2022 Nissan Pathfinder vs Toyota Highlander Which one SHOULD you BUY?

Welcome ladies and gentlemen, this is the battle of the family size SUVs. I'm here with the 2022 Nissan Pathfinder and the Toyota Highlander. We're going to compare and contrast to help you determine which one should you buy. So we have the higher end limited Toyota Highlander here and the 2022 Nissan Pathfinder Platinum. Thank you so much to Burlington Toyota for providing this Highlander. This one is the 2021. Just so you guys are aware, our sources at Toyota have told us that the 2022 model is no different from the 2021s. And we have the 2022 Nissan Pathfinder. Special thanks to St. Catherine's Nissan for providing this vehicle. But let's jump right into the video guys and we'll start with the price. Now at Cars Unlocked, the first thing we want to compare is the price. Now this one is the 2022 Pathfinder model. It's going to come with an MSRP of $54,398. And then we have the 2021 Highlander. Like I said, nothing's changing between 2021 and 2022, but our MSRP on this one is $54,150. Now this one is the Platinum, so there is a few added bells and whistles. The prices are very similar, so it's not going to be a huge deciding factor for you. There's not a big difference in the price. We're going to go through the mechanics, we're going to go through the drive, the safety, the interior, exterior styling to help you make a proper buying decision. In terms of exterior styling, you can see the stance on the Pathfinder. It's just a little higher than our Toyota here. This one is going to come with a few added features. We have full LED headlights and LED fog lights. This one has a low and a high beam headlight as well. Automatic high beams, you get the rain sensing wipers on the front as well. And then you have the Nissan V-Motion grille. You have a forward camera, you have forward sensors, all which are going to assist when parking. When we compare it to the Toyota, the front styling is a little different. I do like this front little hood scoop down here, flattened out Toyota emblem. Also going to come with your full LED headlights, and then you have your LED fogs down below. Same kind of forward facing camera. We're going to compare the cameras in a minute here, and we have our forward sensors that help when parking. When we compare the side profiles, right now we're looking at the Highlander obviously, and you can see it's a bit more luxury kind of look here. We have the chrome accents throughout the windows. We have the silver roof rails. We do get the LED turning signals on our mirror. There's also Highlander puddle lamps, which light up at nighttime. And then we look at these 20-inch aluminum alloy rims that come with this platinum package. So a little more styling cues here, a little more luxury kind of feel. And then when we transition over to the exterior styling of the Pathfinder, this one, you see it's got a bit more rugged kind of outdoor look that Nissan's going for here. You can tell right by looking at the roof rails. You can also get a blacked out roof here. If you want a two-tone roof, the Pathfinder's offered in a two-tone roof. We do have our nice chrome side sills here, 20-inch aluminum alloy rims as well. So the rims are pretty comparable. It's just a matter of kind of look and feel of what you're going for. A little more rugged and outdoor look to the Pathfinder Boulder stance, while our Toyota Highlander, we have a little more luxury kind of feel and look to it. So those same styling cues kind of continue throughout the back. You can see this is a bit more rugged look to the Pathfinder with this grayed out rear bumper, new Nissan emblem. We have this kind of trunk slat here going all the way across, continuing through our headlights. And you can just see the ground clearance is a little higher on the Pathfinder. It has a bit more higher stance. And you can see this when we look at the Highlander. It certainly has a more luxury look to the rear here. Nice chrome rear bumper accent there. That's going to help when you're putting things in and out. Backup camera comes equipped and we have our Highlander and Platinum badging in chrome as well. Before we get into the power plans guys, just make sure you guys subscribe. Drop a thumbs up on this video if you like what you see here. And comment below, which one would you buy? I love talking about this, but I like hearing what you guys have to say. So would you prefer the Pathfinder? Would you prefer the Highlander? Comment below. But let's get into the power plan here. Nissan has kind of revamped the Pathfinder for 2022. It's going to come equipped with that 3.5 V6 engine. It's going to pump out 284 horsepower and then 259 pounds feet of torque. It's going to come equipped with gas only options and then we'll have a nine speed automatic transmission. So all you guys commenting about the CVTs in the Nissans on all my videos, you don't have to do that on this video. Nine speed automatic. Let me know what you think of that and then you'll get 6,000 pounds of towing. So perfect for towing, whatever you need. Let's check out the power plan of the Highlander. Now the Highlander, you can choose to get a hybrid engine or just a straight gas. So what we have today is a straight gas with the 3.6 V6. It's attached to an eight speed automatic transmission. So a little more horsepower with the Highlander. We're going to take them on the road and compare how they drive. But that's the power plans for you. Let's talk about the fuel economy. In terms of fuel economy on the Pathfinder, you're going to do a 21 mpg in the city or 27 on the highway. That's about 23 combined for all my Canadian friends. 