mmarshall

Not surprising as a rental, considering its rather ho-hum interior and somewhat vanilla driving-manners. It's basically an AWD, all-weather appliance....but then, to be fair, that can also be said of some of its competition.

mmarshall

Basically, I agree. But it is also interesting that both Hyundai and Kia, which still build a lot of their vehicles in Korea (especially at the Aisun plant) have had increasing labor and material costs lately. It is one reason (among several) for the steadily increasing prices of their vehicles. Some new Accents and Rios, for example, went up $2000 from 2012 to 2013 (No, I'm not kidding).

dpspider

I think it may have to do with free trade agreement pact made between US and South Korea.

Blackraven

Ah I see. Anyways, what did you guys trade for and what did you guys get in return.

P.S.
In our case, we had a FREE TRADE agreement between us (Philippines) and Japan. One of the conditions was:
-Japan would ease entry for Filipino nurses wanting to work there in Japan

in exchange

-we reduce the price of auto imports for Japan-made vehicles with engine displacement of more than 3000cc (so yeah, prices of Land Cruisers, Lexus ES350, LS460, Nissan Murano and others.......dropped by more than 10%.......due to the removal of the excise duty)

Fair trade

memasterac

As spwolf says, maybe Nissan is building Rogue at S Korean along with its sibling Qashqai? We shouldn't just think the US market demand when trying to figure out the reason.

Also noteworthy, Rogue is the ONLY Nissan in 2012 has the around view monitor as an option!