With the future of the Nissan Titan full-size pickup truck in flux for months, it seems like we’re finally getting some closure. An internal production memo claims that the Nissan Titan will take a bow after the 2024 model year, leaving Nissan with a single-truck lineup. Nissan recently confirmed that the memo is real, stating:
Production of the Nissan TITAN is scheduled to end summer 2024 at our Canton plant in Mississippi. Under Nissan’s Ambition 2030 vision of an electrified future, we are accelerating the process of transforming the Canton plant with the latest in EV manufacturing technology. This will support production of two all-new, all-electric vehicles.
That’s the way the cookie crumbles, a complete shift to something new capping off a moderately disappointing 21-year, two-generation model run that failed to live up to sales expectations. As Auto123 reports, Nissan targeted 100,000 annual sales back when the original Titan launched. However, that number was never hit. The Titan was a relatively reliable truck, but it was glued to the showroom floor, especially as first-generation production dragged on through the Great Recession. It had relatively innovative features from launch like factory-installed spray-in bedliner, an available tracked tie-down system in the bed, and an available rear-seat entertainment system, but pickup truck buyers never quite took to Nissan’s biggest offering.
See, in America, pickup trucks are a religion, a bit like beer and football. If your father bought pickup trucks from a particular domestic brand, chances are his father bought from the same brand and you will too. An S&P Global report claims that the Ford F-Series enjoyed 59.7 percent brand loyalty in 2022, and the Chevrolet Silverado wasn’t far behind at 55.4 percent. Attempting to crack the American full-size pickup market on product alone and ignoring the massive culture surrounding these vehicles can be a perilous enterprise.
A redesign for 2016 saw Nissan double down on the Titan with both a new light-duty model and something called the XD, which sat mid-way between a half-ton and three-quarter-ton truck while offering the fuel economy of the latter and capability closer to the former. Gee, I wonder why the market never took to it? The best-selling year of second-generation Titan production resulted in just 52,924 full-size Nissan trucks making it into driveways. A facelift for 2020 brought updated styling and a substantially more modern interior, but it was too little, too late. With Ram, Ford, and GM all having recently introduced new generations of their full-size trucks, Nissan was fighting a losing war.
The first front to fall? Why, the Northern front, of course. The Titan left the Canadian market after the 2021 model year due to low sales volume, with the aged Leaf electric car outselling the Titan in that market. Nissan figured that the Frontier was all the Nissan truck that the Canadian market wanted, and that bet seems to be proving itself correct. Keep in mind, Canada loves full-size trucks as much as America, with the most popular new vehicle in the country being the Ford F-Series line of pickup trucks. Canada’s also chock-full of import cars, a land where Mazda cracks the top-15 in the sales charts. It’s the sort of environment where the Titan theoretically could’ve succeeded, but it didn’t.
Going into 2024, the Nissan Titan receives some slight trim and package changes. The base fleet-spec S model is gone, but that seemed inevitable. When was the last time a contractor rolled up to your house in a new Titan? The new entry-point SV trim gets an optional Bronze Edition Package with bronze wheels, a black grille, a sport bar in the bed (not to be confused with a sports bar), and special floor mats. Otherwise, the Titan carries through to its final model year essentially unchanged. Could the Titan eventually return in some alternate form? It’s possible, but don’t get your hopes up.
The good news amid all the doom and gloom is that nobody’s paycheck is on the line. The memo claims that “There will be no job reductions in Decherd or Canton, the U.S. plants that currently support Titan production,” and Nissan has confirmed via statement that “There will be no workforce reductions due to this action.” Clearly, Nissan has big expectations for these two new electric models set to be built in America, so everyone’s coming along for the ride.
Oh, and if you still want a Nissan pickup truck after mid-2024, there’s always the midsize Frontier, one of the last midsizers standing with a standard naturally-aspirated V6. The Toyota Tacoma, Ford Ranger, Chevrolet Colorado, and GMC Canyon have all shifted to turbocharged four-bangers as their base motors, leaving Nissan and Jeep to carry the six-cylinder torch.
