2024 Nissan Patrol Warrior review

The Nissan Patrol Warrior is one of those cars that make a lot of sense in their own context. Nissan looked at what folks did with their Patrols after buying them, and saw that many owners whisked them off to an aftermarket supplier to jack them up and toughen them up.

So Nissan turned to Premcar, a company formerly known for its work developing Ford Performance Vehicles. When the Blue Oval’s door was slammed shut, the canny folks there saw another opportunity in the rise and rise of utes and SUVs.

Premcar’s first attempt was the well-received Navara Warrior pair. So successful was this exercise that Nissan allowed them to have a crack at the big boy off-roader, the Patrol. Already a known quantity, the 2024 update is mostly in the cabin with a new media system from another Australian company, Directed Technologies, to pretty things up before the Y62 Patrol gives way to the next-generation model that's just been shown.

The Patrol Warrior technically sits at the top of the Patrol range, with the vanilla Ti and Ti-L models beneath, at least as far as pricing goes. Every Warrior rolls off the boat as a Ti before being diverted to Premcar’s facility for its 24-hour re-engineering visit. The cars quite literally arrive in the dead of night and are returned to Nissan the same time next day.

Your $105,160 gets you an eight-seat leather interior, powered front seats, auto LED headlights, keyless entry and start, active cruise control, dual-zone climate control, 18-inch alloys, powered windows and mirrors, satellite navigation, a 10.1-inch touchscreen, cooled console bin, tow bar, six-speaker stereo and a full-size spare.

An entry-level steel-wheeled Grenadier starts at $105,000 and goes rapidly north from there with a choice of BMW straight-six turbo petrol or turbo diesels. The car the Ineos looks nothing like (ahem), the Defender, comes in three flavours, including the eight-seat 130. It too can be had with a V8 but will cost another $100,000. You can lose the V8 and go diesel for $122,620. And its old rival, the LandCruiser 300, can be had around the $145K mark for the range-topping Sahara ZX diesel.

A Patrol is a whopper of a unit, and the Premcar mods make it look even bigger, almost – but not quite – to the point of comedy. At nearly 5.3m long, it casts a vast shadow. But when you add the extra 50mm of ride height, what was already a toweringly tall car is almost 2m tall. I drove it to our local shopping centre and bailed out of taking it into the underground car park at the last minute fearing I’d peel the roof off. 

I needn’t have worried but as the roof of a car is well over my head, it’s hard to gauge its height. So be warned.

Since its big facelift a few years ago, the more upmarket Patrol has felt like a big well-worn leather sofa. The seats are comfortable and plush if way too flat and unsupportive for its intended function. The view out of the IMAX windscreen is panoramic and you can see for days over the traffic. You’re eye-to-eye with Sydney Buses drivers.

You can fit eight people in here. With up to four you’ll be incredibly comfortable, two of six will be reasonably comfortable, but any more will start to stretch friendships. As ever, fine for short trips and in the third row, shorter people.

While Nissan was considering the new media screen, someone at Premcar wisely suggested the old wood trim would look even more out of place and suggested replacing it with Alcantara. The remaining switchgear is off-road ready, meaning the buttons and switches are big and easy to hit as the body is waving around on muddy tracks. It looks pretty old, mind you, but you can’t have everything. The steering wheel that looks like it was lifted from a Maxima doesn’t help the situation. But style isn’t exactly what this car is all about.

Front seat passengers, along with the flat seats, score a wireless slot for a phone, held in place by a sprung door that is very clever. Along with that you get two cupholders, a cooled storage bin under the huge armrest and plenty of things to hold on to. Between the upper air vents is a little box with a sprung lid that feels flimsy, almost 3D printed. Where there’s no Alcantara, there is stitched leather contributing to the sofa vibe.

The middle-row seats are pretty well shaped, offering some support on the outboard seats and not very much in the middle. You get air vents, two cupholders, fan controls and bottle holders in the doors. The long wheelbase affords plenty of leg room and the high roof will accommodate all but the tallest of folks.

To access the third row, you pull a lever and the 40 part of the 60/40 split enthusiastically tumbles forward with the grace of a gymnast. That leaves good access to clamber into the third row, which has adjustable headrests but three flat seating positions, and short backrests but the rare advantage of foot room under the middle row. 

For all passengers, getting in is a bit of an effort. It’s a long way up to the side steps in the first place and then you have to hoist yourself in. Smaller kids will need assistance getting out as it’s a long way down, and a perfectly able-bodied friend of mine slid out of the seat expecting the ground to be rather closer than he was expecting. RIP his knees and ankles.

