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Jaggy Bunnet's Cars - August 2011
Nissan Juke Tekna 1.6 DiG-T
It Won't Give You Black Eyes!
What do you get if you cross a Nissan Micra with a glamour model – the Nissan Jordon, oops, I mean the Nissan Juke. It just proves what can be done by taking something modest like a Nissan Micra and then superimposing a curvaciously enhanced body on its unpretentious underpinnings.
If that’s a bad analogy, it will get worse. I hadn’t been to the launch of the Nissan Juke, so this was my first chance to get up close and personal. I had seen the pictures and I had heard the tales, but seeing it in the flesh and clambering behind the wheel for the first time allowed me to make up my own mind.
But sitting there grasping the leather trimmed wheel and looking over the bonnet with those two bulges on either side didn’t half make me wonder. Given those protuberant bulges sticking out front, how come Jordan always has black eyes?
I couldn’t figure that one out, because the Juke, fitted with such protruding headlamps can provide even the worst parker with the ideal width gauge. There is no chance of getting wedged in too narrow a space or misjudging the narrow lanes in Glasgow or Edinburgh. But if Jordan is fitted with such a set of markers, then how come she’s always bumping into things and getting black eyes?
As ever, Lady Bunnet explained the phenomenon in words of one syllable, she doesn’t have black eyes, it’s all make-up.
Right.
It makes her look attractive.
Oh, right.
It’s a girl-bling thing.
So that’s alright then.
Anyway, the car itself was a surprise. Once you get past the odd looks, it’s actually very roomy inside. Not that it’s a big car. It just looks big. But it does make the most of what space it has, and even for a big burly bloke getting comfy behind the wheel was not a problem.
In other words, if you’re buying a car for the ‘wee wumman’ but you occasionally need to drive it yourself, then it would be ideal.
Not so ideal was the CVT transmission. I still don’t like these things but it seems to be fashionable these days amongst a growing number of manufacturers to use them. Having said that, this unit works well. You still get the oddly mis-matched noises from under the bonnet, i.e. rising engine note coupled with lack of activity at the wheels, and yet speed does seem to gather.
Given that this model had the latest 1.6 turbo petrol motor it was actually quite quick, but not as quick as the manual gearbox version. Also, this being the top of the range model, it had four wheel drive as standard.
That meant it went well and gripped well, but that’s not quite the same as ‘handling well’. It rolled a bit on corners, although at modest speeds it was perfectly acceptable. On the other hand, the occasional spirited attack on a roundabout would have passengers thinking they were on the Largs/Millport CalMac ferry. So if you drive it sensibly, you’ll be rewarded with a comfy trip.
The only other thing that marred the driving experience was the 17 inch tyres. Additional and unnecessary bling in my opinion (there I go again) as it transmitted the results of a road-ravaged winter through the bodyshell and the soft suspension was unable to soak it all up.
But there’s another thing. If we are going to experience ever worse road surfaces, then a ride in a Juke will feel a lot safer than a ride in a Micra. It’s maybe no tougher than the small saloon, but its bulbous compact crossover body will give occupants the impression that it can cope better.
Although prices start from 14 grand for the basic 1.6 petrol 2WD version, and there is a 1.5 diesel at £14,800, the one I was driving was the top of the range car at over 20 thousand quid.
That’s a lot of money for what is basically a small car, but apart from the 4WD drivetrain, there was a lot of extra kit inside including a colour reversing camera (to make up for the lack of protruding bumps on the rear?), all the in-car connecting electronic wizardry you’re ever likely to need, full leather and heated front seats, and there’s even a hidey hole under the boot floor at the rear.
The trouble is, the more I drove it, the more I liked it. I just wonder if I would like it even more with the standard 16 x 6.5 rims as opposed to these 17x7 inch rims?
But would I have one sitting n my own drive? Well, that’s another question.
In Short:
Price: £20,595.00
Engine: 1.6 4 cyl turbocharged petrol engine with 187 bhp
Performance: 0-62 mph in 8.4 seconds, flat out at 124 mph
Economy: 37.2 mpg (combined)
CO2 emissions: 175 g/km
Insurance Group: 19E
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