2022 Nissan Altima

The volume SV FWD grade runs the 2.5-liter PR25DD naturally aspirated four at 188 hp, carried over unchanged within the L34 generation — 2022 was a feature year (new Midnight Edition Package on the SR 2.5) with no powertrain change. Modest output for a mid-size sedan in a year when rivals fielded turbos and hybrids.

180 lb-ft arriving at 3,600 rpm is typical only of the remaining naturally aspirated fours in the class; the turbocharged and hybrid mid-size sedans of 2022 delivered more torque and delivered it far lower in the rev range.

Nissan publishes no 0–60 claim, so the figure is bracketed from instrumented tests of the mechanically identical PR25DD/Xtronic combination: 7.7 s for the FWD 2.5 and 8.4 s for the heavier AWD car. Roughly 7.8 seconds is adequate but a half-second-plus behind the hybrid Camry and Accord that set the segment's pace.

The naturally aspirated 2.5 has no turbo lag and responds cleanly at part throttle, and Nissan's reverse-cylinder-head design with integrated exhaust manifold genuinely lowered NVH versus the older QR25DE — but reviewers of the 2022 car consistently report that it struggles to build speed and turns coarse and loud when worked. The variable-compression 2.0 turbo is the genuinely refined option and it is confined to one FWD trim, not the volume configuration.

Nissan's Xtronic CVT is standard on every 2022 grade and both engines, and is one of the better executions of the type — reviewers call it well tuned and nearly invisible in daily driving — but it holds revs and drones audibly on merges and climbs, the behavior the segment's conventional eight-speeds and hybrid e-CVTs avoid. Paddle shifters are limited to the SR grade and add a manual mode without real decisiveness.

Intelligent All-Wheel Drive is offered on four of the five 2022 grades — optional on SV, SR and SL and standard on Platinum — which is a real advantage in a segment where the Accord, Sonata and K5 were front-drive only. It is held to the middle band because operation is basic on-demand torque split (0:100 to 50:50) with no terrain modes, low range or torque vectoring, and because it cannot be ordered on the base S or paired with the VC-Turbo.

Two genuinely distinct gas engines — the 188 hp 2.5 and the 248 hp variable-compression 2.0 turbo — plus a front- or all-wheel-drive choice covers mainstream needs and represents the widest lineup this nameplate has offered. What holds it to the middle of the band is the complete absence of any electrified option in a year when Camry, Accord and Sonata all sold hybrids, and the fact that the VC-Turbo is locked to a single FWD trim.

EPA rates the volume 2.5-liter FWD SV at 31 MPG combined — among the best figures any non-hybrid mid-size sedan posted for 2022, helped by a 0.26 coefficient of drag and the Xtronic's tall ratio spread, but well short of the hybrid Camry and Accord that dominated the segment's economy rankings.

City is the weakest leg of the Altima's EPA line: with no hybrid assist to recover braking energy, stop-and-go running returns 27 MPG — respectable for a naturally aspirated mid-sizer but roughly half what a hybrid rival managed around town in 2022.

Highway is where the Altima earns its keep — a 0.26 drag coefficient and a very tall CVT overdrive ratio yield 37 MPG on the volume SV's 17-inch wheels (39 on the base S's 16s), competitive with the best non-hybrid sedans and the core of the car's long-commute case.

EPA's own published total range for the volume SV is 502 miles, and a steady highway run stretches that toward 600 — above average for a mid-size sedan, though short of what the hybrid rivals extract from smaller tanks.

EPA's published annual cost for the volume 2.5 FWD is $2,000 at standard assumptions — cheap against the market as a whole and against most sedans in this catalog, but a few hundred dollars a year worse than the hybrid mid-size sedans it competed with directly in 2022.

Every 2022 Altima, the variable-compression turbo included, is specified for regular unleaded — the VC-Turbo simply trades 12 hp and 6 lb-ft when run on 87 instead of premium, so higher octane buys output and is never a requirement. That is the cheapest and simplest fueling story available in the segment.

The 2022 Altima holds NHTSA's top 5-star overall NCAP result, with side impact and rollover both at 5 stars; the combined frontal result is the weak leg at 4 stars. The rating is identical for the FWD and AWD builds.

2022 is the model year in which the Altima actually earned Top Safety Pick+ under the contemporaneous criteria, with no build or equipment restrictions and a clean sweep of Good across every legacy crashworthiness test. It is held out of the top band by the updated side-impact test IIHS introduced afterward, where the same structure rates Poor — a substantive occupant-protection failure rather than a paperwork technicality, and the reason the award did not survive into later criteria.