If it’s cargo you want to carry, you’re going to be just fine. Even with the third row in place, Nissan quotes a cargo figure of 467 litres, or the boot of a mid-size German sedan. That’s room for a couple of suitcases and a few soft bags.

Fold down the third row – which is easy once you have the headrests back down in the short backrests – and you pull a tape to push them down into the floor, leaving you with 1413L. If you stow the middle row, you have 2623L available, which is probably the entire interior volume of a medium SUV.

The biggest change to the interior of the Patrol Warrior for 2024 is the 10.1-inch screen replacing the dinky 8.0-inch display of old. It was dinky both in size and functionality. It was really adrift in the cliff face that is the Patrol’s dash. The new screen means a new centre stack with repositioned switchgear, the massive new screen, and a new covered storage slot where the smaller screen used to live.

The screen is a vast improvement and brings with it wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, satellite navigation, a hugely improved reversing camera and DAB+ digital radio. The smartphone mirroring worked perfectly for the entire time I had it and filled the screen, at least in CarPlay mode.

In addition to the IGO street maps, the satellite navigation includes Hema HXD-N maps, but for some reason, Nissan saw fit only to buy you a solitary month’s subscription of the latter. Hema’s website says the solution includes 700,000km of tracks and 550,000km of unsealed roads, which seems astonishing to a city slicker like me.

If you do want to continue the subscription, it’s a further $349 for three years. It’s probably no big deal given so few of these will actually end up off-road, but if you do head for the hills/dunes/jungles, that’s $349 well spent.

The Y62 Patrol has not been ANCAP- or Euro NCAP-tested, so it doesn’t carry an ANCAP rating. Given its advancing years (this Patrol turns 15 next year), it’s unlikely five stars is an achievable goal. You may need to wait for its all-new replacement, expected to arrive Down Under in 2026.

The Y62 has six airbags – dual front, front side and side curtains that reach all the way down the car.

The Patrol has just enough safety gear to be described as adequate, but its main rival, the LandCruiser 300, gives it a run for its money on active safety, as do the Defender and Discovery. With less than two years left on the use-by date, if you’re worried by this, maybe skip the current car.

The features worked well and in a not-nagging way, and do help reduce fatigue when keeping this big unit on the straight and narrow.

Added to the airbags are three top-tether anchors (two in the middle row, one in the third row) and two ISOFIX points in the outboard seats of the middle row.

Through Nissan's capped-price service program scheduled maintenance works out at roughly $530 per year over three years. That’s good going for a big car loaded with stuff and a huge V8 that would sink a lot of oil and many spark plugs. Having said that, the 10,000km service intervals do take the shine off a little.

Warranty is the same five-year, unlimited kilometre package that comes with the regular Nissan Patrol range, with no chance brought about by the Warrior modifications.

Looking at insurance, we got a figure of $2050 per year based on a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male driver living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

That was lower than I was expecting given the price and intent of this car, so that seems like a reasonable deal.

The wailing petrol V8 sluiced fuel into its cylinders at the rate of 19.1 litres per 100 kilometres during its week spent (largely) in the burbs. While enjoying that wail did contribute to the consumption, one hardly thinks it’s going to get a heap better unless something extraordinary happens.

Even with my less-than-stellar number, the Patrol’s giant 140-litre tank will get you over 700km on a single fill. If you can get it closer to the 14.4L/100km combined-cycle number, that stretches to around 950km between fills. Off-road – something I didn’t attempt – one imagines that low-range would deliver a mid-20s number.

Until I had looked up the size of the fuel tank, I alternatively thought the fuel gauge was broken or the fuel computer was on the fritz, but with that impressive capacity, it all suddenly made sense. It would be fascinating to see what towing 3500kg would do, at least if it were someone else’s money paying the bills.

It also means some ambitious off-roading is on the cards.

If you’re not across the Warrior brand, it’s a good story. The first Warrior badge was applied to the Navara six years ago. The engineering work to produce the Warrior line is done in Melbourne’s Premcar workshops, and earlier this year, the 10,000th Warrior-badged Nissan rolled out of the workshop after its 24-hour spa. 

The Patrol Warrior was introduced to the market in 2023. From the outside you can tell by the huge Yokohama Geolander tyres, black fender flares, grille and mirror caps. You’ll likely spot the 2.5mm-thick red bash plate under the engine that you can see because the bumpers are shallower. There are also an intriguing set of side exhausts poking out from under the right-hand side steps.

Under the skin, Premcar fit bespoke front and rear springs to lift the Patrol further into the air by 50mm, which along with the bodywork and tyres means an improved approach angle now rated at 40 degrees. Track is also increased by 40mm.

