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“This review is for a 5 door 58 plate 1.2 (80bhp)...”

written by Big Dave Midlands on 12/03/2009

Good Points
Very easy to drive, decent ride and handling for a small car, good visibility, strong brakes (but not over servoed), good standard audio system with steering wheel remote controls, well equipped.

Bad Points
Some cheap interior fittings (parcel shelf appallingly flimsy) tinny feel to doors and bonnet, Mix and match interior materials, thin seats, lofty driving position, ' bold 'styling, auto ' box 'really strangles what little engine performance there is, cup holders and mp3 player socket too low down, door bins too small to hold much, and the door handles get in the way of contents

General Comments
This review is for a 5 door 58 plate 1.2 (80bhp) Acenta Automatic. I had this as a hire car for three weeks whilst my golf was being repaired following a minor prang, and I covered just less than 1000 miles during that time. I cannot comment on running costs like servicing and insurance but I can comment on what the vehicle is like to live with day to day and used in a variety of conditions including town commuting, motorway work, cross country and city driving.



I am not quite sure what Nissan were aiming for exterior styling wise with the Micra but in my opinion it misses the mark slightly. It tries to look like a happy little car but in my opinion ends up looking a little dumpy around the haunches and the headlights look like toads eyes, the tops of which can be seen from the driver ' s seat. The interior is pleasant enough but does not work as a cohesive whole, and is made up of a variety of textured grey plastics some of which look and feel a bit cheap, and leave the impression of being built to price, shame they didn ' t attempt some more flair here to match the outside.



Considering how tall the Micra looks there isn't as much room inside as I was expecting, and for me the seat didn't go down low enough, I felt very much like I was sat on the seats and not in them, and they offered little support in the bends. Some cars manage the trick of feeling bigger inside than the exterior suggests, the Micra is the reverse of this. The boot lid and front doors felt reasonably solid, but the rear door and bonnet felt very thin and closed with the sound effect of a dustbin lid. The clocks are quite small and garish in appearance, and the steering wheel only adjusts not up and down and not in and out so I felt a little bit hunched up to drive it.



To be fair to the little Nissan I am used to a 2 litre golf so it was never going to match up to that in terms of performance and handling, but all things considered it does well around town with the autobox working well, kicking up into top around 45mph, I also liked the old fashioned switchable overdrive button which gave the car a degree of useful engine braking when approaching traffic queues or roundabouts. On A roads and motorways the car does struggle to maintain a decent pace with meaningful acceleration dropping off after 55-60 mph and once cruising, the automatic box does tend to noisily kick down far too soon for only modest gains in mph, which has an obvious effect on mpg. Despite driving the car steadily I was never able to better 42mpg, which for a small car with a modern 16 valve 1.2 engine is very poor in my opinion. I regularly achieve close to this in my 2.0 golf with careful driving, so I can only assume this is the effect the auto box has on the engine and perhaps also the car had only covered approx 800 miles, so maybe it was still running in. However, the original mini with it's simple a-series engine and 4 speed gearbox was able to achieve better than this...



Handling wise the Micra was tidy and offered surprisingly high levels of confidence around the bends in most situations. The steering was light around town but retained some feel at speed, and the steering wheel mounted stereo controls were useful, but I never managed to figure out how the cruise control worked or what the benefit of the boy racer rear spoiler was.



In summary I would say the current generation Nissan Micra is fairly decent effort at a supermini, but it is the lack of quality touches here and there that let it down, especially when you consider the optimistically high full retail price of almost 10K. Up against more recent competition from Renault, Ford, Mazda and Fiat the Micra looks a little dated and feels like a product from a past era, its replacement cannot come soon enough.