the current-generation Frontier unexpectedly appealing despite it being one of the older trucks in the segment.

Tradition is evident under the Frontier’s hood, too. That’s where you’ll find a 3.8-litre V6 engine generating 310 horsepower and 281 pound-feet of torque. It’s paired with a nine-speed automatic transmission, and all Canadian Frontiers feature a standard shift-on-the-fly four-wheel drive (4WD) system with a two-speed transfer case.

As you might guess, the V6 isn’t particularly fuel-efficient, according to Natural Resources Canada data. But there is a silver lining because our test truck exceeded the fuel economy estimates. According to NRCan, the Frontier PRO-4X Luxury is expected to achieve 12.7 litres per 100 kilometres in combined driving. We averaged 12.5 L/100 km on our mountainous evaluation loop—and that included some off-roading. Better yet, in heavy city traffic with nearly every light turning red, the Frontier got 15.0 L/100 km, not far off its 14.0 L/100 km city rating.

For 2025, Nissan has increased the towing capacity of all Frontiers by 225 kilograms (500 pounds). Ratings vary depending on the configuration, with a maximum towing capacity of 3,100 kilograms (6,850 pounds) for Frontier King Cab PRO-4X models. The 2025 Frontier’s maximum payload capacity is 600 kilograms (1,340 pounds), and that’s found on the same model. Our Frontier PRO-4X test truck has a 3,030-kilogram (6,690-pound) tow rating and a payload rating of 550 kilograms (1,220 pounds).

As the off-roading models in the Frontier lineup, the PRO-4X trims get a modified suspension with Bilstein shocks, an electronic locking rear differential, front and underbody skid plates, and 17-inch wheels wrapped in all-terrain tires. We’ve driven PRO-4X models on challenging terrain in the past, and this time our evaluation included deeply rutted sections of trail. The Frontier reacts to them stiffly, so going slow is necessary, unlike the more absorbent Baja-tuned suspensions you might find in some competitors.

Though the Frontier’s nine-speed automatic transmission displays occasional hesitancy and a rare harsh shift, the V6 engine is satisfying. In addition, the Frontier feels robust and durable, and it’s remarkably smooth and quiet when traveling on local highways.

With that said, the 2025 Frontier drives like a traditional pickup truck. Depending on the surface, it judders and shudders, bounces and jounces, and occasionally skitters. It can take speed humps with speed, but isn’t happy about it, and the slower you go, the worse the bucking behaviour is. When slowing over one of them, the antilock braking system activated when the truck’s front suspension unloaded, unexpectedly lengthening our stopping distance.

That behaviour is to be expected in a truck like the Frontier. The oversized steering wheel connected to a traditional hydraulic assist system is not. At low speeds, the steering effort is high, making the pickup more difficult to park. Also, the wheel thrums in the driver’s hands but simultaneously feels heavy, slow, and uncommunicative.

Despite that, we found the Frontier sportier than we ever would have guessed when driving it on local mountain roads. It suffered hardly any body lean in curves, the all-terrain tires provided decent grip without feeling squishy, and the powertrain automatically held gears longer, adding to its unexpectedly athletic feel. It wasn’t a joy to drive, but its predictable handling and responsiveness made the experience surprisingly good.

Because Nissan employs its Zero Gravity seat design in the Frontier, the driver and front passenger will be quite comfortable. You sit in (not on) the seat, which is mounted high enough off the floor to provide good leg support. Our test truck had leather seats, a six-way power driver’s seat, heated front seats, and a heated steering wheel, and the latter three features are standard in Canada. It was a good place to spend time.

As in many other midsize pickup trucks, the back seat is less hospitable. The seat cushion is short but dished to provide some thigh support, and the backrest angle is nearly vertical. Soft front seatbacks are kind to knees and shins, but the narrow rear door openings and hard plastic door panels are not. Nissan doesn’t provide air conditioning vents, either.

