How a 2022 Pathfinder Held My Family Captive in Our Driveway
Shutting off rear automatic emergency braking should not be so hard
2022 Nissan Pathfinder
By Jake Fisher
Some of the Nissan Pathfinder’s badly designed controls and settings gave me a pain in the neck. Let me explain . . .
Most Tuesdays during the summer, I haul around a bunch of mountain bikes for an off-road triathlon series that my boys and I participate in. This routine has given me much experience with mounting and using the bike racks that we evaluated earlier this year.
The hitch-mounted Küat NV 2.0 four-bike rack on the Pathfinder.
Photo: Jake Fisher/Consumer Reports
Loading the bikes on the four-bike Küat platform carrier was simple. As expected, the bikes blocked the rear camera, so I twisted my neck around to look out the back as I began to back up. But just as I began to pick up speed, the brakes slammed on hard. And since my neck was twisted as I was trying to look out the back, the head restraint was no help at all in cushioning the whiplash effect. Ouch! I was going nowhere fast and now my neck hurt—not exactly what I wanted on the way to a grueling race.
Fortunately, I knew exactly what was going on. The 2022 Pathfinder redesign added standard rear automatic emergency braking (rear AEB). Safety systems like this can literally be a life-saver and prevent you from hitting something or someone even if you can’t see what you might be backing into because rear vision is blocked by something, like mountain bikes. But unfortunately, the view of the sensors was blocked, too. Like similar systems, the Nissan not only couldn’t see behind itself but also didn’t have the intelligence to distinguish the bikes on the rack from a stationary object that I might be backing into.
Car engineers know that situations like this occur and allow drivers to shut off the rear AEB system if necessary. The prior week I had been in the Cadillac Escalade and had a similar issue. Like many automakers, Cadillac makes it easy to shut off the rear AEB. The Escalade displays a selection to temporarily disable rear AEB on the center screen as soon as reverse is engaged. Nissan didn’t make it quite that easy.
I looked around for some kind of button or switch that would disable the rear AEB. Without much work, I found a Tow mode. The Pathfinder has an easy-to-use dial that allows the driver to select several driving modes designated by little icons. I assumed Tow mode would save the day by shutting off the rear AEB. After all, rear AEB would likely have similar problems anytime something was being towed. Towing modes also make changes that might help the vehicle drive more smoothly—something also welcome when carrying a bunch of bikes hanging off the rear.
The Drive and Terrain mode control allows the driver to tailor the vehicle performance to the current needs.
Photo: Jake Fisher/Consumer Reports
With a twist of the dial I easily engaged Tow mode, turned my head, and started backing up again. Bam! The brakes slammed on again. Ouch! While towing mode does make some changes to the way the Pathfinder drives, it doesn’t disengage the rear AEB. Now I was getting nervous: We still needed to register for the night’s triathlon, and I hadn’t even left the driveway.
I continued the all-too-familiar treasure hunt of trying to find a setting in a modern car. As with most cars, there are many settings distributed between the center screen and the driver’s display next to the speedometer. After giving up on the center display’s touchscreen I started digging into the gauge cluster settings that are accessed by steering wheel controls.
Eureka! I thought I’d finally found it after a fair amount of trial and error. In the Parking Aids submenu of the Driver Assistance menu, I found a setting for rear sonar. Sonar uses sound waves to detect objects, and much like the echolocation that bats use, it can determine distance to the objects, too. This had to be it! I easily shut it off and was finally on my way.
Setting for the various parking aids can be adjusted using the center screen in the instrument panel.
Photo: Jake Fisher/Consumer Reports
As soon as I shifted to Reverse, I knew I had finally solved the problem since there was no longer an alert warning me of an object behind. Yes! I felt relief that we would get to the race still with plenty of time to spare. Maybe we would even have time for a short swim before the . . . bam! The brakes slammed on hard again. Ouch! I literally couldn’t get out of my driveway and my kids started looking worried. I considered trying to drive forward through some trees so I wouldn’t have to back up, but quickly dismissed the idea. It was time for what I’d been dreading: I pulled out the manual.
Over the 23 years I’ve spent reviewing cars at Consumer Reports, cars have evolved in many impressive ways, including becoming internet-connected computers on wheels. But somehow the manuals are still stuck in the dark ages and seem to be written more to appease lawyers than to help consumers. But unfortunately, I had no choice.
The table of contents from the Pathfinder's owner's manual.