Nissan Safety Shield 360 is standard on every 2022 grade including the base S — AEB with pedestrian detection, rear automatic braking, lane departure warning, radar blind-spot warning, rear cross-traffic alert and high-beam assist — and standard radar BSM plus standard rear AEB are genuinely ahead of the 2022 midsize norm. It misses the top band on two of the five benchmark items: adaptive cruise and lane centering both arrive only with ProPILOT Assist, which is optional on the volume SV and unavailable on the S and SR.

The forward system is strong in daylight — Superior against vehicles, Advanced against pedestrians — and rear automatic braking is standard on every grade, coverage few 2022 midsize rivals matched. What keeps it mid-band is the nighttime pedestrian result: IIHS gave no credit at all, tying it to inadequate low-beam illumination, so the system stops working in the conditions where most US pedestrian fatalities happen.

Radar blind-spot warning and rear cross-traffic alert are standard on the base S rather than trim-gated as they still were across much of the 2022 segment, and standard rear automatic braking supplies real intervention behind the car instead of only a chime. It stays out of the top band because the blind-spot system is alert-only with no steering or braking correction into an occupied lane, no safe-exit or rear-occupant alert is offered, and the 360-degree camera is confined to the single most expensive grade.

Lane departure warning is standard across the range, and where ProPILOT Assist is fitted the centering is a well-regarded mainstream implementation. Two things cap the score: availability — the S and SR cannot have it and the volume SV must option it — and reviewer commentary that the Altima's vague on-center steering makes staying centered unaided harder than it should be, with the departure warning chiming often on a windy highway.

ProPILOT Assist pairs full-speed-range Intelligent Cruise Control including stop-and-hold in traffic with lane centering, and reviewers rate the calibration near the top of the 2022 mainstream midsize field for gap management and smoothness. It misses the top band because it is not standard on the volume trim — an SV buyer pays for the Premium Package and an S or SR buyer cannot get it at all — and the 2022 Altima fields plain ProPILOT Assist 1.1 rather than a Navi-link version with map-based speed adjustment.

No hands-free highway driving is offered on the 2022 Altima at any grade or price. ProPILOT Assist is explicitly a hands-on-wheel system, and Nissan fielded no hands-off-capable variant in the US midsize-sedan class for this model year.

IIHS grades every 2022 Altima headlight configuration Acceptable rather than Good, and high-beam assist is standard on all grades, so there is no trim that is actively worse in IIHS's eyes. But the base S still runs halogen projectors where SV and above get LED — the uniformity Nissan only achieved with the 2023 standard-LED change — and these same low beams are what cost the car all credit in the nighttime pedestrian AEB test. No curve-adaptive lighting is offered.

Forward and side sightlines are good for a modern sedan thanks to a low cowl and relatively slim A-pillars, but the fastback-influenced roofline, high rear deck and thick C-pillars pinch the over-the-shoulder and rear views. The 360-degree camera that would compensate is restricted to the single Platinum grade in 2022, leaving the volume SV on the standard rear-view camera plus standard cross-traffic alert.

IIHS grades the LATCH hardware Good — its top ease-of-use rating — and Cars.com found the lower anchors easy to reach under a single upholstery flap with easy top tethers, while midsize rear width and wide-opening doors make two seats genuinely livable. It sits mid-upper rather than top because the fixed rear head restraints get in the way of the tethers, the heavily bolstered seat bottoms push a booster onto the buckle, and the floppy low-sunk buckles are hard for a child to work unaided.

Five seats across the whole 2022 range — the top of the sedan band — with a 3-across rear bench and no alternative configuration offered on any of the nine models.

Nissan publishes the figure both ways and the volume 2.5 SV ships without a moonroof — that is SV Premium Package content — so 39.1 in describes the representative car. Near the top of the mid-size sedan range despite the fastback roofline.

43.8 inches sits at the generous end of the mid-size class and is constant across every 2022 grade; paired with 58.2 in of front shoulder room it is one of the Altima's genuine measurable strengths.

The sloping roofline that gives the L34 Altima its silhouette costs second-row headroom: 36.9 inches falls below the middle of the sedan band, and taller rear passengers sit close to the headliner.

