I'm just curious if anybody else has had problems with their plastic doorhandles [outer doorhandles] in the Winter...

I had mine freeze up several times this last Winter; snow/water would get behind & under the handle and it wouldn't move to open the door...you can't get at the ice to chip it out...I ended up pouring hot water on the handle to melt the ice (the first time)...since then, I've kept an extra gallon of wiper fluid in the house for days when the handles freeze...

Those plastic handles look too flimsy to try breaking through the ice with them...

I find it strange, because Japan has one of the coldest places on Earth (Mt. Fuji), and you would think that the Nissan people would test their vehicles there as well as in tropical Tokyo...(well, semi-tropical...about the same weather as Atlanta, GA)...

Don't recall that I've had much problem, and I haven't heard of anyone else mentioning it either.

By the way, the Xterra was designed and built in America, I doubt one has ever been in Japan.