11.6 liters for every 100 kilometers in the city and 9.2 on the highway. About 10.5 combined. When we compare to the Toyota, you're going to get about 24 mpg in the city or 33 on the highway. It's about 27 combined and 11.8 liters per 100 kilometers in the city or 8.6 on the highway, which converts to about 10.3 combined liters per 100 kilometers. So I got roasted in my other videos for saying Toyota. So I'm going to try to say Toyota for you guys here. But in terms of length and size, our Pathfinder is just slightly bigger. Our Toyota Highlander is going to come with a length of 194.9 inches and 76 inches in width. Compared to the Pathfinder, it's actually 197 inches in length. So it's a little longer and it's about one inch wider. Let's compare some of the technology here. Both cars come with the kick trunk activation. So you just give it a kick. There's the Pathfinder one. Nice and easy. You get 16 cubic feet of cargo capacity back here with the third row up. And then let's give the Highlander just a little kick here. Nice and easy. It's a little slower than the Pathfinder, but it worked out well. And same amount of cargo capacity. 16 cubic feet of cargo capacity in the Highlander. Both of them have a little hidden storage underneath. This one, the seats pull back a little further, but definitely satisfied. Both of them have a great kick trunk here, activation there. When you're putting your kids in and out of these family size SUVs, access to the third row and access to the back is key here for your family. Both vehicles are the top model. So they're going to come with your two seated captain chairs. This one is the Pathfinder. You can see it comes with this nice two-tone leather. And then we have the center console as well. Accessing the back is pretty easy. There's a nice little button here and it flops up like that. And I can get in and out. So really smooth transition there to get in and out and access the third row. There's also the curtain there on the window to help kind of just protect your children from the UV rays. Let's check out the Highlander. You can see this one also has the side curtain there on the window as well. However, just getting into the third row isn't the same. You can see it comes up like this or you can fold it like this. It's not like a one-touch button here like the Pathfinder. It's a little more tricky to get into the third row. If you have young kids, it's easy for them to figure out. Real quick before we move on, I just want to show this because I find when I'm showing these cars to customers, their kids just tend to jump around and jump through the center row of these captain chairs. In the Highlander, there is this center cup holder here. So it's really hard for them to do that, especially if you have the cup holders. There's not a lot of space for them to cut through the middle. But let's look at the Pathfinder here. And Nissan's kind of thought of this problem and solved this problem for you. If your kids tend to do that a lot, it does have the removable center console here. I showed this in my full walk around of this and the kids can easily walk through here without having to worry about stepping over anything. And you can just leave the console in your garage or leave it behind or even put it in the trunk. Let's talk about the space in each third row here. I'm jumping in the back of the Pathfinder. It's really tight here. My knees are right up against the seat. I'm a big lad. Well, I'm 5'9", but I can recline the seat. I wouldn't want to sit back here for a long time. Let's check out the Highlander. Let's jump in the back of the Highlander here. I'm pretty limber. Let's fold this seat down. It is still really tight back here. Which one is better? It's hard for me to say. Both of them, I feel very cramped back here. This is really meant for small children. I noticed in the back of the Pathfinder, there's also USB chargers on each side, so your kids can plug in and charge their phones that way. So if that is something you're into, maybe the Pathfinder will be better. But in terms of space, they're both the same. My knees are right against the seat here. So I'm going to compare the business end of both cars now. Driving them is a little two different feels here. Nissan's really done a great job upgrading this Pathfinder for this year. You sit in this Platinum model, you get this kind of two-tone feel to these semi-aniline leather seats. It's going to come with a 12-way adjustable driver's seat and that Nissan Zero Gravity seat. It's a really comfortable seat, leather-wrapped wheel. There's so much to go over in these cars, guys. The biggest thing is technology-wise. This one is going to come with a lot of technology. Wireless Apple CarPlay, 9-inch display, 13 Bose audio speakers in the Pathfinder, and then you get this 12.3-inch information display behind your gauges. So everything is digital up here. There's a ton of things you can do. It comes with the Nissan ProPILOT Assist, which we did a whole video demoing this in the Pathfinder. So it basically will help you drive semi-autonomously. It really helps when you're on the highway and your gauges are all digital. You'll also get that Nissan Safety Shield. So a ton of features like your blind spot monitoring, your lane