Now in its seventh generation and called the B17, the Nissan Sentra is of course a long-standing staple in the compact car market, but it has also always lived in the shadows of the Civic and Corolla. The 2014 version is nothing revolutionary and certainly isn’t going to rock the compact car status quo, but it still gives you a lot for the money and despite a few shortcomings it is a perfectly capable car with good value, just what you’d expect from a Sentra.
It comes in seven models trimmed around the S, SV, SR and SL packages, and our test car was the mid-range SV model with the Driver Package options bundle and a navigation package, which has been updated for this model year.
Other than a push button start, it’s a stretch to find anything in the Nissan Sentra SV that you could call “sporty”. The SR model is said to be sportier, but it’s just little flashy visual details with nothing mechanical to actually back them up. All 2014 Sentras have a 1.8-liter I4 that leaves the car feeling underpowered, even for what it is, and our test car had Nissan’s CVT, which in general is a transmission that we’re still not a fan of. Regardless of the application, and it’s obviously in the Sentra to maximize fuel economy, we cannot get past the lack of an actual gear change, or what feels like a gear change. We’ll have to get over it, though. It’s clear that we need to. The big surprise, meanwhile, came from the brakes, as our test car had drums on the back. (4-wheel disc brakes are available). We didn’t even know manufacturers still built cars with drums, but Nissan must have their reasons.
In general, cars keep on getting bigger and bigger, and calling some of these things “compacts” and “subcompacts” just doesn’t seem right in a way because they just aren’t small anymore. The Sentra, for example, felt like what we thought an Altima would feel like. Nissan calls this extra size “class-above”. Even though the Sentra is larger both inside and outside, the new model is 150 pounds lighter than the outgoing model. Well done.
Al Castignetti, general manager, Nissan Division, Nissan North America, Inc., commented, “With the complete redesign for 2013, Sentra is closer in look and feel to Altima than to a typical compact sedan. Like Altima, the new Sentra offers numerous attributes, such as high fuel economy and easy-to-use connectivity, that offer real customer value and convenience.”
