Putting It To The Test

Nissan's "adverse-tolerance testing" pushes vehicles to their breaking points, with more abuse in a short span than most cars get in a lifetime. In all, we drive over 100,000 miles and inflict over ten years of wear and tear on a test car in less than three months.

Road Work: We painstakingly replicated the worst roads in the world -- uneven cobblestone streets and truck-scarred freeways -- piece by brutal piece at our testing grounds. Our cars are subjected to curbs, railroad crossings and U.S. manhole covers (thought to be the world's most punishing).

Open And Shut: Even with machines running 24 hours a day, it still takes almost a full week to test the doors and latches. The doors are fully opened, slammed, and reopened ten times a minute, over 100,000 times in all.

Water Pressure: During our soak-testing, high pressure water nozzles barrage the vehicle from every angle, hour after hour, while our engineers search for any hint of moisture. Then we further challenge the door and window seals by creating a vacuum inside the car to try to pull water past the seals.