Flip the rear seat cushion up, and you’ll find a full-width storage area in the Frontier PRO-4X models. Up front, Nissan provides various nooks and crannies for knick-knacks, as well as a storage tray forward of the gear shifter, another storage tray atop the dashboard, and a sizable bin under the softly padded centre console armrest. The cupholders are large, but they proved incompatible with a one-litre water bottle nonetheless.

Our test truck’s cargo bed featured Nissan’s Utili-Track adjustable cargo tie-down system, a spray-in bedliner, illumination for nighttime use, and a dampened tailgate. However, it lacked a step or any other feature to make it easier to climb up and into the bed.

In addition to a 7-inch digital driver display located between two analog gauges within the instrument cluster, every Canadian 2025 Frontier adds a new 12.3-inch touchscreen for the NissanConnect infotainment system.

Standard features include wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, SiriusXM satellite radio, and NissanConnect services. You get a complimentary three-year subscription to the Premium services plan. Additionally, with an active data plan, you can access a Wi-Fi hotspot. Our test truck also featured Nissan’s door-to-door navigation system, which continues to guide you via a smartphone app after you’ve parked a distance from your final destination.

While the new infotainment system is an improvement, it still has Nissan’s clunky configurable interface. We left it on the map and radio split screen and didn’t interact with it much after selecting our preferred settings.

The voice recognition technology is poor. It isn’t conversational, and even when following the suggested voice commands, after we requested a list of nearby hospitals, the system offered those plus a veterinarian, a family medical practice, and other medical-adjacent possibilities. We recommend using the wireless Apple CarPlay or wireless Android Auto and bypassing the native tech entirely.

Our test truck’s wireless smartphone charger was easily accessible, and the 10-speaker Fender premium audio system provided rich, loud sound. The available surround-view camera system helps you to line the truck up to a trailer hitch, but the Frontier lacks some of the compelling towing features you can find on other midsize trucks.

Starting this year, every 2025 Frontier has Nissan Safety Shield 360, a collection of driver assistance and collision-avoidance systems. It includes: forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, rear parking sensors, and a rear automatic braking system. Adaptive cruise control is also standard, while a surround-view camera system with an off-road mode is newly standard beginning at the Frontier SL for 2025 (along with traffic sign recognition). Our PRO-4X Luxury had that feature, and it proved helpful when parking.

During testing, the adaptive cruise control functioned well, smoothly adjusting speed when we approached slower vehicles. It’s a basic system, though; Nissan does not offer its more advanced ProPilot Assist technology on this truck. Instead, Frontier owners have to make do with a lane-departure warning system that issues false alerts seemingly as frequently as valid ones. Also, when driving into the late afternoon sun, we received a notification that the forward-collision warning system was non-operational.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave the 2025 Frontier a four-star overall safety rating (out of a possible five stars). The Frontier earned five stars in side-impact crash tests, but both the three-star driver protection rating and three-star rollover resistance rating are causes for concern.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) had not released complete safety ratings for the Frontier at the time of writing. Ratings published so far include a “Poor” for the performance of the standard halogen headlights (headlights for higher trim levels were rated “Acceptable”), but “Good” and “Acceptable” ratings for updated moderate overlap front and updated side-impact crash tests, respectively.

While the improvements to the 2025 Nissan Frontier are welcome, this midsize pickup truck is merely attempting to keep pace with segment leaders rather than surpass them.

A new Frontier is appealing in an authentic, back-to-basics way. It still has a V6 engine instead of a turbocharged four-cylinder. The driver assistance technology doesn’t try to drive the truck for you. The infotainment system is a set-it-and-forget proposition. Traditional knobs and buttons are everywhere. And it displays a palpable sense of quality in its materials and construction.

Still, we’re convinced that if Nissan wants a bigger share of this market, the Frontier needs a lower price to convince Chevy Colorado, Ford Ranger, and Toyota Tacoma loyalists to take a closer look. Our PRO-4X Luxury test model’s window sticker exceeded $60,000. In our book, that’s a bridge too far. Making this truck an unbeatable bargain would help offset the thirsty V6 engine, its merely adequate payload and towing capacities, and concerning NHTSA crash test ratings.