2016 Nissan Altima: First Drive

The refreshed best-seller in Nissan’s car lineup matches up well to the cutthroat competition.

What is it? A midsize, front-wheel drive, mainstream sedan.

Starting price: $23,325

Competitors: Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Ford Fusion, and Hyundai Sonata

Pros: Sharp looking and nimble handling. Excellent gas mileage.

Cons: Sometimes feels underpowered under heavy acceleration.

Would I buy it with my own money? Yes. The midsize segment is full of nice cars and the Altima stands out with its aggressive exterior compared to the Accord and Camry. It should definitely be on everyone’s consideration list.

We’ve all seen those teen romance movies where an allegedly ugly duckling is transformed into a beauty queen by someone removing the girl’s glasses and letting her hair out of the ponytail. Her beauty, we learn, was there all along, someone just needed expose it. If only the real world was so easy.

Perhaps it was for the Nissan Altima, which underwent a similar transformation with its refreshed exterior. Designers straightened out the Altima’s front end, eliminated its bugged eyes, and reworked its backside to bring out the car’s inner beauty. Better yet, engineers changed the suspension, added some power to the base engine and upgraded the car’s technology to prove that beauty truly is more than sheet metal deep.

The 2016 Altima will also offer a sportier SR model along with four- and six-cylinder engines in all models. Many carmakers have abandoned V-6 midsize models completely in the midsize segment, opting to use turbochargers for more power. Fortunately, Nissan has not.

Nissan needs the Altima to continue to perform well on the road as it does at the dealership. It’s the Japanese carmaker’s most important car in America, where one out of every four vehicles sold by Nissan is an Altima. It’s also the No. 3 best-selling car in the midsize segment, which is more cutthroat than AMC’s “Into the Badlands.”

Indeed the cosmetic makeover replaces the front and rear sheet metal, added new headlamps and LED tail lamps to create a more elegant and aggressive car, but other changes are more important.

The 182-hp 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine was tweaked to increase its compression to 10.3 from 10. Some parts in the engine were replaced to lower friction such as a new coating added to the pistons and a new variable displacement oil pump. These incremental improvements helped the Altima gain 1 mpg on the highway to 39 mpg. It achieves 27 mpg in city driving.

The 3.5L V-6 provides 270 hp and will always be a favorite of mine with its 251 lb-ft of torque. It’s connected to the Xtronic CVT, but includes paddle shifters for a manual mode driving. Of course, that additional power comes with a bite in fuel economy. The 3.5L Altima has an EPA rating of 22 mpg in the city and 32 mpg on the highway.

Suspension changes include new front struts, rear shocks and springs, and new rear bushings that all help smooth out the Altima’s ride. On the road, the Altima is quiet and feels nimble through corners. The new hydraulic/electric steering gives the car a well-weighted feel through corners. The new tires come in 16- or 17-inch sizes and were designed to provide more lateral grip and improved stopping grip. Nissan says the Altima improved stopping distance by 10 percent.

The new Altima is noticeably quieter than its predecessor. The recalibrated continuously variable transmission feels like a traditional automatic and rarely whines, even under heavy acceleration. There is also new acoustic glass on the windshield and more effective sound dampening materials used. The end result is a car that provides a luxuriously quiet ride. That makes the Altima ideal for winding down at the end of the day or collecting your thoughts at the start of it.

The interior improvements include a new center stack and console as well as new seats that are nicely bolstered and comfortable. The interior touch points are soft and new trim has an industrial, but refined, appearance.

The Altima comes with either a 5-inch or 8-inch display screen for navigation and some features. There are also easy to use controls such as the new Siri Eyes Free that allows you to push a button on the steering wheel to activate Siri on your iPhone. It’s refreshing to see a carmaker let people use their cellphone’s capabilities instead of forcing people to use inferior devices in the car.

Then there’s some of the new technology in the Altima that every driver will appreciate including: Forward emergency braking that warn a driver if they are approaching a vehicle too quickly; Intelligent cruise control that will mark the car in front of it and adjust its speed; Blind spot monitoring that turns on a light located on the A pillar when a car is in your blind spot. All of these features are easy to use and make driving just a little less tense.

Nissan also offers its predictive forward collision warning system that monitors the car in front of the car in front of you and will sound the alarm if it suddenly slows down, giving you notice, often before the car in front of you hits its brakes. It’s an ingenious system that uses radar in the best possible ways.

With the Altima comes a new set of apps as well. Every carmaker wants an app and for the most part, these are welcome additions. Some of them connect your phone to the display screen so the driver can operate things like the music playing app Pandora. But some of these features come with a price.

The Nissan Connect Mobile Apps are free. Nissan Connect Services, which uses a cell phone chip in the car, are not. The monthly charges range from $12 to $25 allowing owners to have an app that starts the car, connects you to a concierge type service and call for help. (But that’s only after opting for the $1,180 technology package that includes the larger display screen, intelligent cruise control and predictive forward collision alert.)

If I were to get any of the services, I’d probably choose the $19 package, but I have trouble justifying another monthly subscriber fee, which after Hulu, Netflix and my X-Box subscriptions starts to add up to real money. None of these fees include the monthly satellite radio fee (which is free for the first six months).

There is a stand-alone remote start feature that costs $330. I would definitely recommend that to anyone living in a northern climate, as this is a favorite feature of mine, though it kills your gas mileage.

Finally, there is the all-new SR model, designed to add some sportiness to a pretty sporty car. It comes with 18-inch wheels and paddle shifters on the four- and six-cylinder versions. Nissan expects nearly 20 percent of its sales of the Altima to be SR models. I wouldn’t fault anyone for getting this car for just over $25,000. It’s sharply dressed, comes with a few perks, such as

Ultimately, the Altima is a fine all-around sedan. It’s makeover, while seemingly light at first glance, is much more robust than changes to the front and rear fascias. It’s gone from homely grocery getter, to stylish commuter. It’s not going to carve many canyons, but it’ll certainly be a welcome addition to any driveway or garage.