It may only be the windshield wipers but its thinking outside the box that makes the all-new Altima one of the best offerings in the segment.
Wayne Gerdes -
CleanMPG - June 9, 2012
An overview of the two main features of the 2013 Nissan Altima’s wiper system with a good friend of CleanMPG, Nissan’s Vishnu Jayamohan giving us the rundown.
Often it is a feature that is not thought about until it is needed, but windshield wiper function matters to drivers, especially in rainy and cold climates. Nissan took notice with two new changes to the 2013 Nissan Altima.
Nearly 30 states require drivers' car headlights be turned on in rain or heavy fog, and that's part of the motivation behind the new Nissan Altima's enhanced headlight feature. Automatic headlights respond to light conditions outside. If your wipers are on, so are the headlights. They automatically turn on after four wiper cycles.
The other innovative wiper feature now available on 2013 Altimas comes in handy in cold climates with ice or snow. It's called "auto-park wipers." When a driver shuts off the car while the wipers are in still motion, the wipers now complete a full cycle first. The wipers will always rest on the bottom of the windshield, keeping them from freezing in place in the middle.
Nissan Product Planning and Advanced Strategist Vishnu Jayamohan:
Quote:
"Even in cars with automatic headlights, if it's raining during the daytime the headlights don't necessarily come on. In this case, however, after four passes of the wipers the headlights automatically come on. It's a very safe, very convenient feature for the customer."
"It's important, especially in winter climates, to not have their wipers freeze to the windshield. And that's why the wipers automatically complete a cycle and come back and park themselves at the base of the windshield. It's a very simple feature, but it's one that the new Altima has that a lot of our competitors don't."
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While its only the wipers, it is an important part of the car driving experience when the weather starts turning dark and the roads become slick with that little inconvenience we call rain.
Our take? Along with being the most affordable mid-size sedan with an AT in the segment, advanced sound deadening while still keeping the weight down, an excellent CVT that is light years beyond the CVTs we have become to know and sometimes despise, and wipers that take care of themselves, a little something else tells us this is not your father’s Nissan Altima… Maybe the following will tell of my impressions of the all-new 2013 Altima far better than I can with prose
The 2013 Nissan Altima Preview in Smyrna, TN.
A short 114.3 mile RT drive over the rolling hills of Tennessee’s I-40 from downtown Nashville and back.
An AT equipped mid-size capable of touching 60 in just over 7 seconds for < $22K that offers the above? We have seen that level of FE from much more expensive midsize Diesels, Hybrids and non-hybrids with sticks but from a normally aspirated affordable to the masses bread and butter vehicle with an AT? That should make us all ponder why the all-new 38 mpg highway rated Altima is such a desirable automobile. That is a scary high number regardless if we do not yet know its actual mpg with a calibrated result.
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