2013 Nissan Rogue S AWD Review: Features and Controls
What’s New:
- The 2013 Nissan Rogue is unchanged from the 2012 model.
The basic nature of the 2013 Nissan Rogue’s interior extends to the vehicle’s controls. Our S model was without automatic climate control, offering a set of knobs present on the center stack to control temperature and blower speed and a few buttons nestled within them to operate the front and rear defrost systems. Strangely, setting the heater to only blow on our feet kept the front defroster functional, and in fact we were unable to ever completely shut off the upper vents during our time with the crossover.
While we were fine with the easy to use climate controls, we weren’t nearly as enamored with the extremely basic stereo system that came with our entry-level Rogue. Outfitted with a CD player and an AUX line-in, the cramped lines of text displayed by the head unit were difficult to read and looked anachronistic in a 2013 model. We were also completely incapable of figuring out how to link our phones to the car via Bluetooth, which is unusual given Nissan’s high level of user interface design in other automobiles.
Finally, while the gauge pod found directly in front of the driver was legible and clean, we were a bit disappointed with having to reach underneath the dash - to the left of the steering wheel - to access the buttons that disabled stability control and locked the all-wheel drive system. Especially concerning the latter, these features should be located on the center console where they would fall easily to hand instead of forcing us to crouch forward while driving.