I Got A Rented Nissan Rogue Stuck On A Beach For Hours And Now I Love It

I never thought I would ever say this in my life, but I love the Nissan Rogue. Look, I know, I’m still grappling with that realization. The Autopian’s resident Piech-era Volkswagen masochist has fallen for the base model of Nissan’s cash cow crossover. Back in January, I took a 2023 Nissan Rogue S on an unexpected adventure, getting trapped in it on a Florida beach for hours. Over the course of four days, I didn’t just come to respect the crossover, I came to love it.

I’ve started a new tradition that’s really exciting. Since 2023, I’ve been descending into the Tampa Bay area for the Florida RV SuperShow. To make sure I’m ready to go the moment the show opens, I fly in the day before, Monday. The show kicks off the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so when I land, I have some time to rent a car, check into my hotel, and then explore Florida.

Now, I know that Florida has a reputation for being a tourist trap or for being “God’s Waiting Room.” But, look past the world of Disney and the expanses of retirement villages and you’ll find that Florida is a sightseeing gem. It’s breathtaking to drive down the state’s coastal highways, the Everglades are full of natural beauty, and a lifelong dream of mine is to drive down the famous Overseas Highway to the Southernmost Point of the United States. Sadly, the Southernmost Point is a good 6-hour drive one-way from Tampa and about 7 hours from Orlando, so I’ve yet to find the time to make it happen. One day, I will.

When I land in Tampa, I rent a car and start exploring an area within roughly 100 miles of my hotel. I’ve also done this after writing about RVs for the day and I’ve submitted COTD. In doing this, I’ve created a pretty reliable map in my head of the roads in Tampa and nearby St. Petersburg. I can now enjoy Florida’s incredible bridge architecture without getting lost on the way back to my hotel. Oh yes, I did say bridges. The spans in Illinois are usually boring, crumbling, and rusty, but look what Floridians get to drive over!

The Car

Last year, I rented a Nissan Sentra that had low mileage but was already rusting through a scratch it obtained on a rear quarter. Locals told me that’s what happens when you live by the ocean. Aside from that rusty patch, the Sentra was best described as one of the cars of all time. It didn’t do anything that stood out; it just went from one destination to another.

This year, I wanted to rent something more exciting. I don’t get enough seat time in convertibles, so that’s what I set myself on renting. Unfortunately, the United States was experiencing some weird weather in January. Chicago was stuck in a deep freeze where high temperatures were well into the negatives. My beloved Tampa? Thankfully, the temp was 70 degrees that Monday, but the radar showed lots of rain. Worse, the rest of the week had either chilly temps or rain. So, renting a convertible was pointless. I went right back to my usual plan of renting the cheapest thing that runs and drives.

When it came time to book my rental, I took one of those deals where for something like $12 a day plus fees, the rental counter gets to choose what you drive. This was the cheapest deal and I figured so long as I didn’t end up in a Chevy Tahoe or something, I’d still come out on top.

I expected something tiny like a Mitsubishi Mirage, but was genuinely surprised when the folks at the rental counter handed me the key to a 2023 Nissan Rogue S with 450 miles on the odometer. This was legitimately the freshest car I’ve ever rented and I was unexpectedly excited.

Through most of its generations, the Rogue was known as the uninspired Nissan that people scooped by the hundreds of thousands. The compact crossover entered its third generation in the 2021 model year. Nissan says the Rogue didn’t just get a visual overhaul inside and outside, but the crossover got a new platform, too. Automakers love scalable platforms nowadays and the Rogue rides on the Common Module Family (CMF) platform used by a laundry list of Nissan, Renault, and Mercedes-Benz models ranging from the Renault Mégane hatchback to the Mitsubishi Outlander. Nissan claims the CMF platform lends a stiffer chassis, better handling, and a smoother ride. I haven’t driven an older Rogue, but the folks of Car and Driver seem to suggest that Nissan wasn’t blowing smoke. But it’s still a tall crossover, so it’s not like you’re going to be hustling one at a track day anytime soon.

The car buff mags got to test Rogues with AWD, expansive panoramic roofs, tri-zone climate controls, power seats, and leather. My rental was the $28,010 base model. It didn’t have AWD, didn’t have wireless Apple CarPlay, didn’t have Alexa, or even any of the stereo upgrade options. My car was the cheap way for a rental agency to offer an SUV.