The weakest dimension on the car and the single biggest drag on this category. 35.2 inches is well short of the mid-size sedans the Altima is cross-shopped against, and it is what makes a rear-facing child seat behind a tall driver a real squeeze.

15.4 cubic feet is squarely mid-pack for a mid-size sedan — a full set of luggage or a folded stroller — and the standard 60/40 fold extends it for longer items, but the sedan aperture caps what bulky loads will pass.

Conventional and adequate, with nothing clever in it. The SV gets a console bin with armrest and 12V outlet, a locking glovebox, four cupholders and four door bottle holders, plus a rear-seat release duplicated inside the trunk — a genuinely useful touch. Against that, 2022 offers no wireless charging pad at any grade, no household outlet or inverter anywhere in the range, no underfloor trunk well and no fold-flat front seat, so it sits just below the middle of the band.

Nissan's NASA-derived Zero Gravity front buckets with dual-density foam are a repeated review positive and the SV gets an 8-way power driver's seat as standard — more adjustment than several volume-trim rivals gave in 2022. The limiters are thigh support up front and a flat, low rear bench, and power lumbar is an extra-cost item on the SV rather than standard.

Independent struts front and a multi-link rear with ZF Sachs monotube rear shocks standard on every grade give the volume SV on 17-inch tires a reasonable comfort-versus-control compromise, and Active Ride Control is standard from SV up in 2022. What holds it mid-band is the secondary ride: reviewers agree the initially pliant ride does not absorb every type of bump, and the 19-inch SR and Platinum feel road imperfections more sharply still.

Sources land on 'quiet enough, with one exception'. Consumer Reports calls the car relatively quiet and Edmunds credits it with commendably well-isolated engine noise even under hard acceleration, helped by the 2.5's low-mounted reverse cylinder head; the recurring complaint is road and tire roar, which reviewers say comes through more than expected on anything less than smooth pavement. The volume SV also has no acoustic countermeasure — Active Noise Cancellation is fitted only to the SR VC-Turbo.

Thin on the trim people actually buy. The volume SV gets single-zone air conditioning with a cabin microfilter and no heated seats as standard — those arrive only with the $1,800 SV Premium Package — while dual-zone automatic climate control, rear HVAC vents and a heated steering wheel are reserved for the SL and Platinum. Ventilated seats and rear climate controls are not offered at any price. The bright spot is remote engine start, standard from the base S up.

2022 is the fourth model year of the sixth-generation (L34) Altima, one year ahead of the 2023 facelift, and the entry price is the lowest it would ever be in this generation: $24,550 for the 2.5 S FWD before a $1,025 destination charge, roughly $850 under a 2022 Camry LE and about $2,000 under an Accord LX. Undercutting the two segment benchmarks on sticker is the Altima's core commercial argument, and it puts the car near the bottom of the mid-size sedan band.

The SV is the retail volume grade — it is the first rung with alloy wheels, dual-zone climate and the 8-inch NissanConnect display with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto — and at $26,575 delivered it sits roughly level with a base Camry LE while adding content, and offers all-wheel drive for a flat $1,400 that the front-drive-only Accord cannot match at any price. The whole 2022 ladder, including the 236-hp VC-Turbo and the AWD-only Platinum flagship, stays inside the lower half of the segment band.

The naturally aspirated 2.5-liter PR25DD in the volume SV is a cheap engine to keep — regular fuel, no turbocharger, conventional intervals — and RepairPal rates the car above average for repair frequency and severity. What keeps this mid-pack rather than class-leading is the Xtronic CVT, the component with the segment's worst out-of-warranty reputation and a four-figure replacement once the 60,000-mile powertrain term lapses, plus the absence of any complimentary scheduled maintenance to absorb the first two years of service. The figure blends a high Edmunds projection against a markedly lower aggregator estimate, on the same basis used for this dataset's other mid-size sedan entries.

Resale is the Altima's structural weakness and the item that does most of the damage to this category, since the effective ownership-cost total is driven by depreciation dollars. Heavy rental and fleet placement floods the used market and lingering buyer wariness about Nissan CVTs suppresses private-party demand. 2022 cars are a mild exception — pandemic-era production shortfalls kept used supply thin and propped residuals up a point or two above the Altima's norm — but the car still gives back roughly ten points of retention to a Camry.

Nissan's New Vehicle Limited Warranty runs 36 months or 36,000 miles — the industry floor and the bottom of the framework band. It matches Toyota and Honda but is two years and 24,000 miles short of what a 2022 Sonata or K5 buyer gets at the same money.

