How many Titans does Nissan need to sell before they stop selling them?

#1 The Titan has never sold over 100,000 like Nissan originally wanted.

#2 sales are down 13.7% YTD

#3 It looks like gasoline is going to $4 a gallon

#4 Competition is heating up. Chevrolet, Toyota, and GMC all put out all new trucks this year, and Ford and Dodge are expected to put out new trucks for 2009 MY. All of those companies sell a lot more so they can afford more configurations and engine choices.

At $4 a gallon I expect to see a shake out in BOF SUVs and Trucks. Lots of RWD cars are coming out and I'm betting that to be the next flavor of the week along with crossovers. If the pickup market takes a 25% hit Ford, GM and Dodge still sell enough trucks to weather the storm, but I don't know if Nissan can. How many do they need to sell the justify Titan 2.0?

 

Nissan as a whole is profitable. They need to be persistent with the Titan. Even if it's losing money now, it is expanding their brand's image and range, and has future potential.

I think a lot of car companies are too quick to kill off models that aren't making money.

For example I don't care of GM wasn't making money on the Camaro - it was just a stupid idea to kill it off. It hurt their image as a brand to not have that car.

Granted if it was creating a huge financial black hole for them that's one thing, but just because sales aren't as ideal as originally expected is no reason to just close up shop on an entire market segment.

 

Agreed, although reasons for Camaro's hiatus are well-documented and had very little to do with the profitability of the car (actually, I believe Camaro was still turning a small profit even in 2002).

I don't think Nissan should give up on Titan, but they do need to rethink their strategy with the line. There simply is not enough variety, from powertrain to cab and bed configurations, to pull a lot of volume.

That, and bumpers that don't noticeably wobble in the commercials would help.

 

Yes, that's VERY obvious!

Unfortuneatly for the Titan, they started off on the wrong foot. After the first year, the trucks got a bad reputation for squeaks, rattles, a few minor things, and bad rear differentials (from what I read) and even automobile publications that once praised the Titan, now rate it poorly for "predicted reliability."

Those factors combined with limited cab/bed options/choices and only one engine combination have let to their lackluster sales.

All that said, if I were in the new truck market, based on "looks" the Titan would be near the top of my list.

 

Like was already said, the Camaro had other reasons for the hiatus. But even without those reasons all it needed was to share a platform with the CTS, or something like Kappa.

GM killed the Caprice and Dodge killed its large RWD platform in the 80/90's so It would not be unreasonable for Nissan to get rid of the Armada and build a Acadia sized crossover then get rid of the Titan and maybe build a larger Frontier next round.

A Frontier that is half way between the current one and the Titan would probably do well. No one is in that niche and they could probably keep 90% of current Titan and Frontier customers with one platform.

 

You mean one truck that would capture 90% of both Frontier and Titan owners, or one platform?

Both of those trucks are already, IIRC, riding on modified versions of the same platform. Nissan needs to keep that 5.6L V8 motor around for other uses anyway (you aren't going to sell an infiniti SUV of even the 'halfway between' size you mentioned, without offering a V8). So to me if they need the drivetrain and platform for other purposes anyway, they might as well just go ahead and offer the two truck sizes instead of just one.

 

If they have one BOF platform that is flexible enough to meet all there truck needs then maybe poor Titan sales won't mean the end of the Titan. They might not have a full line in the future. But they could at least expect to keep the ext cab around. The Armada and Infiniti rebadge will probably be the first to go in things get rough.

 

I had one for 5 months and got rid of it, constant rattles, vibrations, poor quality, electronic nannies that keep you form getting power until after 3k rpms. I had to stuff klennex in the dash to keep it from rattling, drove me nuts on a 4 hour ride! Dealership experience was also horrible! What's sad is they hold their value pretty well. When I traded it in at the Dodge dealership the manager said he was taking it home that night for his personal demo.

 

That's why I said I'd buy one based on looks. I've heard way too many complaints similar to yours to purcahse one. What's funny is my 8 year old silverado is VERY quiet, in terms of rattles and squeaks, (but does have a fair amount of wind noise from the rear ex-cab windows at high speeds, but it's tolerable) The stereo takes care of that

 

Heck, Car and Driver still thinks the Titan is one of the best pickups on the market to this day.

When I hear stories like yours, it does reinforce in my mind how perception is the name of the game these days, not reality.

 

Wucking Funderful...more sky is falling theorism. This is sure to get people running to the pumps to make prices jump to that plateau even sooner.

 

I hope those same people would quit snatching up milk, that stuff is over $4.25 a gallon now and it only travels a few hundred miles max.

 

The "F-Alpha" platform is used on the Titan, Armada, QX56, Pathfinder, Frontier, and XTerra. My guess is that because of this, Nissan doesn't need to hit a sale home run in order to justify keeping the Titan in production. On the other hand, they clearly care about sales, as evidenced by the 2008 MCE (bigger brakes, longer bed offerings, etc.).

 

Correct. It's also important to keep in mind that a vehicle selling less units that desired (or even predicted) is not the same thing as a vehicle loosing money/not making a profit.

The other side of the coin is that selling a lot of units of a vehicel does not mean you are making a profit on them.

Nissan, unfortunately, decided not to build a heavy duty which is unfortunate as it had a lot of innovations that woudl have made it very unique. However the Titan is not going away anytime soon...I don't thknk anyone at Nissan thought it would be easy to make inroads into the full-sized truck market (as Toyota is finding out) and one generation if not nearly enough time to get it done.

I think it's also very clear (or should be) that the era of lot's of people buying large SUVs and Pick-Ups to be the family "second car" (meaning those who buy those vehicles but don't truly need their capabilities) are probably coming to an end...all projections for cross-over SUVs are huge increases...I'd say in a few years time, the full-sized pick-up market will return to the level it enjoyed about 25 years ago when the people who really needed a pick-up bought one and everyone else bought cars.

 

Perhaps the Titan only having 1 engine, a V8 at that, is hurting sales. The 4.0 version of the VQ seems to be pretty potent in the Frontier, maybe they should offer a V6 in the regular cab short bed to increase some sales (though maybe only to fleets).