Despite that, I found myself surprised at how much I liked the Rogue. Sure, the exterior wasn’t anything to write home about. This is a car you could easily lose in a parking lot. But what I liked was that the design didn’t scream “economy car” at you. Inside, it was even better. Yes, there were hard plastics in a lot of places, but once again, I was left feeling that this was pretty decent for the price. There are more than enough soft-touch materials to compete with the hard stuff and after having driven this car about 500 miles or so, I had no complaints about the comfort of the cloth seats.

Nissan also packed the car with a decent amount of tech for a base model. My rental had a forward collision warning system, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, blind spot warning, a cross-traffic alert, reverse automatic braking, rear sonar, automatic high beams, brake hold, active ride control, and even a system to see if you’re dozing at the wheel. I tested these systems and all of them work as they should. If you want active driver assist systems, you’ll have to get a higher trim level. I’m a bit old-school, so I was happy to find that it was super easy to disable the tech I didn’t care about.

Power comes from a 1.5-liter KR15DDT turbo three. That little guy is putting out 201 HP and 225 lb-ft and sending it through a CVT before reaching just the front wheels. In terms of acceleration, the Rogue will hit 60 mph in 7.8 seconds. That’s not fast, but not slow, either.

The best comment I have for the CVT is that I didn’t notice it was there at first. Nissan did a good job with keeping the new Rogue cabin quiet, so you’re reasonably well isolated from the little engine working hard and from the CVT getting the power to the road. I would punch the throttle, feel a burst of power once the turbo spooled up, and down the highway I went. The Rogue isn’t fast enough to raise your heart rate, but there’s always enough power in reserve for everyday commuting. I was also surprised with the EPA ratings of 30 mpg city and 37 mpg highway. This is a crossover that gets about the same fuel economy as my wife’s Scion iQ!

My Rogue S rental also missed out on the fancier and larger displays offered in more expensive trim levels. Honestly, I didn’t really care. The Rogue S has a hybrid analog and digital instrument cluster that works just fine and the 8-inch infotainment screen didn’t need to be any bigger. There aren’t any flashy graphics here or miles of screen. If you’re not the kind of person who needs the newest iPhone every year, you’ll probably be just fine with the base model. Nissan was also nice enough to make sure the infotainment screen’s navigation was easy enough to pair a phone without headaches.

The Rogue is also pretty competitive. Let’s look at one of the kings of this space, the Toyota RAV4. That car’s $600 more expensive and you get steel wheels and slightly worse fuel economy. On the other hand, performance is about the same and you do get wireless Apple CarPlay. Not bad on Nissan’s part!

One thing I did dislike was the stereo, which might have been one of the worst factory car stereos I’ve ever used. There are four speakers in the base Rogue, and they try to do a lot of heavy lifting. Distortion at higher volumes is extreme and in some cases, makes the music so muffled that you can’t understand lyrics. So, I forced myself to protect my ears and play at lower volumes. The stereo was bizarre because the base model Sentra, a car that was otherwise far more boring, had a stereo multitudes better. Mercedes Jam Session Not Approved. However, the stereo is fine if you play it at normal volumes.

Why Do I Love This Thing?

By all accounts and even my own experience above, the Nissan Rogue S is a tepid, unremarkable car.

It’s a vehicle most enthusiasts will understandably pass and a car that I think even most non-car people probably won’t get too hyped up over. Nissan built a machine that gets you from A to B, hopefully reliably in the process. However, an open NHTSA investigation into Rogue engine failures doesn’t inspire confidence about that latter part. So, why do I have fond memories of driving this car?

That rental car and I went through a lot. Sure, I rented it just because paying for Uber rides for four days would have far exceeded the cost of my rental, which came out to $143 total after tax, tolls, and so on. However, the Rogue turned into more than convenient transportation.

One of the things I dislike the most about where I currently live is that there’s really nowhere exciting for me to go. Often, I want to end a long day by hopping in a car or straddling a motorcycle and just driving in a random direction. Here in Illinois, the roads don’t start getting exciting until I get a decent way from home. Then, I have to turn around because I’ve run out of time. Tampa is different. I’d leave the fairgrounds after a day of writing and immediately find a great road. Maybe it’s one of the epic long coastal bridges, maybe it’s a creepy winding road through swamps, or maybe it’s hopping on the interstate and just cruising. Tampa has all of them within just a few minutes of the hotels I stayed at. I’d hop in that Rogue, crank up my music, and just explore.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, before the show, and when the U.S.-based Autopians had the day off, I decided to tour central Florida’s bridges. As I said before, these spans are as much works of art as they are infrastructure.

