Nissan was founded in 1933 by Masujiro Hashimoto. Like many other Japanese and Korean manufacturers, Nissan partnered with a European manufacturer (Austin, UK) to gain access to current automobile technologies. Initially Nissan just produced variants of the Austin 7 model but from the 1950's onwards Nissan produced its own models using the experience gained from the Austin partnership. Today Nissan accounts for 7% of U.S. car sales and Nissan expects their market share to increase through 2008/2009 with the popularity of their compact crossover vehicles over the larger, traditional sports utility vehicles. The current SUV/crossover range includes the Nissan Armada, Nissan Murano, Nissan Pathfinder, Nissan Rogue and Nissan Xterra. Nissan is an award winning company with a large range of vehicles selling worldwide. Recent awards include the new Nissan GT-R scooping the prestigious Car of the Year award and the Most Advanced Technology Award in Car of Year Japan awards 2008-2009. The Nissan warranty on all models is a 5-year/60,000-mile limited powertrain warranty in addition to the new vehicle warranty of 36-month/36,000-mile warranty. For peace of mind customers can download copies of warranty documents prior to purchase. According to J.D. Power however, it is unlikely you will need to make a warranty claim, Nissan are extremely reliable cars. In a recent J.D. Power survey, the Nissan Murano was the top ranked midsize SUV, the Nissan Armada took the honours for large SUV and the Nissan Titan was top pick-up!