(Photo credits: Nissan, hat tip to Gary!)
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I like my Titan.
Now that everyone is universally shitting on it, I am wondering if I should, and that sucks.
Has anyone here daily driven one and can compare to a modern big 3?
I’m glad I never had a chance to experience their cheap build quality and unreliability because I could never get past how overpriced they’ve always been.
https://www.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/10/2015/11/2007-nissan-titan-xe-king-cab-2wd-truck-angular-front.png
https://www.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/10/2015/11/2007-nissan-titan-xe-king-cab-2wd-truck-angular-front.png
I always loved the way the extended cab looked on the first ones
I remember seriously looking at one of the XD diesel models when they were released. Theoretically it seemed like a great fit for me (tow the horse trailer on the weekends, sometimes horses during the week, and family hauler all week). The more I looked into it the more big questions about reliability kept coming up. Having come from a 5th gen 4runner the build quality wasn’t exactly there either. I ended up getting a Tundra and the V8 in that had no problem pulling the 3500lb trailer and my 1600lb horse (plus a friend horse as well most times). I used it for a year, then when my horse died, I sold the trailer and sold the tundra for MSRP (year of free use). I got myself a Tacoma now (perfect for my needs) and in 20 or so years when I am no longer willing to hoist my elderly body into it, I’ll sell it for MSRP…
They never stock them by me. I’m shopping for a 2023 because they are offering 0% for 60 months They never had a got variety of options. I want a bench heated seat extended cab and they are hard to find
I live 10 miles from the Nissan plant and had no idea they were still being built, and that really should tell you everything you need to know
Was the Nissan Titan ever truly alive?
You, the author, totally missed what made the Titan uncompetitive. 1-It was horrifically overpriced. It’s MSRP was high but more importantly, while the Big 3(4) have been slapping cash on the hood of everything but the top end models-Laramie, Platinum, High Country-the already expensive Nissan had very little incentives. Equivalent trucks from Dodge/Ford/GM were almost always THOUSANDS cheaper. 2-No matter if 1st or 2nd generation, no matter how you drive them they got the worst fuel economy of all full sized trucks. 3-The interiors are still old looking, and even with the new squishy materials they added, cheap and nearly disposable. If you’re going to sell a truck in the American market you have to understand the American market. It’s clear they didn’t, and don’t, have a clue. The Titan isn’t worth what a Big 3 truck is worth, much less a premium over the American trucks. When I bought my new 2018 and 2019 Rams, I shopped Ford and Ram. Nissan didn’t even enter my mind because I knew they were overpriced and uncompetitive. Toyota has a fanatical fanboy base and can get away with half-a**, expensive trucks. Nissan doesn’t. That’s why Toyota can puke out an inferior truck and charge more. Nissan tried and failed.
They were certainly overpriced when new, and while depreciation hit them pretty good on the used market (pre-COVID, anyway), they still seemed overpriced for their content. I looked at a fully loaded 2021 Pro-4X that stickered at well over $60k new and was selling in early 2022 for $42k with 52,000 miles on it. Even though it was only a year old, those 52,000 mile showed, and when I put it next to lower trim big-3 trucks, it was hard to see the value for the price. In the end, I didn’t buy any of them, but I will admit the Titan had the best sounding stock exhaust.
The Titan just seemed to be “there”. It didn’t do any one thing better than the competition. Nissan should have followed the path it did in the later years of the second-gen Frontier: it wasn’t better than the competition, but it sure as hell was cheaper.
The F-Alpha platform could have been soo much better, and on paper it was decent, but the quality of these trucks even compared with earlier Frontiers/Pathfinders is lacking. I had an Armada and a lot more shit broke on that compared to my old 2001 QX4/Pathfinder (which i loved).
The 1st gen 5.6 V8 is mechanically very stout… but has a major achelles heel that was bolted to all of them. The stupid fucking combo exhaust manifold/pre-cats were all sheetmetal, and you can see the design is putting a lot of weight + heat cycles on that thin metal. Short answer… all of them crack, which wouldn’t be too much of a problem but it also allows the O2 readings to be just off enough that more fuel is dumped in (but usually with no check engine light) and you put enough miles on them and some chunk of carbon or something breaks off in the cat and gets sucked BACK in to the engine…. now you need a new motor.