Powertrain coverage is 60 months or 60,000 miles, again the band floor. It matters more on this car than on most rivals because the Xtronic CVT is precisely the component Altima shoppers most want covered, and it comes off warranty at 60,000 miles — half the mileage Hyundai and Kia give an original owner.

Nissan includes no complimentary scheduled maintenance on the 2022 Altima — there is no ToyotaCare or Hyundai Complimentary Maintenance equivalent, so the first oil change is out of pocket. What is included keeps this in the 'basic roadside only' band rather than the zero band: roadside assistance runs the full 3 years / 36,000 miles alongside the basic term, and SV and above carry a NissanConnect Services trial with remote start, emergency calling and automatic collision notification. There are no fuel credits and nothing that offsets the floor-level warranty terms.

$26,575 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (54% retained, or about $14,351) leaves about $12,224 in depreciation. Add the projected $5,000 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $17,225 in total.

2022 is one of the two strongest reliability years of the L34 generation and the sources lean positive without reaching the top band. J.D. Power posts 84/100 for the 2022 Altima — inside its 'Great' band (81-90) and four points clear of the 2023 car — and Consumer Reports names 2022 and 2023 the highest-rated years of the current generation, though CR's own verdict for the year is the flatter 'about average reliability compared to other cars from the same model year.' RepairPal rates the nameplate 4.0/5, 11th of 24 midsize cars. The field record is quiet: zero NHTSA recalls and roughly 20 owner complaints for the model year. What holds it below 80 is that CR and J.D. Power disagree on which side of average this sits, the Xtronic CVT remains the unresolved long-term question, and the brand-level dependability result for this exact cohort came back below average (see 6.1.2).

Scored against the dependability study that actually surveyed this model year's cars, not a general impression of Nissan. The J.D. Power 2025 Vehicle Dependability Study polled 34,175 original owners of 2022 model-year vehicles after three years and placed Nissan 17th at 215 PP100 against a 202 industry average — below average, and a clear step back from the 10th-place/170 PP100 showing Nissan recorded in the 2023 VDS on the 2020 cohort. It is not bottom-third: Nissan sits well above the trailing group (Volkswagen 285, Chrysler 282, Jeep 275, Acura 249, Mercedes-Benz 243) and took two model-level awards in the same study, for the Kicks and Murano. Mid-pack-but-trending-down is the honest reading, with the 2013-2018 CVT failure population and its class-action settlements still weighing on the multi-year record.

The 2022 model year carries no NHTSA safety recall at all, more than four years into its life — the single best fact in this category, and a longer clean run than any adjacent year can yet claim. It sits in a gap between the generation's two significant campaigns and is named by neither: the 443,899-unit VC-Turbo engine-bearing recall covers 2019-2020 Altimas, and the 153,376-unit rearview-camera campaign stops at 2021. That is a mid-cycle year built on a body four years into its running changes, not a lucky omission. It falls short of the top of the band only on the TSB side, where CVT judder, reflash and fluid bulletins remain a recurring Nissan service theme and thousands of CVT complaints across 2019-2024 Altimas sit behind no recall and no warranty extension.

Engine and transmission pull in opposite directions, which is the mixed-history band by definition. The volume configuration is the 2.5L PR25DD four — a low-stress, long-lineage Nissan mid-size unit with no high-mileage red flag — driving through a Jatco Xtronic CVT, and the Altima is the model that did the most damage to Nissan's transmission reputation. Current units are materially improved over the 2013-2018 population, but the family has never demonstrated Toyota- or Honda-grade high-mileage durability, and shudder, hesitation and power-loss complaints continue across 2019-2024 cars that no settlement or warranty extension reaches. Worth flagging for anyone shopping the trim walk: 2022 also offered the 2.0L VC-Turbo, the engine later recalled fleet-wide for bearing failure on 2019-2020 cars, but that is not the configuration scored here.

Adequate for the money, never a selling point, and a point or two behind the refreshed car that followed it. The instrument binnacle and door tops are soft-touch, but reviewers repeatedly describe the rest as hard plastic 'that looks soft,' call the cabin bland and place it below the Camry and Accord for refinement. 2022 is the last pre-refresh year — the 8-inch touchscreen was the whole infotainment story, with the 12.3-inch unit arriving only with the 2023 update — so the plainest-cabin-in-the-class verdict lands harder here than on later years. The Zero Gravity front seats remain the cabin's genuine strength, and the Platinum trim (dropped after this year) is the one configuration reviewers describe as using interesting materials.

