Rent Nissan Patrol 2020 in Dubai

Black is the color everyone pictures when they picture the Nissan Patrol 2020, and it is also the color that punishes you hardest on a July afternoon in Dubai. We get this Patrol to your door within one to two hours of booking, and before you commit to that dark paint job it is worth knowing exactly what it costs you against the same V8 in white. Underneath the finish sits the proven Y62-generation drivetrain, a 5.6-litre V8 and genuine four-wheel drive that has made the Patrol the default big SUV in this city for years. This page settles whether the icon-status looks are worth the extra heat, and who actually needs a Patrol this size for the week ahead.

The 5.6 V8 and 4WD hardware, and how it drives

This 2020 car is the Y62 Patrol in its facelifted form, the update Nissan gave this generation before carrying the same body-on-frame platform through several more model years largely unchanged. Under the hood sits a 5.6-litre V8 making 400 hp at 5,800 rpm and 560 Nm at 4,000 rpm, run through a seven-speed automatic and Nissan's All-Mode 4WD system with a proper low-range transfer case rather than a soft electronic imitation of one. That combination gets this two-and-a-half-tonne SUV to 100 km/h in around 6.6 seconds and on to a claimed 210 km/h, numbers that matter less on their own than what they do on Sheikh Zayed Road, where an overtake happens with a light push of the pedal instead of a downshift and a wait.

The low range earns its keep too. It is the difference between a Patrol that manages a soft patch of track near Hatta and a crossover that gets stuck posing for photos there. One thing worth checking before you book: a portion of 2020 Patrols in the GCC carry a 4.0-litre V6 instead of this V8, a fine engine on its own but noticeably calmer and without the numbers above. If the V8 is why you are choosing this car, ask us to confirm the engine on your specific unit.

Third-row seats and the cargo trade-off

Seven seats, sometimes eight if the middle row is a bench instead of captain's chairs, and the third row is built for adults rather than just padding out a spec sheet. It slides and tips forward cleanly, so nobody has to climb over folded seatbacks to reach it, and two adults can sit back there for the length of a real drive, not just the ten minutes to school.

The boot is where you need to plan rather than assume. With all seven seats up, the space behind the third row takes a couple of soft bags and maybe a stroller, not a wall of hard suitcases for a full car. Fold one side of the third row down and you get a genuine load bay for cases while five or six people still travel. Take the whole row out of play and it swallows a family's luggage for a week with room to spare. The situation that catches renters out is needing every seat and every case at once, and on most bookings, a city week, an airport run, a day trip out of town, that situation simply does not come up.

A black cabin, fuel and running cost

Black paint is where the trade-off from the opening actually lands. Dark bodywork absorbs more heat than pale paint, so after a few hours parked in open July sun, this Patrol's panels and glass run noticeably hotter to the touch than the same car in white. The cabin itself gets hot regardless of color once the sun has had a few hours through the windscreen, but the black car starts from a worse position and needs a little longer under the air conditioning before it is properly comfortable. Get back in, let the front vents run hard for a couple of minutes, and the strong rear vents mean the third row is not stuck breathing whatever warm air drifts back from the front in the meantime.

Fuel is the other honest number. Nissan's combined figure sits around 14 L/100km, but stop-start Dubai traffic with the air conditioning working flat out tends to push real consumption toward 16 or 17. The 140-litre tank absorbs that difference well, covering several days of ordinary driving, whether that is school runs, errands or the odd airport trip, before you are back at a station.

Mileage is the number worth planning around. The daily allowance is 250 km, and every kilometre past that costs AED 0.5. That is not a punishing rate on its own, but a full day out toward the mountains or a loop around the emirate adds up faster than most renters expect, so it is worth totting up your route before you leave rather than finding the overage at drop-off. You will need to be 25 to take the keys, and as with any car we hand over, Salik tolls and RTA fines are the renter's responsibility.

Parking asks for the same patience the paint does. At just over 5.1 metres long, this Patrol wants a full bay rather than the gap near the trolley return, and multi-storey ramps reward slow, deliberate driving over confidence. The 275mm of ground clearance pays that back, turning speed bumps and steep mall ramps into non-events instead of things you slow to a crawl for.

The black Patrol's ideal renter, and when to size down

Book it if you are a large family or a group with real luggage, or if your week mixes highway distance, a full complement of passengers and a day out toward Hatta or the dunes. The Y62's V8 and low-range 4WD are not decoration, and the black paint is worth the small heat penalty if the look matters to you as much as the capability does. You will need to be 25 to rent it, and that per-kilometre overage rewards a bit of route planning rather than punishing it outright.

Size down if it is one or two of you handling errands and the occasional airport run, or if you would rather skip a dark car's extra minute or two of cooldown every time you park in the sun. You would be feeding a thirsty V8 and parking a five-metre SUV for a job a mid-size crossover manages on a fraction of the fuel and none of the parking stress. Go white if the color genuinely does not matter to you and faster cabin recovery does. Otherwise, this Patrol earns its keep on the week that actually needs seven seats and real ground clearance, not as a default pick because it is the biggest, best-looking name on the list.