Added to that is a re-engineered version of Nissan’s hydraulic body motion control system, higher payload by 48kg, and two off-road recovery points for salvation from ignominy, giving or receiving. There is also a redesigned tow bar to allow fitment of the massive full-size spare wheel and tyre.

Unchanged is the very distinctive combination of Nissan’s 5.6-litre V8 allied to a seven-speed torque converter transmission, driving all four wheels with a helical LSD at the rear. The transmission behaved impeccably at all times, smooth and refined. The all-wheel-drive system features several modes that I left untouched.

Despite my better judgement, I quite like the Nissan Patrol. I’m not an experienced off-roader, so won’t be entering that particular argument, but on-road, the Ti and Ti-L do a good job. If a little conspicuously both in size and consumption.

Things I don’t like about the Ti translate to the Warrior. The steering is way too slow for road use, so you spend a lot of time steering. It’s light and easy to twirl, but you do work hard. The body leans in moderate cornering and the Warrior’s extra ride height doesn’t help, despite the changes to the body-control system. Somehow it never feels nearly three tonnes, though, which is an achievement, and does so without being too remote or isolating.

It still gets up and goes far quicker than it has any right to, but the Warrior also has an entertaining party trick. Those side exhausts – which I thought looked (a) fake and (b) likely to be wiped off by sliding over rocks – open up when the conditions are right. That means the exhaust exits are closer to your ears by about a metre and the sound is going sideways rather than behind you. So when you floor it, it becomes possessed by the roar of a V8 Supercar.

Utterly ridiculous but oddly satisfying until you next come to fill it.

In the cruise, I was expecting the Warrior to wander around on the tyres and be blown about by the wind, but it was incredibly quiet with the engine barely ticking over in seventh gear at 110km/h. Passengers remarked on how quiet it was given the car’s apartment block aerodynamics.

Naturally, the Warrior is not great around town. It’s too big for suburbia really, and is a pain to park in most car parks because it’s wide and the spaces aren’t. The sensors do a reasonable job helping you understand where you are, and the camera is improved over the old one, but size is size and there’s nothing you can do about it. But having said all that, you’ll no doubt get used to it. It’s not for me, but then again, plenty of my car choices would make many of you recoil in horror.

It's comfortable, refined, a little vulgar when you want it to be, and according to my colleagues Tom Fraser and Sam Purcell, rather good off-road.

As with all Patrols, the Warrior is rated to tow a massive 3500kg of braked load with a corresponding 350kg towball download figure. A trailer without brakes carries the usual 750kg limitation.

Premcar’s mods extend to a handy increase in payload of 48kg over the standard Patrol Ti and a GVM increase of 120kg to take the total figure to 3620kg. Front axle capacity is 1650kg and the rear 2030kg, while the gross combined mass weighs in at a sobering 7000kg.

Naturally, I would suggest seeking advice and help for any first-timers tackling any kind of towing at that level. Also worth noting that full use of the 350kg download does mean you’re reducing your payload by nearly half, so eight folks on board is probably not going to fly.

There aren’t a lot of good reasons to buy a car this big and extravagant, so it’s unlikely this is going to be a purchase made with hard-headed restraint. Diesel-powered rivals will go further but will sound like a truck. In most cases they’re much newer cars than the teenaged Y62 Patrol on which the Warrior is based.

You could take the cheaper Ti or Ti-L to an aftermarket shop and get many of the same mods, perhaps even slightly cheaper, but all that won’t have a factory warranty.

On the flipside, those aforementioned rivals are often rather more expensive and have extensive options lists on top of that. Some folks just want a Patrol; some want a loud one that rides higher and slops about in the mud to great effect. Nobody really makes a car like this anymore – the V8 is a great selling point – and so if this car ticks your boxes, I can’t see why you wouldn’t. Just don’t get too rock-hoppy happy or you’ll wipe off those side pipes and then where will you be without that roar?

Speaking of that roar, there’s a new Patrol coming and it won’t be a V8, so if that’s your thing, you’ll want to get cracking.

The Nissan website offers plenty of information on the standard and Warrior versions of the Patrol. Clicking on 'Warrior by Premcar' takes you to a dedicated website where you can request a quote. As there is a single model in the range, your choice is pretty straightforward.

Nissan Australia tells us there is good stock in the network and the best people to talk to are Nissan dealers. You can also check our Patrols for sale at Drive Marketplace. Test drives are a must, particularly if you’re on the fence about the extra ride height and the effort required to get in and out.

If you want to stay updated with everything that’s happened to this car since our review, you’ll find all the latest news here.