I started my day at the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. The bridge, which opened in 1987, carries four lanes of I-275 and is considered to be the flagship bridge of Florida. At night, the Skyway Bridge puts on a dazzling light show and the views when you’re driving over it are simply breathtaking. There’s also a beach near the bridge. The bio I’ve written for my byline does not lie. If it’s warm enough outside and I see a body of water, I’m swimming in it. My favorite spot near Tampa is just outside of the Skyway Bridge. I’ve now taken pics of three cars from the warm waters off of the beach.

As night fell on the area, I decided to expand my brain’s map of St. Petersburg, which took me through the Pinellas Bayway in Pinellas County. There are so many cool bridges and roads out there that I stopped paying attention to time. This area is famous for its vintage drawbridges. However, these drawbridges are expensive to operate and cause delays for motorists and emergency services. It’s also reported that the drawbridges have 50-year lifespans, anyway, so at some point they need to be replaced. The chosen solution to these problems is replacing drawbridges with high fixed spans. That way, boats can travel through and cars can travel over without delay. Unfortunately, high spans do mean locals cannot fish from bridges, but locals adapted by fishing under the bridges.

Bayway Bridge-Structure E caught my attention for its beauty. You can see this bridge standing tall from the interstate and it’s even cooler in person. The Florida Department Of Transportation says the drawbridge that used to be here was replaced by this bridge in 2019 with all construction finished by 2023 on a budget of $56.8 million. The remnants of the old bridge remain in the large beach created at one end, which allowed me to take this photo.

Since the clock indicated a time of around 8 pm, I decided to head back to Tampa, have dinner, and get some sleep before the RV show. I began committing to it, too, and then a thought crept up into my mind. The forecast called for colder weather for the rest of the time I would be in Florida, so it was possible that Monday night was my last chance to get in a swim.

Getting Stuck

I made it to the entrance of I-275 but turned the car back around and headed back to the Pinellas Bayway. As I approached the beach under the bridge, I made the decision that swimming in dark waters in Florida was probably a bad idea. [Ed note: Maybe it’s because I’m a dad now, but all of the people here sometimes feel like my kids and… I’m so glad Mercedes made the right choice here. I’m also super glad she didn’t tell me about this until now. Honestly, might still have a heart attack. – MH]

I know what lurks in Illinois lakes, but am I going to get surprised swimming in Florida at night? Before I got to the beach under the bridge, I ducked into a turnaround and put the Rogue into reverse.

There was only one problem. From the cabin of the Rogue, the area I chose looked like a dirt area. Nope, I drove through mud and onto a surface with sand on top, and some sort of substance underneath that reeked of something that smelled like dead fish. It wasn’t mud, but something worse, and the Rogue didn’t want to reverse through it. The front tires began to sink.

I hopped out of the car and assessed the situation. There was a lot of mud behind me and the front tires started sinking. I was curious, so I went ahead and stepped in the water. It was too cold to swim in, anyway. But I did feel as if the sand stuff closer to the water was packed harder. I formulated a plan to drive a little forward, then send it in reverse, using momentum to carry me across the mud.

That was all great in theory. The only problem was that as soon as I slapped that shifter into reverse, the Rogue dug in. I made my stand there, using techniques I learned off-roading to see if I could free the crossover. Sawing the wheel left and right, going slow, sending it, none of it made a difference. The tires sank and I was stuck in some seriously putrid stuff.

I realized that all wasn’t lost. People in pickups were still driving by. I just had to flag one down and have one of them hook up to the Rogue’s recovery hook.

Then I discovered a new problem. Nissan, in its infinite wisdom, has elected to stop providing cars with recovery bolts. So, the threads were there, but there was nothing to screw into them. And don’t think Nissan put other recovery points in because they weren’t there. Back in 2021, Jason wrote about this and apparently, Nissan figured these tow hooks were pointless because the average Nissan owner wouldn’t know how to use them and tow operators would have the hooks, anyway.

Understandably, none of the pickup drivers that passed by wanted to recover a rental car that didn’t have recovery points. That left me calling the rental company’s roadside assistance. It took the rental company about an hour and a half to find a tow company willing to take the job and another hour and a half for the tow truck to arrive.

That gave me three hours to wait. I thought about braving the waters, anyway. I mean, I’ve been in colder water. Then, I saw something large swim past the area where I was parked. It was too dark to make out what it was, but that made me start backing up. The large figure swimming in the water was followed up by the sounds of what seemed like a feral dog. And then a raccoon showed up, and it didn’t seem pleased that I was parked on its turf. That was more than enough to convince me not just that swimming was a bad idea, but maybe I should just stay in the car.

