Sentra is "approaching" Teana: An overview of the new Nissan sedan
The "Chinese street" has come a holiday: no, we are not talking about Qingming, which is traditionally celebrated in early April, but about the presentation of a new generation of the most sold car in the country - it was Nissan Sylphy at the end of 2018. The company presented the novelty at the 18th Shanghai Motor Show.
The model has survived three generations for almost 20 years (from 2000 to 2019). Most of the time, until 2012, the car was known as Bluebird Sylphy. In other markets, it had other names - Pulsar and Sentra. By the way, Centra was sold in Russia not so long ago: production of the model started in 2014 at the Izhevsk plant, but it was phased out in 2017, as the demand for this car was low. As a result, the company decided to leave only crossovers in our market. But in China, S-class sedans continue to be loved and bought, so the new generation of family four-door Sylphy is an event of about the same scale as the presentation of the new Solaris in Russia.
However, the platform on the basis of Sylphy is still the same global Nissan V, presented in 2010 and familiar from Juke, Tiida, Micra IV, Leaf and not only. Let me remind you that V, in its turn, is a modernized Nissan B bogie of 2002 model, from which, among other things, B0, familiar to us from Logan and his brothers, has grown.
Nissan persistently calls the Sylphy presented in Shanghai a concept (to make, in particular, as Mercedes-Benz with its GLB: to present the novelty twice and gather a double harvest of references in the media), so there is little technical data. So, they left unanswered the question about the size of the car, but these data are listed on the website of the Chinese Ministry of Industry. It is known that the new sedan is larger than its predecessor: its length has increased by 10 mm (up to 4,641 mm), and the distance between the axles has increased by 12 mm (up to 2,712 mm) - obviously, one of the overhangs has become a little shorter. There is enough space at the back: in any case, it seemed to me that a person is about the size of an average Chinese citizen.
Outwardly, the new generation has become more athletic, and the Chinese themselves continue to call it a "family sedan". Thus, it became more stocky (the height of the novelty was less by 53 mm and amounted to 1 450 mm), received more "aggressive" headlights and bumpers, as well as punches on the sides. The company stressed that the coefficient of the new body Cx is 0.26 - as in Nissan GT-R. In general, the exterior design was "pulled" to the older Altima (also known as Teana). By the way, recently similar design "moved over" also on the new Nissan Versa which is on sale in the USA.
The interior looks rich:
The stand presented the model in brown, and it is for her that a special quilted pattern on the armchairs - "diamond" - is offered. Also, Sylphy can be bought with a black or light grey interior. In addition, the new "four-door" has a two-color front panel, another central tunnel (now with an engine start button), designed in the form of an eight-inch multimedia system display with two analogue "twists" and physical buttons at the bottom, as well as a seven-inch screen in the instrument, which displays the readings of the car's sensors.
The list of equipment includes automatic braking when the accelerator pedal is pressed by mistake (left behind, how the machine determines that the press was wrong, but there was no test drive provided), a frontal collision warning, monitoring of blind spots and transverse traffic from behind, tracking of road markings and other options.
The motor is just as "deserved" as the platform is HR16DE, which is widespread in Russia on the same Logans and other Renault-Nissan Alliance models. The engine power has been increased up to 139 hp, apparently, by setting up the work of phase shifters (it was not possible to get a detailed description of the modifications). The motor works together with the Xtronic variator.
The Celestial Empire market will start selling the car in the summer of 2019. In Russia, of course, we should not wait for it. As mentioned above, at the end of last year Nissan Sylphy turned out to be a bestseller in China: more than 481 thousand cars were sold in total. For comparison, its competitor, Volkswagen Lavida, sold 473,500 cars during the same period. At the beginning of the current year, Sylphy gave up its positions and became the second: most likely, because fans of the model are waiting for a new generation - and it means that it will still have the opportunity to win back.