This isn’t as rare as you think. Nissan USA did too much cost cutting on every F-Alpha based truck and it shows. Beyond the engine issues, the interior plastics all broke, sunroofs broke, door start sagging early on hinges, radiator platics break and ruin the transmission with coolant… they just didn’t do a great job compared to a Tundra or Sequoia.
I won’t miss it, but props to Nissan for sticking with the V8 in the Titan and V6 in the Frontier. I would’ve bought a brand new Tundra if they kept the ol’ faithful V8, but I’m buying a late model 2nd gen Tundra instead.
Something else you’ve missed is the fact that with the switch to direct injection, the previously unkillable 5.6 gas engine became a nightmare with cylinder wall scoring and TONS requiring engine replacements in cold weather climates (maybe the real reason it was killed off even sooner in Canada?) The 1st gen was a decent truck, 2nd gen gas or diesel was a huge turd. Good riddance.
The initial production year(s) used an undersized rear axle that caused a lot of failures also. That was surprising given the generally robust content otherwise.
Probably half the full size trucks I see around me have a punisher skull, blue line, or AR15 silhouette sticker on them. I don’t think they are interested in a Nissan.
You must live somewhere without many fullsize pickups.
Don’t forget the 1st generation had that little storage locker behind the rear wheel. I always thought that feature was cool.
that in the rust belt fell off in a couple years
Haha yeah I bet.
Seems like a reasonable decision but still too bad. A relative has a previous gen Titan with around 300k on it and it’s doing fine with surprisingly few repairs. It’s a base work truck but it has been pretty solid. It’s not flashy or fancy, though, so I can see why folks would overlook it.
Huh. As a truck owner and someone who works in an industry dominated by pickup trucks (farming), I actually forgot the Titan still was in production. I occasionally will see a Tundra used on farms, but I truly can’t tell you that I’ve ever seen a Titan used in an agricultural capacity.
I personally was excited for the XD Cummins-it didn’t need to tow over 10k pounds, it just needed to do it well. Unfortunately they stuck it with a completely noncompetitive 5 speed and unforgivable reliability problems. Which is a shame, because that should have been a stump pulling, 20-25 mpg version of a wholly capable truck.
Nissan and Cummins spent a LOT of money on that “three quarter ton” program. There were test trucks running all over central Indiana the year before production started. I used to see them every day, they had DOT registration numbers on the side and mfgr plates. Apparently that was a size that just didn’t fit the usage profile of customers.
I think the premise was sound-take a half ton, make it a touch beefier, and put in a stout diesel that can actually pull that 12k pounds while getting reasonable mileage. Instead, something got lost and they ended up making a softer 3/4 ton with no advantages in size, comfort, or mpg. Add in a scathing long term report (car and driver?) where the truck had serious repeat reliability issues, and it was DOA.
I suspect their making it a touch beefier half ton was about cheating emissions – make it heavier than 8500 lbs GVWR, and you get heavy duty emissions instead of light duty emissions.
It’s an old tactic, and it’s even why the F-150 is called the F-150 instead of the F-100 – the Big Three made “heavy halfs” in the 1980s to avoid light-duty emissions when the line was 6000 lbs, so the line was moved up to 8500.
Cummins put a ton of money into the program, Nissan came in, slapped their requirements on the table, and gave a few programmers a year with the engine and a transmission and said “make it work”.
Maybe that’s a bit too harsh, but the V8 was originally designed for packaging concerns in Marine and Industrial applications. Cummins figured they could sell it to Chrysler as either a 1500 “Heavy Duty” engine, or even a 6.7 replacement engine. Then FCA bought out Chrysler and those conversations ended. So they went to Nissan who was looking to make their “heavy half” XD program a reality, as they wanted to make vans, trucks, and even cab over chassis with the engine for the US market.
