Nissan is going through a rough patch at present, though the debut of new and heavily updated Armada and Murano models may offer a bit of positive news for the Japanese brand.

I can’t tell you much about those two, or the tangible impacts of 9,000 employee layoffs, but I can speak to some recent drives with two other Nissan models, the new and rugged-looking 2025 Rogue Rock Creek edition and a 2025 Altima SR sedan.

The Rogue, priced at about $37,000, was one of several recent vehicles I’ve had with a three-cylinder engine, though the Toyota GR Corolla’s is a whole different ball game, as I will soon address in a review of the 2025 model. As it has since it debuted on the 2022 Rogue, following the 2021 Rogue’s update to the current model style, the turbocharged 1.5-liter three-cylinder does an impressive job of generating 201 horsepower and 225 lb-ft of torque, and still producing up to 32 mpg on the highway. 

The new all-wheel-drive Rock Creek goes into that off-road-look territory with some modest updates, the most important being Falken Wildpeak all-terrain tires, water-repellent leather-look seating and a tubular roof rack, plus plenty of colored and logoed accents. It’s a popular treatment for normally placid SUVs, as noted in my profile of the now-defunct Toyota RAV4 TRD edition.

While I did not go crashing over rocks or into ravines to test its full capability, I did drive many hours on gravel roads near Wellington Lake, a little south of Bailey, which gave me a taste of its added capabilities.

I appreciated the Rogue’s power, and while the engine can be a bit buzzy at times, you can rev it and the not-so-terrible continuously variable transmission to your heart’s delight, and get plenty of boost. The Rogue required pretty strong steering inputs, but I found the ride to be comfortable on pavement and quite competent on gravel, thanks to those additionally nubby tires.

The Rock Creek upgrade also gives the Rogue an all-around-view monitor, forward and side-view off-road camera views and hill descent control, plus heated front seats and a power outlet in the rear cargo area. Spinning the multi-mode trail control knob activates those off-road cameras. 

The 2025 Rogue options mine lacked sounded a bit more interesting, including Nissan’s upgraded and actually hands-free ProPilot Assist 2.1 system, Google built-in navigation and displays or Invisible Hood View, which allows you to virtually see what’s under the front of the vehicle while driving.

I appreciated the smaller Rogue’s easy entry height, versus fighting with a monstrous full-sized SUV or jacked-up truck, and I found the seating wide and nicely bolstered. There’s a full set of molded mud mats up front and a wide cargo mat in the back.

The extra color accentuates what is already a very busy face, and Rogue sports five-lens, knee-level LED headlamps, sharp-edged LED running lights and a glossy black grille. 

I also had a more dry-road excursion in the 2025 Altima, an SR-trim model with optional all-wheel drive. For 2025, the 248-hp 2.0-liter turbo is no longer an option, with the 182-hp 2.5-liter as the standard option, good for 34 mpg on the highway (and, oddly, producing 6 horsepower more in the front-wheel drive models). It’s a large and comfortable family vehicle, and while SUVs have kicked it from its long-standing run as one of America’s most popular cars, Altima still serves a purpose, for its price. 

Mine had been given quite a bit of additional splash with a blue-pearl paint job, 19-inch Honda/Subaru-styled gold-colored aluminum wheels, a rear spoiler and both illuminated kick plates and ground-level projector lights – all of which boosted the price close to $35,000. 

It’s been literally a decade since I drove an Altima and the current, sixth-generation models, which debuted in 2018, did receive a facelift for 2023 models, but are starting to feel a bit outdated overall, especially considering the splashier new models of its Japanese and Korean competitors. That age shows up in (perhaps blessedly) manual HVAC controls and old-school seat-drop pulls in the trunk, and zero fancy bits like a sport mode, or really many buttons or controls at all.

You may also like the ultra-padded Zero Gravity seats, which are much different than the rigid seating found in most modern vehicles; the Altima’s own single-speed, electronic continuously variable transmission tries very hard to act like a real multi-gear transmission, with oddly blurty faux gear changes as you accelerate, and a very low low gear.      

You can, if you wish, upgrade to an equally glossy SV Special Edition, which adds a more contemporary 12.3-inch touchscreen, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto; mine had the older 8.0-inch display and wired connections.

Andy Stonehouse’s column “Mountain Wheels” publishes Saturdays in the Summit Daily News. Stonehouse has worked as an editor and writer in Colorado since 1998, focusing on automotive coverage since 2004. He lives in Golden. Contact him at summitmountainwheels@gmail.com.