2010 Nissan Micra Review

2010 Nissan Micra

STYLING

Thos expecting another bold design in the mould of the previous Micra and the company's Qashqai and Juke are in for disappointment - if anything, this car looks older than the car it replaces. It's inoffensive, but resembles a Korean model of two or three years back. The story's much the same inside, too.

HANDLING

Well-weighted, electric power steering whose assistance varies with speed makes the Micra easy to handle on urban roads, especially as it has a tight turning circle, but wet weather road holding is below average, and this Nissan does not tackle corners with the enjoyable verve of the Ford Fiesta or the Suzuki Swift.

COMFORT

A wheel that only adjusts for rake slightly compromises the driving position, but the front seats are comfortable, and for the most part so is the ride, though potholes can cause the odd thump. Wind and road noise intrusion is average.

QUALITY & RELIABILITY

This Micra is built in India, in a brand new plant supported by factories newly established by Nissan's suppliers, with the result that fit and finish are no different to any other Nissan. But, the hard-feel dashboard and relatively unsophisticated plastics are less appealing than those in the Fiesta, VW Polo or Fiat Punto, for example.

PERFORMANCE

The Micra's smooth, 80bhp three-cylinder pulls fairly well, and with an impressive absence of the idle vibration that's usually an issue with engines of this type. However, its performance is not as strong as Suzuki's Swift, for example, and the light gearbox needs committed work if brisk progress is required. Committed use of the accelerator is needed to make the CVT automatic get going, and there's a noisy high-rev penalty to go with it, and it grumbles somewhat at low revs.

ROOMINESS

This Micra's a little bigger than the last one, to the benefit of rear seat room, particularly head and knee space, making this a decently comfortable supermini. The boot is a little small, but all that changes when the back seats are folded, to provide a generous and impressively flat load space - increasingly unusual in the class today. Oddments space is good up front too, with two gloveboxes, a shelf, cup-holders and door bins.

STEREO / SAT NAV

The Top Acenta trim comes with an excellent sat nav as standard, and it's a keenly priced option for buyers of the middle Tekna trim. The base Visia pack does not offer the option, however, and the lack of a power socket on this model annoyingly prevents the powering of a portable sat nav. The stereo is pretty good for the class.

RUNNING COSTS

The Micra is competitively priced and equipped, is economical and benefits from significantly lower insurance groupings than before. And its low CO2 emissions make it cheap to tax too. Whether it's more conventional design adversely affects used values effectively remains to be seen.

VALUE FOR MONEY

The entry-level price of the base Visia trim makes the Micra one of the most affordable models to offer 115g/km of CO2, and it comes slightly better equipped than the competition, although the lack of 12 volt power socket for phones is a serious omission.

ENVIRONMENT

Emissions of 115g/km for the manual and 125g/km for the automatic are good, and that's without the stop-start system that Nissan will eventually offer. The planned supercharged 1.2, with emissions of just 95g/km, eliminates the need to offer a diesel.


2010 Nissan Micra


2010 Nissan Micra


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