The low end of 'generally solid with scattered complaints,' and unlike most years that verdict rests on named, physical defects rather than a general impression. Edmunds flags specific assembly misses on the 2022 car — a visible gap where the dashboard meets the windshield, and a hood design that reads as out of alignment — and calls out a broader lack of attention to detail. Set against that, the structure itself is sound, the model year's NHTSA complaint volume is low, and the same reviewers find the car solidly screwed together in normal use. Reviewers also flag persistent wind and road noise, a refinement failing owners routinely read as build quality even where the panel fit is fine. Scored below the 2023 and 2024 cars because those panel-gap criticisms are specific to this year and were not repeated after the refresh.

Brand-level item, and physical access was never the problem: Nissan ran one of the larger US franchised networks through this period, roughly comparable in dealer count to Honda and behind Toyota. What caps the score is mid-pack service satisfaction well behind Toyota and Lexus. Scored a little above the figure this dataset carries for later Altima years because a 2022 buyer bought into the network before Nissan's US restructuring and dealer-count contraction took hold — though that contraction is now a live consideration across whatever ownership horizon remains on this car.

The category's clear strength, and the one item here backed by a hard number. RepairPal puts Altima ownership at $483 a year against a $526 midsize-car average, with 0.27 unscheduled shop visits a year — fewer than typical for the class — and repair severity exactly at the segment norm, so the car is cheaper to keep than its rivals without being unusually fragile. Three decades as one of America's highest-volume sedans means OEM and aftermarket parts are cheap and universally stocked and every independent shop knows the platform, which shares components broadly across Nissan's PR/QR-engine and Xtronic lineup. It stops short of the Camry/Corolla tier because a CVT replacement is a four-figure big-ticket item that shows up disproportionately in this model's long-term cost tail.

Eight inches is the ceiling for 2022 — the 12.3-inch HD display did not arrive until the 2023 facelift — so the volume SV's screen is both the representative and the maximum, and it is small against what the 2022 mid-size sedan field was fitting.

NissanConnect is plain but sane — a shallow menu tree and, importantly, retained physical knobs and hard keys for volume, tuning and climate rather than screen-buried controls. What keeps it mid-band is the hardware: the 8.0-inch panel is small and low-resolution by 2022 standards, it is mounted well forward on the 'gliding wing' dash where it is awkward to read at a glance, and there is no larger or faster option anywhere in the range.

Wired only, at every grade and every price — wireless projection did not reach the Altima until the 2023 refresh bundled it with the 12.3-inch display. Worse, phone projection is not standard across the line at all in 2022: the base S has neither CarPlay nor Android Auto, so it starts at the SV. That is the wired-standard middle of the band, held near its lower edge by the base-trim gap.

The volume SV has no embedded navigation at all — Nissan Door to Door Navigation is SL and Platinum equipment and cannot be added to an SV — so a mid-trim owner navigates by phone projection by default. Onboard voice is command-list recognition plus Siri Eyes Free and Google Assistant hooks, not a natural-language assistant.

A six-speaker AM/FM system is standard through S, SV and SR and is unremarkable. The nine-speaker Bose Premium system with its eight-channel digital amplifier is a real upgrade but is unreachable from the volume trim — it is SL and Platinum equipment and is not in the SV Premium Package, so an SV buyer has no factory route to better sound.

Partial digital, and that is the ceiling — no fully digital gauge display is offered on any 2022 Altima. The SV and above get a 7.0-inch Advanced Drive-Assist colour screen flanked by analogue dials, configurable enough for trip, audio and driver-assist data (and the VC-Turbo's compression-ratio readout); the base S drops to a 5.0-inch meter display.

There is no over-the-air update capability of any consequence on the 2022 Altima. The car has no embedded navigation below the SL, no Wi-Fi hotspot at any grade, and no software-update provision listed anywhere in Nissan's own feature chart — control-module and infotainment updates are a dealer visit. For the volume SV, which cannot even have the connected-services module, the answer is simply none.

The service itself is competent — remote engine start/stop, remote door lock/unlock, vehicle locate, Valet Alert, plus Alexa Skill and Google Assistant Action hooks — but for 2022 it is locked to the SL and Platinum. It is not standard on the volume SV and it is not in the SV Premium Package either, so the buyer of the representative trim cannot get app-based remote control at any price, and where it is fitted it is SiriusXM-subscription content after the trial with no digital key.

