Editor's Note: In order to meet demand for the incredibly popular Xterra, Nissan has increased production from 60,000 units to 78,000 units, the factory's maximum capacity. Suffice it to say that spare parts will be rare and in much demand, for parts are going to the manufacturing plant, and not much will be left over to go to service departments and body shops. Although the truck spent 45 days in the shop, as detailed in last month's update, we must tell you that this process was probably expedited due to an unintentional gaffe. We were rather flummoxed this month to discover that an executive in our company, whom, we're sure, had the best of intentions, took it upon himself to apprise some bigwigs at Nissan Motor Corporation that an Edmunds.com vehicle was waiting for repair, and that they should do all they could to accelerate the process. Thus, it behooves us to say that the average consumer who does not have a connection to Nissan may not enjoy such a swift completion of bodywork to their Xterra as we did. We apologize for not being able to report a true time frame for accident repair; normally, it is our credo to keep our journalistic status from affecting any part of the ownership process.

Our Nissan Xterra was back in the hands of our associate editor this month, who took possession of the keys despite a rather spotted history with it - she was the perpetrator who gave the steprail and right rear door a slight dent in a darkened parking lot mishap back in November. By the end of the month, however, she, a self-avowed anti-truck propagandist, returned with slightly more amicable feelings towards it, although their time could not pass without a mishap - she bumped a Rubbermaid trash can from the rear, neither the bumper nor the receptacle being any the worse off for it. She fumed that this is one of the downsides of trucks; "Sure, the high seating position's great when you're sitting in traffic and looking into the car next to you for pure entertainment value (and by the way, get a hotel room the next time, you silly goats!), but you will lose a large portion of visibility below the hood and in the back. And sometimes short things in the front or the back of the truck are the most critical things to see."

Our Xterra received its scheduled 15,000-mile tune-up, with its required oil change and 27-point visual inspection. She also mentioned that the alarm system no longer chirped when activated, as well as the fact that at some point, some mischievous imp had changed the right rear signal light bulb from amber to clear, thus posing the safety issue of confusing the schnook behind you into thinking that you're reversing. So she dropped it off at Santa Monica Nissan, where the service advisors were, as ever, friendly and courteous. After shuttling her back to the office, they called four hours later to tell her that the car was ready. Alas, they had failed to change the light bulb because they didn't have it in stock, and had forgotten to mention it to her before she made the grueling 1-mile trek back to the office.

She kept hoping that the bulb would magically change colors, much as leaves do every autumn in their cyclical dance between life and death. Weighing the chances of that happening, she decided to take it back into the shop, where, as she was promised, the vehicle was ready within 20 minutes.

Otherwise, it was an uneventful month for the Aztec Red hauler, as it made its diurnal 24-mile round-trip commute with no incident. She did note that it handled the spoils of a furniture shopping spree with its copious amounts of rear storage, but that it aspirated like an asthmatic when climbing hills, and that the transmission sometimes sluggishly hunted for gears between 1^st and 2^nd. And the high profile/center of gravity gave it a slightly woozy feeling around corners, imparting an unsettling "ooh - I might tip over" impression that urged our editor to take it easy.

The Xterra hauled around various-sized editors to and fro, and got comments from the XL-sized ones that the back seat isn't exactly conducive to comfortable road trips. Nevertheless, the editors in the front were able to avert the kicking and the scratching from the baboons in the rear by promising them ice cream. At the end, she willingly gave up the keys to this most affable, sweet-tempered of vehicles, for ultimately, it's still a truck, with little of the creature comforts or handling characteristics of a car; and the extent to which she has any affection for trucks is the romanticized, nomadic life of long-haul truckers. Call it the residue of a Charlie Kuralt fixation.

Total Odometer Reading: 15,856
Best Fuel Economy: 17.4 mpg
Worst Fuel Economy: 12.5 mpg
Running Average Over Life of Vehicle: 16.0 mpg
Body Damage: $0
Maintenance Costs: $102.42
Problems: None.