departure warning, you'll get the intelligent cruise control, rain-sensing wipers, automatic high beam assist, you'll get the rear door alert, a ton of safety features that are added. When we move along here, I really like this. This is one of my favorite things. I love this shifter knob. It's a little different from the shifter knob in the Highlander, but it's really easy to use. It takes some getting used to when you first start out with it. You'll get the QI charger down below, and then you'll have a multiple terrain selector as well. So in terms of driving, we're going to take the Highlander out on the road here in a second and compare how they drive, but this one, the drive is nice and smooth. Let's do a little acceleration here and see how it accelerates. It picks up pretty good. I'd like a little more acceleration in it. You certainly can kind of feel that nine-speed automatic. You're going to get the GPS as well in both vehicles. This one has the Nissan Connect GPS system, so we're going to compare that. This one works very, very well. Nice and easy. You can use your points of interest, things like that. Digital temperature control, and you can control the rear, and let's check out the inside of the Highlander. So now we're behind the wheel of the Highlander, and this one, it does drive well. I really like it. It's very comparable to the Pathfinder. These cars are pretty much almost mirrors of each other. There's a few things the Pathfinder has that this car doesn't. There's a few things that this car has that this one doesn't. Some positives here in this car. Accelerating. Definitely accelerates better, like you can feel the difference. I think it was 11 horsepower more in the Highlander, and you can certainly feel it. It definitely takes off better than the Nissan. This one's going to come with this nice platinum 12-inch display here for your infotainment, so you can do things like your climate control right on the wheel. It's going to come with navigation, your Android Auto, your Apple CarPlay. The Pathfinder comes with wireless. This one's not wireless. This one, there's also no QI charger, so this one, if you want to charge your phone, you got to plug into the USB. There's three of them up here, so that's not a bad thing, but you can't do it wirelessly. You get the eight-speed automatic transmission in this one. In terms of the seats, we're sitting in these nice all-black leather seats, and it does have the white stitching throughout the vehicle. I do like the interior of the Pathfinder a little better with that two-tone look than this straight black look, but the interior is nice in this one. I do like all the soft surfaces. You'll get the JBL sound system in this one, so it does sound great. Your driver's seat's going to be climate controlled, so you have your ventilated and your heated seat, as well as your passenger seat. So this one, it drives very well. Safety-wise, it's comparable to our Pathfinder. You get things like the pre-collision assistant. You'll get the heads-up display in both cars. This one has the radar cruise control. You'll have the lane departure with the steering assist, the rear emergency braking in this one, rear avoidance system, pre-collision system, so there's a ton of features in this one that are comparable. They all just kind of do a little better. In terms of the drive, I like just how this one drives and accelerates better, but I like the technology in the Pathfinder better. That gauge cluster that I mentioned earlier behind the wheel of the Pathfinder is so much better than the one in this Highlander. Just the gauges of this, very basic. Well, that one, you know it's a newer vehicle. It's modernized. Everything is nice. The technology in the Pathfinder is better. The overall acceleration, drive, handling is better in this car, so you guys comment below if you've driven both vehicles and which one you like better, but technology-wise, I like the Pathfinder better. Driveability, I like the Highlander better, so it's very tough. Let's talk about the cameras in each car here, and both of them have positives and negatives of the camera. You can see this is our backup camera of the Toyota on the top, and our Pathfinder is down below. The quality of the Toyota camera is just not on the level of the Pathfinder. You can see how higher definition the video of the Pathfinder is, but you can do a little more with the Toyota camera. For example, like this one has the two wide angles at the top. You have the bird's eye view of the vehicle, and then when it's in park or drive, you can check out your full 360 view of the car. Something you can't do with the Pathfinder, and here it just makes it easier. You can check your surroundings and make sure you're nice in the parking spot after you park. So positives with the Pathfinder camera, you can see a lot more higher definition, but more options with the Toyota camera. Thank you so much for watching guys. Very tough decision. Both cars have a ton of value. Some positives with the Pathfinder, positives with the Highlander. So we're going to leave it up to the internet to decide. Comment below which one you would buy. Hopefully this helped you make a buying decision, and as always, tell me your thoughts in the comments. Subscribe to my channel if you learned something here today, or this video helped you make your buying decision. Make sure you hit that thumbs up button. As always, follow me on Instagram, and we'll see you in the next video.