Nissan had big ideas that were quickly brought down to earth when they couldn’t hit MPG targets, nor could their chassis tow enough to justify the costs of the Titan XD vs. a similar 2500 gas or diesel chassis. At that point though, Indiana had engines ready and Nissan had trucks needing to be built. So they put it on the market and hoped it would build a new niche.
It didn’t.
Would it have been a ISB replacement? Even at the beginning of the 4th generation, the 6.7 was making more power than the 5L was rumored to make.
It’s just one speed so this is completely useless to try and bring up, but I though the Titan came with a 6 speed, the A466ND?
You could be right, maybe my disappointment spread into my memory of the tech specs haha
That makes me feel even less bad about making the decision for my company’s brand to discontinue shocks for these. Sales were disappointing.
I’ve never really understood how Nissan managed to fuck up selling these. They’re wholly competent products, and in 2023 a full size with a standard V8 and old school torque converter auto SHOULD appeal to a lot of people…and it’s not like Murica doesn’t buy Japanese trucks. I see Tacos and Tundras everywhere.
I have no reason whatsoever to own a truck and likely never will…but a barebones Titan in the high 40s/low 50s is still a great buy, and if you just need a capable work truck I’m sure you can find nice enough Titans for way less than comparable domestic trucks.
I think they could’ve kept it alive a little longer if they really leaned into the IT’S GOT A BIG MANLY V8, NO LIBERAL 4 CYLINDER SNOWFLAKES NEED APPLY type of nonsense and ran the adds on Saturdays and Sundays in the fall, but oh well. It always struck me as a pretty decent truck, but then again what do I know. I drive hot hatches.
Because have you seen the recent Titans? They are absolute fucking eyesores. The kind of eyesores that make you beg for the end.
The “Texas Edition” for example, has a badge on the tailgate that is ABOUT ONE FOOT WIDE. You thought “R A M” was bad? Nissan wins. And there’s another two feet of badging there. Plus another foot per door. And the interior is so chintzy and painfully dated. It hasn’t gotten a meaningful update since the truck was launched. It still has a whopping 7″ infotainment with software from 10 years ago.
And while everyone else was going ‘oooh, trucks should be like cars,’ Nissan was going ‘oooh, we can save $0.32 per car by using flimsier plastic here.’ Don’t even ask about their horrific Cummins V8. Definitely do not ask about reliability (spoiler: there is none. NONE.) And despite their complete lack of ever towing anything, they aren’t gonna have no ‘sissy truck’ that can only pull 9000lbs.
All that matters to me as a truck shopper is that it absolutely is not a deal at $40k. That’s a $25k interior, at most, and that’s really stretching it. I am not joking about it not having received a single meaningful update since launch. They just kept shoehorning things in in the most half-assed way they could. The transmission has never been fit for purpose – any of them.
Nobody wants a Titan because it’s an objectively awful product and always has been.
Wait, wait, hold on…so you’re saying the Titan has always been a caricature of what Nissan (and probably Japanese manufacturers) believed US buyers wanted?
Eyesores? Huh, I actually think they’re subtly attractive compared to overstyled trucks like the new Tundra.
Nissan likes to follow Carlos’s law: The better the vehicle, the less of them they sell. Spend six weeks making a new Altima, sell over a million. Shove a v8 into a sweet rwd platform, sell eight thousand of them.
You said, “it’s not like Murica doesn’t buy Japanese trucks.”
I think that’s actually not true, and that’s the Titans problem. Murican pickup people don’t buy foreign pickups, and Toyota kool-aid-drinking dads buy Tundras. Nissan doesn’t appeal to people who actually work with their pickup, cuz it’s foreign junk, and it doesn’t appeal to folks who drink the Toyota reliability koolaid because its foreign junk.
I mean the Armada has always been bought exclusively by people whose credit wasn’t good enough for a Lexus LX. The Titan isn’t the cheaper, crappier low credit version of anything because it doesn’t cost less than an American half ton.
XD = XP
If I have to say something nice about the Titan, I guess I can say I like that green color…
Sales justify it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck to see it go.
More competition was always better.
I for one shall Remember the Titans.
cotfd!