2025 Nissan Frontier Makes a Case for Honest Trucks

1/8/25 UPDATE: This review has been updated with instrumented test results.

Automakers know better than anyone that complexity is the enemy of execution. This is evident across the industry in the widespread reduction of trim levels and configurations of late. Even pickup trucks, known for offering more choice than just about any other segment, have succumbed. Many of today’s mid-size pickups have whittled their lineups down to a single configuration: a crew cab with a short bed. But Nissan, facing the death of the full-size Titan pickup, is doubling down on offering more configurations than before on the 2025 Frontier, which also receives other updates as part of its facelift.

The Frontier is available in five trim levels in extended- and crew-cab configurations with either a short or long bed and rear- or four-wheel drive. The 2025 lineup includes a long-bed configuration for more trim levels; the six-foot-bed crew cab, previously available on the SV alone, can now be had in Pro-4X and SL trims as well. By our count, this means you can configure the truck 17 different ways, and that’s with only one powertrain: a 310-hp naturally aspirated 3.8-liter V-6 and a nine-speed automatic transmission.

We drove and tested the 2025 Frontier in Pro-4X guise with the crew cab and short bed. This version has numerous off-road-oriented upgrades and looks far more macho than the base truck. It’s not at all a match for the top off-road trim levels that its rivals offer, such as the Ford Ranger Raptor, the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, or the Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro, but it lines up with mid-level versions such as the Ranger FX4, the Colorado Trail Boss, and the Tacoma TRD Off-Road.

The Frontier costs about the same as its close rivals at the low end, but depending on your truck needs, it offers some advantages: more horsepower than the base Tacoma, for instance, and a larger bed than the crew-cab-only Colorado. Plus, for the “no replacement for displacement” crowd, the Nissan is the least expensive V-6–powered truck you can buy. And, while other mid-size pickups can crest $65,000 for their most decked-out versions, the Frontier barely surpasses $50,000 even with every box checked. Our test truck started at $43,280 and reached $50,245 with a healthy load of options.

It’s a good thing that the Frontier is relatively affordable too, because it still looks and feels like a rudimentary truck despite a relatively recent redesign for the 2022 model year. The updates for 2025 do help things somewhat on the inside. There’s a larger touchscreen and a telescoping steering wheel, which was somehow not available before. This Frontier is much more livable than the previous-generation truck, which lasted for more than a decade without major changes.

The Frontier has actual steering feel and decent body control for a body-on-frame truck, with our example posting a reasonable 183-foot stop from 70 mph and 0.76 g of grip on the skidpad. Its overall ride is not nearly as refined as the unibody Honda Ridgeline, but it’s in the same driving-dynamics ballpark as the body-on-frame Chevy Colorado and Toyota Tacoma. The 2025 Frontier we tested got to 60 mph in 7.3 seconds, matching a 2022 Pro-4X. That’s a few tenths of a second slower than a similarly equipped 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road. We couldn’t test the new Frontier on our 75-mph highway fuel-economy test, but the 2022 version managed just 20 mpg—2 mpg worse than the latest Tacoma with its turbo four. The Frontier does have the edge in max towing capacity, which is up for 2025: Its maximum of 7150 pounds beats the Tacoma’s 6500-pound max tow rating.

There’s no question that Nissan’s sole remaining pickup is facing stiffer competition than ever, as nearly the entire mid-size truck segment has been overhauled within the last few years. But we still like the Frontier and what it represents. It’s a solidly middle-of-the-road choice, and it resists the idea that workhorse pickups need to be flashy or luxurious. Sometimes you just need a truck to do truck stuff. The Frontier will happily do that, and at a reasonable price.

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