The SV's two front and two rear illuminated USB ports — one Type-A and one Type-C in each row — is a sensible count that covers both rows, and better than several 2022 rivals managed for back-seat passengers. It is capped by what is missing everywhere: no wireless charging pad at any grade or in any package for 2022, no household outlet or inverter, and a base S with nothing but a 12-volt socket.

The strongest item in the category and genuinely generous for 2022: Nissan Intelligent Key proximity entry with push-button ignition is standard on every grade including the $24,750 base S, as is a remote engine start system, with Intelligent Climate Control added on the SL and Platinum. It is held out of the top band only by the absence of a phone-as-key and of any hands-free trunk release.

Solid basics, no more. A RearView Monitor is standard on every grade and a rear sonar system is standard from the SV up (a $475 package item on the S), with rear automatic braking backing them up. But the Intelligent Around View 360-degree camera is reserved for the single top Platinum grade in 2022 — not even the SL gets it — and cannot be ordered on the SV at any price, and no automated parking function is offered anywhere in the range.

No head-up display is offered on the 2022 Altima at any grade, in any package, at any price — the feature does not exist in the L34 lineup, while several mid-size rivals offered one on their upper trims for this model year.

The hardware is right — IIHS rates the LATCH system Good, its top ease-of-use grade, with easily reached lower anchors and three top-tether points, and Rear Door Alert is standard on every grade to catch a child left behind. What holds it mid-band is geometry: 35.2 inches of rear legroom is the tightest in the mid-size class, so a rear-facing seat forces the front passenger well forward, and a sedan trunk lip makes stroller loading fussier than a crossover hatch.

A strong family-safety case with one asterisk. Nissan Safety Shield 360 — AEB with pedestrian detection, rear automatic braking, blind-spot warning, rear cross-traffic alert, lane departure warning and high-beam assist — is standard on the SV, SR, SL and Platinum, and the car carries a five-star NHTSA overall rating plus a 2022 IIHS Top Safety Pick+ award with no build restriction. The asterisk is the cheapest trim: on the $24,750 base S the blind-spot and rear-braking half of that suite is a $475 option rather than standard, and ProPILOT Assist's adaptive cruise is SV-package or SL-and-up content.

Four adults will cover distance in reasonable comfort on the Zero Gravity seats with a 15.4 cu ft trunk that takes a family's luggage, but the second row is thin on amenities at the trim a family actually buys: rear HVAC vents are SL and Platinum content, there is no rear climate control, no sunshades, no rear-seat entertainment and no reclining rear bench. The 35.2-inch legroom that pinches child seats also pinches teenagers on hour four.

This is what the car is for. The Xtronic CVT has no low-speed shift shunt, the dual-pinion electric steering is deliberately light around town, the Zero Gravity driver's seat is built for long stints, and ProPILOT Assist — orderable on the SV via the Premium Package — adds full-speed-range adaptive cruise with stop-and-hold that genuinely takes the edge off a jam. Held out of the top band by the 2.5's reluctance and audible strain whenever a merge asks for real throttle.

Cheap to run for a non-hybrid: EPA puts the volume 2.5 FWD SV at 31 MPG combined on regular unleaded for about $2,000 a year, and RepairPal measures actual Altima upkeep at $483 annually against a $526 mid-size-car average. What caps it is the comparison that matters in this segment — a hybrid Camry or Accord roughly halves the fuel half of that bill in stop-and-go running, where the Altima's 27 MPG city is its weakest figure.

Manageable rather than easy. A 37.4-foot curb-to-curb circle is ordinary for the class and the car is a full 192.9 inches long, though a RearView Monitor and rear sonar come standard on the SV to help. The real friction is sightlines — the fastback roofline, high rear deck and thick C-pillars pinch the over-the-shoulder view — and in 2022 the Around View 360-degree camera that would offset that is restricted to the single Platinum grade, unavailable on the SV at any price.

Nissan publishes no towing capacity for the US-market Altima and offers no factory hitch, so it is not a work vehicle in any sense this item measures. There is no bed, no payload rating beyond ordinary occupants and luggage inside a 4,328-lb GVWR, and 188 horsepower through a CVT is not a powertrain meant to work under load. A 15.4 cu ft trunk and a 60/40 fold are the entire cargo story.

