Can the 2023 Nissan Frontier Stand Up to a Year of Horseplay?

You see, my wife and I have mules. That's not a euphemism for a social disease; I mean actual four-legged, long-eared, piss-me-off-and-I'll-give-you-a-kick-you'll-never-forget mules. And when you have mules—or horses or donkeys or any kind of large animal—you pretty much need a pickup truck, because there's always large, heavy, bulky stuff to be moved (including the animals themselves).

We already own a pickup, a 1993 Chevrolet C2500 with an 8-foot bed. It's a marvelous worker but a miserable driver: hard-riding, parsimoniously equipped, a pain to park, and stunningly inefficient, averaging around 12 mpg. So we have a second vehicle as a daily driver—a Jeep Liberty 4x4, if you must know—and when the Chevy doesn't have a job to do, it's parked at the ranch with the mules.

Something got me thinking the Nissan Frontier could potentially replace both of those vehicles. Sure, that would mean doing without the cutting-edge tech found in our other long-termers, but we were looking for brawn, not brains—a pickup burly enough to handle equine chores, comfortable enough to drive every day, compact enough to work as an urban commuter, and capable of 4x4 adventuring of the kind my wife, Robin, and I never seem to get around to doing. Sure, there would be compromises; the Frontier can't carry as much hay as the heavy Chevy, but I figured a few extra trips to the feed store would be a reasonable trade-off for the convenience of a midsize pickup.

Convenience is important, too, because I've never seriously considered using a pickup truck as my daily driver. Frankly, I've always regarded doing so as a bit silly; with so much of a pickup's size devoted to the bed, daily-driving one seems to me like buying a four-bedroom house and then boarding up half the rooms. I prefer the comfort and convenience of a car or an SUV, but I'm open to having my mind changed.

So we called Nissan's public relations department and asked if they would consider a long-term loan of a 2023 Frontier. They were as surprised at the request as I was, but after hearing how we planned to use their truck, they agreed.

Picking a specific model was easy: I wanted a long-wheelbase Frontier, not just for the combination of crew cab (for dogs and people) and long bed (for hay) but also for maximum towing stability. In my experience, while many midsize trucks have adequate towing capacity for our two-horse trailer, short-wheelbase models don't have the requisite margin of stability for animals, so a long wheelbase it must be. Nissan only offers this configuration in one trim level, the midrange SV. That meant doing without nice-to-haves like leather upholstery and Nissan's fantastic 360-degree parking camera, features reserved for the Pro and Pro-4X models.

Still, this is hardly a bare-bones work truck. All Frontiers are powered by a stout 310-hp 3.8-liter V-6 backed by a nine-speed automatic transmission. Base models get a host of power accessories, to which the SV adds a power driver's seat, upgraded seat cloth, alloy wheels, and snazzier exterior trim. What's more, long-wheelbase SVs include the Convenience package, which is chock full o' things we need or want (spray-in bedliner, class IV hitch receiver with four- and seven-pin wiring connectors, bed rails with movable cleats, LED bed lighting, 120-volt outlets in the cab and bed, dual-zone climate control, and heated seats) and a few we could take or leave (heated steering wheel, lockable glove box, leather on the tiller and shifter). This is a $2,190 package on other SVs, but it's baked into the $40,455 base price of the long-wheelbase version.

We also opted for the $990 Technology package, which adds adaptive cruise control, blind-spot and lane departure warning (but no lane centering), and rear park-distance warning with automatic braking. We passed on the $750 10-speaker Fender audio system, hoping the standard six-speaker system would be good enough. Limited inventory meant we couldn't be too choosy, but Nissan managed to locate a Frontier in Deep Blue Pearl (a color Robin insists is more grown-up than the fire engine red I wanted) with all the options on the wishlist, plus a $210 set of mud flaps.

We then specced a handful of dealer-installed accessories, including a dash cam, spare tire lock, hood graphic, bumper step, power-locking tailgate, hitch receiver cover and rubber floormats (because the hay that goes into a mule must come out again, inevitably, some place we need to walk), all of which we'll talk more about in a future installment. In total, they added $1,871 to the Frontier's price, and that total doesn't include the $136 Prodigy P2 trailer brake controller we had installed.

As soon as it arrived, we put our new Frontier to work; as you read this, it's already shifted more than half a ton of hay and feed, and I had to vacuum out an embarrassing amount of dog hair to get it ready for its photo shoot. Truth be told, I feel a bit sorry for our new long-term Frontier. While most new vehicles live a pristine and cherished life, at least for the first few months, this Frontier is going to be worked like—well, like a mule. Its future is full of muddy boots and drooling dogs, trailers, trails, and lots of hay, and when it isn't doing horse chores, it'll be slogging through Los Angeles traffic. Not what I'd sign up for if I were a shiny new pickup truck, that's for sure.

Will the Frontier prove itself to be the workhorse Nissan says it is? Can it fulfill all of the roles we're asking it to play? Stay tuned with us for the next few months to find out.