Photo: Nissan
First stop, the table of contents. Instruments and controls? In case of emergency? Pre-driving checks and adjustments? I flipped through these sections and couldn’t find anything close. I headed for the index, where I found automatic emergency braking, but that didn’t lead to anything about the rear system. I continued to search. There were no index entries for the words “Driving Assistance,” “Parking Aids,” or “Sonar” that I saw on the in-car display. My kids were getting anxious, and I was getting desperate. I considered removing the bikes to unblock the sensors, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.
I started reading the index from A-Z. When I got to F, I found “Front and rear sonar system.” That directed me to information on how to shut off the audible alerts that come on when near objects, but nothing about the rear AEB system that had me and my boys captives in our own driveway. Since sonar was indexed under F (for “front”), I checked to see what I could find under R for “rear.” There I found "Rear Automatic Braking (RAB)," and excitedly flipped to the pages that had what I was looking for.
The manual said I needed to select Emergency Brake under Driver Assistance instead of Parking Aids. This didn’t make any sense to me since the emergency brake really has nothing to do with rear automatic emergency braking. Maybe that’s why I didn’t find it at first. It was also strange that they didn’t call it Rear Automatic Braking or RAB like it was called in the manual. That would be more descriptive and understandable, and closer to the terminology that Consumer Reports and others have suggested in the Clearing the Confusion initiative. But I didn’t have time to ponder; I just wanted to get to the race.
I attempted to follow the instructions in the manual but quickly found that they were wrong. There was no setting for Emergency Brake under Driver Assistance. Instead, there was a setting for Emergency Assist. I had seen this setting before and assumed it had something to do with emergency crash notification. Turns out, that was actually what I was looking for all along. We later contacted Nissan to tell the automaker about the discrepancy in the manual. A spokesperson said the company was aware of the error and had already made an update to printed manuals, as well as online publications.
This is the key menu for turning off the rear automatic emergency braking when you have a bike rack or trailer hitched to the Pathfinder.
Photo: Jake Fisher/Consumer Reports
The good news is I was able to back out of the driveway after shutting the rear emergency assist off. The bad news is that I would have to endure this tedious multistep process every time I restarted the car and had to reverse. The Nissan spokesperson said, “Our safety philosophy calls for critical safety systems to be active whenever possible for driver confidence.”
He added, “Rear Automatic Braking is part of the Nissan Safety Shield 360 suite of technologies and as such is activated whenever the vehicle is started for maximum confidence and security. Rear automatic braking can be deactivated on each drive, for towing or carrying bike or ski racks. With 2023 models, we added functionality to allow drivers to disable the system from a graphic that appears in the in-dash driver display.”
How to Shut Off Rear Automatic Braking (RAB) on the 2022 Nissan Pathfinder
Press the left or right arrow on the left side of the steering wheel until Settings displays in the vehicle information display.
Use the scroll dial to select Driver Assistance.
Press the OK button.
Use the scroll dial to Select Emergency Assist.
Press the OK button.
Use the scroll dial to Select Rear.
Press the OK button.
These systems shouldn’t be so hard to use and adjust. Driver aids like rear AEB prevent crashes and injuries, but drivers aren’t going to want such systems if they become a nuisance. A better rear system wouldn’t be blocked by the bikes, or if it was it would let the driver know it couldn’t be effective. Drivers shouldn’t have to leaf through manuals, trying to parse challenging nomenclature, to figure out how to change settings, It should be obvious. A physical button would have been terrific. Or even an on-screen warning with an option to override. And there’s no excuse for naming something different in the car and in the manual.
I am happy to report that I made it to the triathlon on time and my neck felt much better after the swim. I like the Pathfinder, and it’s a great choice for an active family. It’s comfortable, drives well, and has lots of room inside for people and stuff. Most will never have the problem I did. And if they do, updated instructions in the manual will help, but I don’t envy anyone with a Pathfinder that routinely carries bikes on a hitch mount.
Fortunately, I was able to change test cars the next day, but others won’t have that luxury. The Pathfinder isn’t the only car that makes backing up with a bike rack a challenge, so it pays to spend a little extra time on the test drive learning how key systems work. Make sure you mimic all facets of how you will use the vehicle. If you can’t try a bike rack, then do follow-through with how it installs and how the car’s systems may react. Check all the settings, connect your phone, see how easy it is to switch between CarPlay or Android Auto and the radio, try the back seat, and so on. And make sure you scour through our detailed road tests before you invest in your new car.
2022 Nissan Pathfinder
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