Not a work platform, and the one component that would matter under sustained load is the known weak link: Nissan's Xtronic CVT carries a long history of heat-related failures, which is exactly the duty cycle hard work imposes, and it comes off powertrain warranty at 60,000 miles. The PR25DD engine and the body are durable enough for the fleet and rideshare service Altimas routinely see, but nothing about the car is specified for abuse.

Effectively nothing here. No bed, no tie-down system beyond optional trunk hooks, no onboard AC power or inverter at any grade, no roof rails, no factory hitch and no upfitter ecosystem. Interior surfaces are cloth or leather, not washable. Nissan's own accessory list for the car runs to trunk mats, cargo nets and an organiser tray — luggage management, not jobsite provision.

A genuinely good interstate car. 37 MPG highway from a 16.2-gallon tank is roughly 600 miles on a steady cruise (EPA total range 502 miles combined), a 0.26 drag coefficient keeps it unstressed at speed, the Zero Gravity seats are built for exactly this, and ProPILOT Assist's lane centering is among the better-regarded mainstream systems for taking strain out of a long day. Short of the top band because road and tire noise on coarse pavement wears on hour five, and the volume SV has no Active Noise Cancellation.

The Altima has one real adventure card and it was unusual in this segment: Intelligent All-Wheel Drive, orderable on SV, SR and SL for a flat $1,400 and standard on Platinum, when the Accord, Sonata and K5 were front-drive only. That buys genuine confidence on a snowy or gravel trailhead road, backed by cooperative brake-limited-slip and Hill Start Assist. Everything else is against it — roughly five inches of ground clearance, no tow rating, no roof rails, no skid protection and no onboard power for camping.

Standard 60/40-split folding rear seatbacks from the base S mean skis and flat-packs pass through, the releases are duplicated inside the trunk as well as in the cabin, and 15.4 cubic feet is a usable hold — but that is the whole toolkit. There is no underfloor storage well, no roof rails for a box or bike carrier and no hitch for a rack, so anything bulky or dirty has no home. A sedan's aperture is the ceiling on what fits regardless of the volume behind it.

Better than the badge suggests, without being a sport sedan in volume form. Struts front, a multi-link rear, stabilizer bars at both ends and ZF Sachs monotube rear shocks on every grade give secure, reasonably flat cornering, and for 2022 the SV gets Active Ride Control and Intelligent Trace Control as standard — the Maxima-derived chassis-control pair — rather than as package content. The sport-tuned suspension and 19-inch tires that actually sharpen the car are SR FWD equipment, so the volume SV on 215/55R17s is stable and confidence-inspiring rather than eager.

Accurate enough to place the car but short on information. Nissan's dual-pinion electric rack is deliberately tuned light at parking speeds and firms with velocity, which serves the commuter brief, and a 15.3:1 overall ratio with 2.7 turns lock to lock is quick enough. But the assessment reviewers keep repeating is the same one: overly light and vague, with little of the connection that made rivals more satisfying to point.

Trustworthy without being a strong point. Vented 11.65-inch front discs with solid rears, four-channel ABS, electronic brake-force distribution and brake assist are standard on every grade, and Edmunds credits the pedal with linear feedback and prompt response — the tuning is right. What keeps it mid-band is that the same review declines to praise the actual stopping performance, and the volume SV runs modest 215/55R17 all-seasons rather than the SR's wider 235-section rubber.

Two halves that cancel out. The naturally aspirated 2.5 has no turbo lag and clean part-throttle tip-in, and the Xtronic is one of the better-calibrated CVTs — smooth and largely invisible in ordinary driving. Ask for a real overtake and the calibration comes apart audibly: the transmission pins the revs and the car gathers speed slowly, which is the defining complaint about the volume 2.5 for this model year.

Sources genuinely split on this one for 2022. Edmunds found engine noise commendably well isolated even under hard acceleration — the reverse cylinder head and low engine mounting were specifically aimed at that — while the recurring criticism of this powertrain is the sustained CVT drone on a hard merge, where the revs sit at a fixed high value instead of stepping through ratios. The volume SV has no Active Noise Cancellation to mask it, that being SR VC-Turbo equipment.

37.4 feet is unremarkable for a mid-size sedan on a 111.2-inch wheelbase — workable in a parking structure but no better than average, and more than a foot worse than the base S's narrower 16-inch wheel-and-tire package allows.

