Safety, Optional at Extra Cost

That is what happened to Brennan Young when he bought a 2008 Nissan Altima with a 4-cylinder engine. It came with active head restraints, designed to help prevent neck injuries in a rear-end collision, and six air bags. But it did not have one feature he really wanted: electronic stability control, which detects and tries to correct skids... But an electronic stability system, which Nissan calls Vehicle Dynamic Control, was not available on 4-cylinder models. To get it, Mr. Young would have needed to upgrade to a V-6 and then buy the stability system as part of a $2,300 technology package.