• Pros

• Competent.  It provides transportation for four or five people, in reasonable room and comfort, and, based on previous years’ experience, decent reliability.
• Very good fuel economy.  Rated at 31 overall, with 27 mpg city and 39 highway.
 
• Plenty-good-enough power from 2.5 liter, 4-cylinder engine.  182 horsepower.
 
• CVT transmission is mostly very good, without the noise and high revving of some others.  See note below about low-speed operation.
• Reasonably quiet at highway speed.
• Airy cabin, with lots of glass and, as a result, pretty decent visibility.
• Simple, easily understandable controls.
• Roomy back seats.  Your passengers will praise you.

• Cons

• Mushy handling with more body lean than you’d get in an Accord, or even a Camry.  Scores very low on "fun to drive” scale.
• Interior is showing its age.  Just feels old compared to other cars we’ve driven more recently.  It’s got more hard plastic than you see on arch rivals Camry and Accord.
• Cheap feeling, too-soft cloth seats.
• CVT transmission sometimes creates an unpleasant vibration at low speed operation.  To maximize fuel economy, the CVT always tries to use the highest gear ratio.  In the Altima, it tries a little too hard, and on streets where we were just trying to maintain our speed, we’d feel a sort of lugging, rumbly vibration.  It’s not awful, but slightly annoying.
• While you can get blind spot monitoring, the most advanced safety systems, like pre-collision warning and automatic braking, are not available on the four-cylinder models.  To get those, you have to get the higher end V6.
  
• There’s nothing particular memorable about the Altima.  It does everything reasonably well, but does nothing spectacularly well.  It feels like it’s due for a redesign, and is getting a bit of a rental-car vibe.  

Get the Car Talk Newsletter