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Which is a shame, because if you look at the old micras, they were bullet proof Japanese minis.
I drive a Toyota Aygo. Surprisingly roomy for a tiny car, probably as much as the new micras. At least it doesn't pretend to be something it's not!
In fairness, all the cars mentioned in this thread, with the exception of the older Micras (K10 through to K12) , boot space would be the least of their worries, The Qashqai for instance, I would be more concerned about what comes out of its exhaust than what I could put in the boot.
As for 4WD capability's, the Nissan All Mode system for instance is very clever, its not designed to take you up Everest but in snow or mud for instance it will do much better than a Focus, in fact on any surface it will do much better than a Focus. If you want to go up Everest buy a Land Cruiser. Ive pretty much driven and worked on most of these cross over SUV's, they are what they are, a little car on stilts with an intelligent drive system (optional on things like Dukes) , a decent seating position and an average cars footprint. I quite like them for what they are, cheap cars, but I would never buy one, just not my thing.
- the boot is *tiny* for a car of its size. A fair bit smaller and more irregularly-shaped than my Mum's aforementioned Corsa
- the backrest angle adjustment is a flippy-lever type rather than the simple adjustment wheel that most sensible cars have. That means it's very hard to adjust while driving.
- the gap between the door and the seat isn't big enough to actually get a full-sized adult's arm down either, making it doubly hard to adjust.
- the central armrest is in the way of the handbrake. It's just shit design. Flipping it up moves it, but it's still in the way in a different place. The handbrake is also on the passenger side, which is odd, and I assume an artefact of a car designed primarily for LHD, and they've not moved it for the RHD version to save money.
- the reversing camera has little graded lines to show your trajectory, but those lines don't move when you turn the wheel (and hence show where the car will actually end up) which makes them completely useless.
- the buttons on the steering wheel are *hateful*, including rocker switches that have to pivot so much they're uncomfortable to press, plus unclear labelling of functions (turns out the "i" button scrolls through different driver data on the dash - WTF?!). I've driven a shitload of rental cars over the last few years and the only one that comes close to that level of crapness is the Kia Sportage infotainment but even that was fine in terms of usability outside the touchscreen stereo and generally pretty excellent in all other areas.
I get that fixing a couple of those would increase cost a little, but mostly they speak to unnecessarily poor design, when Ford, VW, Mazda, Renault etc get it so much better in the same price range. I don't expect BMW dynamics or Porsche performance, but when even the Qashqai is so much better you wonder if the Juke was farmed out to a group of interns and not reviewed by management.
Perhaps the design focused on comfort rather than practicality, for instance, adjust your seat when you get into the car before driving it, then shut the door. From what I gather its on the same platform as the Qashqai isnt it? So it should share a lot of the same stuff without cross saturation being a problem.
As for the rest, I don't buy your argument. For optimum comfort you want to be able to adjust your seat while driving, because it's only while driving and settled that you can ever really refine your position. In a car just 3 cm narrower than a Golf it's miles harder to do, just because the choice of mechanism is rubbish and the armrest on the door is super-chunky. It's not the end of the world (I was already 100% sure I'd never buy one well before last week's rental) but it's crapness of design and I will always be frustrated by that no matter where I find it. I guess most people just don't care, or don't even notice (shudder!)
I realise I'm splitting hairs to the point of Emp-ness, but no other car has annoyed me so much, and it's not even that cheap! I'd have an 18-month old *anything else* any day of the week.
for the same price (roughly) I'd have the Dacia over the Nissan all day long. I generally try and like cars, so this isn't a baseless internet rant - but I just couldn't get on with the Juke.
I remember looking at the Qashqai when it first came out as we still had an Almera then and I got as far as thinking it was incredibly cramped for a family car and that's as far as we bothered.
I currently have a Kia Sportage which is really roomy inside for a family of 4 and has the biggest boot of all the medium SUVs I tried - can take family plus all stuff for a week away including wetsuits & bodyboards comfortably.
Only downside is I drive automatics and in a kia I had to have the full AWD rather than 2wd which means 38 to the gallon, the touran auto used to do 50+ all the time.
Is that thing replacing the Ecosport as surely it's the same car other than a few different panels?
The Qashqai is awful. We have friends who have one, and my wife was a passenger in the back. She's tall for a woman (around 5'9") but she was complaining about the lack of leg room. Boot space is utterly awful as well.
The high driving position of SUVs does appeal to some people, and sometimes they are easier to park because they are shorter, but they are so much heavier and less aerodynamic that there is no reason a sane person should want an SUV. If you do live in the country, get a proper 4x4 like a Land Rover or Land Cruiser.
For 95% of people, MPVs are a much better option. I can understand the decline in saloons and conventional hatches. Our Verso is more than a foot shorter than a Mondeo, has 7 seats (although you wouldn't want to put an adult in the back row), and has a reasonably high driving position (for those who like that).
Pity they have discontinued the Cmax, my wife loves hers, because it has a shelf above the radio. When she comes to replace it I doubt they will have the same shelves, so I’ll probably have to whittle one up from some left over wood in the shed.
Exactly. Modern hot hatches are mostly pretty ugly (show me a good looking one...). The puma was really pretty, an absolute triumph of design - it was as if they stole some of Alfa's designers to make something from a fiesta chassis and they made that.
A modern one with that 1l engine would be amazing - economical, small enough to nip around cities, fun to drive and look at, and practical for couples or small families.
You could say the same about the fiesta, but it's not a coupe and doesn't look as nice.
Good grief I loved that car. And I'm *not* a car person.
Ford makes some great cars at the moment, the Fiesta ST and the Focus RS are both great (though the ride in the RS is too hard for UK roads), but the new Puma looks like it's definitely not one of them.
I actually quite like Dacia, the 4x4 version of the Duster is meant to be very capable off road, and there's a definite utilitarian/unpretentious vibe to them which is nice.
The only thing worse than pretentious SUVs is pretentious SUV/coupe crossover things (X4, GLC Coupe etc). The sooner that particular automotive trend runs its course the better.