Sound fundamentals with real gaps at the volume trim. The SV upgrades to an 8-way power driver's seat, the low cowl and slim A-pillars give a good forward view, and Nissan kept physical knobs and hard keys for audio and climate rather than burying them in the 8-inch screen. Against that, 2-way power lumbar is package content the standard SV does without, the touchscreen sits well forward on the 'gliding wing' dash where it is awkward to read at a glance, and the thick C-pillars and high rear deck compromise the over-the-shoulder view.

There is an enthusiast's Altima in the 2022 range — the 248-hp VC-Turbo SR on 19-inch wheels with sport-tuned suspension and paddle shifters — but it is one FWD-only trim at $31,100 and not the volume configuration. The 188-hp 2.5 SV that most buyers take home is competent, composed and quiet-handling but numb through the wheel and vocal without being quick: pleasant, and forgettable.

Nissan Safety Shield 360 is standard on every 2022 Altima — automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic alert, lane departure warning, high beam assist and rear automatic braking — which is real content at a $25,575 entry price. The base S is otherwise thin for 2022 in a way the facelifted 2023 car is not: a 7-inch touchscreen with no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, halogen headlights, cloth, and no ProPILOT Assist until you move up and option it. Smartphone mirroring only becomes standard at SV, which is a notable omission in a class where Toyota and Honda both included it at base.

At $26,575 delivered the volume SV lands about level with a base Camry LE while adding a bigger equipment list, carries a full ADAS suite as standard, returns 31 MPG combined and offers all-wheel drive for a flat $1,400 that Honda cannot match at any price. Against that, the 188-hp 2.5 and CVT are the segment's least satisfying volume powertrain, there is no hybrid option at all in a class that was electrifying, the base car still charges for smartphone mirroring, and the weak residual hands a meaningful share of the purchase-price advantage back at trade-in. Fair value, not a bargain.

2022 is the widest the L34 Altima lineup ever got: five grades and nine orderable configurations across two engines, with Intelligent AWD available on SV, SR and SL for a flat $1,400 and standard on an AWD-only Platinum flagship that the 2023 facelift deleted. AWD down the middle of the range is a genuine point of difference against the front-drive-only Accord. It falls short of a Camry ladder mainly for having no hybrid and no V6, and for restricting the VC-Turbo to a front-drive SR.

The Altima moved 139,956 units in the US in calendar 2022, holding third place in the mid-size class behind the Camry and Accord and comfortably clear of the Sonata and K5 — a strong absolute number, and one achieved in a year when chip-constrained supply capped every mainstream sedan. The trajectory is what caps the score: volume is well off the nameplate's historic peak, a large share goes to rental and fleet, and it fell to 128,030 in 2023 and 113,898 in 2024.

Nissan's US brand equity sits below neutral and the Altima carries more of that baggage than any other Nissan car line: unresolved consumer wariness about Xtronic CVTs, a reputation built on subprime retail and heavy fleet placement, and residual damage from the discount-driven sales strategy of the prior decade that the company was still unwinding in 2022. It shows up directly in the model's resale, which is the weakest number on its ownership-cost scorecard.

Scored on buyer benefit as the item directs. 2022 was the worst year on record to negotiate: industry incentive spending fell from 3.9% of average transaction price in January to a record-low 2.1% by September, the average new vehicle transacted above MSRP every month of the year, and roughly 80% of buyers paid over sticker. The Altima was one of the few mainstream cars where a buyer could still find something — Nissan kept running low-APR and lease offers on it and inventory was less desperate than at Toyota or Honda — but "better than nothing" is where the segment was, and that caps this well below the 70 the same car earns for 2023 once incentives normalized.

2022 is the fourth model year of the L34 generation and the last before the 2023 facelift, so it is squarely mid-cycle and visibly so: the pre-refresh nose and old Nissan badge, a 7-inch base screen, and no hybrid in a class Toyota and Honda were electrifying. The year's only news is a Midnight Edition appearance package and heated mirrors added to the SV Premium package. Nissan announced the restyled 2023 car in September 2022, so late-model-year buyers were knowingly buying the run-out face — but a facelift is not a replacement, and the platform, powertrains and ADAS hardware all carried straight over.

Reviewers place the 2022 Altima in the lower half of mid-size sedan rankings and it wins no comparison tests, with criticism aimed at CVT drone, lethargic acceleration and interior materials behind the class leaders. It does carry a current-year IIHS Top Safety Pick+ badge and lands mid-pack on shopper-facing lists, and ride comfort, fuel economy and available AWD earn consistent credit — but there is no 10Best, NACTOY or comparison-test win on this generation.