As the minutes rolled on, I saw the large thing swim by again. I turned on the Rogue’s high beams, which didn’t reveal anything. The raccoon also showed up again, as did many birds ranging from medium to large size. In my rearview, I watched the nighttime fishermen from the beach clear out, leaving me all by myself without a chance of help.

Three hours gives you a lot of time to plan and think. I tore down the rear area of the Rogue, finding places a tow truck operator could place a hook, but no factory recovery gear was found. I also found nothing in the environment that I could use as traction boards. Big branches didn’t help. Nissan really did expect you to do nothing if you got stuck.

Eventually, I gave up and plopped myself down in the driver seat, counting down the minutes until rescue arrived. The Rogue turned out to be a comfy place to get stuck. I had my tunes, cold air-conditioning, and wildlife to look at. The little three-cylinder engine hummed in the background like a sewing machine.

Finally, after a very long wait, a rollback showed up. The driver didn’t believe me when I told him the car didn’t have a recovery hook. He was convinced that a previous renter had stolen it. Do people steal recovery hooks in Florida? At any rate, he didn’t have any recovery hooks. So much for what Nissan said…

Thankfully, the tow truck operator has seen his fair share of stuck cars. He placed a hook on each rear control arm, then pulled the Rogue out an inch at a time. Since my “turnaround” was perpendicular to his truck, he ran the winch at a right angle. As the car got closer, the hooks ran the danger of damaging the car. To fix this, the tow truck operator had to move the rollback. Now, some guys would hop in the truck and move it that way. But he told me his rollback was strong enough that all he had to do was lower the bed to the ground and use the hydraulics to “drive” the truck forward. This worked amazingly well. Sadly, I was so concerned about getting out of there that I forgot to even take a picture of this process.

After about 20 minutes or so of the rollback dance and winching, the tow truck driver got me back on solid ground without a single scratch. $105 later and I learned my lesson about messing around with unknown surfaces in Florida.

The Rogue wasn’t happy with what happened. Ten seconds after taking off toward my hotel, the check engine light came on, a transmission warning appeared on the screen, and the car went into an aggressive limp mode. Seriously, the car wouldn’t go any faster than 5 mph. I figured nothing was actually wrong, so I limped into a gated community and restarted the car. That didn’t work, so I tried again, turning off the car, locking the doors, then reversing that process. I’m not sure if that was a placebo or not, but this time the car started and drove without limp mode. The check engine light remained illuminated, but the car now drove fine. Well, it drove fine except for the gunk in the wheels causing honestly violent vibrations at highway speed. That was fixed with a couple of car washes.

The Beauty Of The Base Model

We’d been through a stupid, avoidable event, and both of us came out of it no worse for wear. Every day after the RV show, I took the Rogue out and hit the roads around Tampa and St. Petersburg. I began to get attached to the Rogue like I did my Volkswagens at home. I never blamed the crossover for getting stuck. I was the one who took a FWD crossover on street tires into some mushy terrain. Maybe I could have gotten out if it had AWD, but it is what it is.

From that point on, I started feeling a bit more connected to that Rogue. It’s easy to hate on a car like this because it doesn’t have a ton of flashy features and yes, it represents automakers’ continued moves away from smaller, arguably cooler cars. Many of our own readers would rather buy a wagon, and I would, too. But, it’s hard to deny that I had great, calming drives sending that quiet crossover down the roads of Florida. The interior was roomy, I had a lot of space to carry stuff in, and I got about 35 mpg without even trying. Most Smart Fortwo owners get that in a car a third of the size that takes premium fuel.

Is it an enthusiast car? Well, that depends on who you are. Many people would say that a Smart isn’t an enthusiast car. Instead, I will say the Rogue is one of those everyday workhorses that don’t get the credit they deserve.

This Nissan was my vehicle for experiences I won’t forget. The Rogue was a comfortable, laid-back cruiser that took me wherever I wanted to go. And even when I let it down, it didn’t let me down. That’s the beauty of base model cars. Sure, they aren’t super desirable, but they’re honest cars. There’s something wonderful about a car that’s just a car, and that’s what the Nissan Rogue is. Its value is not entirely in its performance, design, or marketing, but in what you do with it. For many, the Nissan Rogue will be the car that gets their kid to school, the car that gets a professional to work, and the car that takes a weirdo around Florida to look at bridges.

Update: I suppose I didn’t make myself clear on this meandering journey. When I returned the car I compiled my thoughts and came to a conclusion: Base model cars don’t suck anymore! The days of the “penalty box” appear to be limited. Don’t be afraid to cheap out.

(Images: Author, unless otherwise noted.)