Rent Nissan Patrol 2021 in Dubai

Most full-size SUVs on Dubai's rental lists want you to be 25 before they hand over the keys. The Nissan Patrol 2021 asks for 21, and that's a genuine gap for a car this size with a V8 under the hood. We deliver it to your door in one to two hours, no trip to a counter first. This is the outgoing Y62 generation, the one Dubai has been driving in real numbers for years, not the redesigned model that came later. What this page settles is whether a younger renter, or anyone else, should actually book seven seats and a 5.6-litre V8, or whether the trip only needs part of what this car offers.

The 5.6-litre V8 and the 4x4 system underneath it

This is the Y62-generation Patrol, the facelifted body-on-frame wagon Nissan has sold across the GCC since 2020, not the redesigned car that followed it. The engine most 2021 Patrols in this fleet carry is a 5.6-litre petrol V8 making 400 hp at 5,800 rpm and 560 Nm at 4,000 rpm, sent through a seven-speed automatic to all four wheels with a genuine low-range transfer case. That's proper desert hardware, not a soft crossover system dressed up to sound tougher than it is.

On the road the V8 does its work without fuss. It settles into 120 km/h on the highway and holds it there quietly, and there's enough torque in reserve that overtaking a slow truck takes a light push of the pedal rather than a downshift and a wait. For something over five metres long, 0-100 km/h in around 6.6 seconds still catches people out at the lights. One thing worth checking before you book: a share of 2021 Patrols in the GCC carry a smaller 4.0-litre V6 instead of the V8. It's a usable engine, just noticeably quieter and less muscular, so if the V8 is why you picked this car, ask us to confirm which engine your unit has.

Seating seven, and where the luggage actually goes

The Patrol seats seven, and the middle row is wide enough for three across, or two adults with room to spare either side. It slides and tips forward on its own, so reaching the third row isn't a wrestling match, and once you're back there the seat is built for an adult on a real drive, not a child folded in for ten minutes.

Luggage is the part to plan around. With all seven seats up, the boot behind the third row takes a couple of soft bags and a pushchair, not a stack of hard suitcases for a full car. Fold one side of the third row down and you get a proper load bay for cases while five or six people still travel. Drop the whole row and it swallows a big family's luggage for a week with room spare. The day this catches people out is the rare one where you need every seat filled and every case packed at once, and for most trips, city errands, a school run, an airport pickup, that day never actually arrives.

What it costs to run, and how fast the cabin cools

A 5.6-litre V8 in a two-and-a-half-tonne SUV was never going to sip fuel, and the combined figure of around 14 L/100km undersells what you'll actually see. Dubai traffic with the AC working hard tends to push real consumption toward 16 or 17 litres per 100 km. The 140-litre tank absorbs that difference well, buying you several days of normal driving between fills even with a heavy right foot.

Mileage is the number that actually needs watching. The daily allowance on this Patrol is 250 km, then AED 0.5 for every kilometre past that. City errands, school runs and airport pickups sit comfortably inside it, but a full day out to Hatta and back is worth a quick tally before you leave. Salik tolls and any RTA fines land on you as the renter, the same as on every car we hand over.

Cooling a cabin this size down takes real effort, and the white paint pulls its weight. A pale body reflects more heat than a dark one, so the panels stay cooler to the touch after a few hours in a July car park, though that advantage stops at the glass, since a windscreen full of direct sun heats the interior no matter the colour. Climb back in and give it a couple of minutes. The front vents pull the temperature down fast, and because the rear vents are properly fed, the third row isn't stuck breathing whatever warm air drifts back from the front.

Parking asks for patience of its own. At just over 5.1 metres long and close to two metres wide, the Patrol wants a full bay rather than the gap near the trolley return, and a Marina tower ramp rewards slow, deliberate driving over confidence. The 275 mm of ground clearance pays that back everywhere else, turning speed bumps and steep mall ramps into things you stop noticing.

When the Patrol is the right call, and when it isn't

Book the Patrol 2021 if you're a large family or a group travelling with real luggage, or if your week genuinely mixes highway distance, seven passengers and a day heading toward the sand. The V8 makes long drives feel shorter than they are, and few rentals in this class do the people-and-cargo job with fewer compromises. At 21, you can book it here without needing an older friend or relative to put their name on the contract, which isn't true of most full-size SUVs in this city.

Look elsewhere if it's one or two of you doing city errands with the odd airport run. You'd be parking a five-metre SUV built for seven and feeding a thirsty V8 for a job a mid-size crossover handles for less money and less effort at the wheel. The lower age limit is worth something, but only if the trip actually needs the seats and the size that come with it.