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Babbling Car Review: 2012 Nissan Juke FWD 6MT
13 years ago
I am not a car expert. I am not a gearhead. I am, however, slowly beginning to like cars more and more. Since I just bought one, I'm going to review it.
I started off driving a Toyota Van (aka the Bolivian Terrorist Van), then graduated to a Toyota Previa (The Blue Jellybean), then bought a Scion xB (which was still a Toyota but shaped like a toaster this time). The xB was a great car in that it was cheap, spacious, still a compact car, and economic. Those are all really good 'getting from a to b' characteristics. However, as a car that you drive, it stank. It had no power, the engine sounded like it would blow up if you revved it up, it smelled like farts all of the time (a known issue), and hitting a bump larger than a pebble made a sound like something was punching through the sheet metal. Also, turning a corner meant you felt like you were going to understeer into a ditch or roll over, with lots of tire squealing. And the shifter felt like it was a sponge. The clutch felt like it was another sponge.
Now, I have a Nissan Juke SV FWD 6MT. You can see a picture of one here: http://www.nissanusa.com/juke#/phot.....terior-photos/ The sort of slate one in the 360 thingy looks exactly like my car. It looks either like a frog, a hippo, an alligator, or from some angles, somewhat catlike. The headlights are from some little European rally car, the wheel bulges are from an old Corvette, the front grin is like someone shrunk the smile on a Murano, and the back door handles are those weird 'hidden' ones.
If you think this car looks like a hunk of ugly shit, you can stop reading, because you will probably not ever change your mind. Go buy a WRX or some old crappy furry car you can 'fix up' or a BMW or something.
Otherwise, it is easily summed up as: one gigantic quirk.
There are no places to put your stuff, really - the cargo area is cut off by the hatch, and the floor is rather high so it isn't that big in the back. Back seat passengers will hate you for making them get into it unless they're short or have no legs. There are no storage cubbies. The dashboard is too curvy to set stuff upon. The radio is irritatingly bare-bones, and the available nav system... forget about it.
The suspension is quite harsh, the engine tone sounds more like a blender than an engine (the CVT model is far more blender-like), the direct injection system clatters like a diesel at startup or under high rev/low load conditions, and the programmed rev float that makes shifting easier makes it impossible to 'creep' along in first gear without giving yourself whiplash. The door armrests are too high to use, the window opening makes it painful to reach out into ATMs. The brake pedal makes an annoying clank when you quickly step off it (it's only a cosmetic issue). The automatic climate control tends to fry you in winter and freeze you in summer. The hood over the gauges seems to be off center, although it's designed that way. The seats are kind of uncomfortable at first, and aren't bolstered very well - combined with sitting upright, you have to hang on tight when taking a corner quickly. They're also hard to adjust if you have the wrong combination of body parts, so you end up too close to the steering wheel or having the active headrests tilt your head forward. On top of all that, there's no torque under 2500rpm.
So aside from being 'ugly', it probably sounds like this car is basically crap. But, and this might be due to Nissan and Renault owning each other, the Juke has a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi that makes it quirkily awesome.
No place to put your stuff? Why do you need stuff while driving around, anyway?
No torque under 2500rpm? Yes, but thanks to the turbocharger on the little 1.6L engine, you get almost flat torque from about 2800 to the fuel cutoff at about 6400rpm, and that means you have almost all of the 177ft-lbs to play with when you're actually moving. Keep the RPMs low and you'll get a turbo kick every time you shift, not to mention a bit of huff from the turbo dump valve. Keep them over 3000 and you won't feel but a tiny little smidge of turbo lag. And unlike my old xB, the 1.6L in the Juke really _wants_ to be revved up a lot. The engine sound really is terrible, although an aftermarket glasspack exhaust helps quite a bit.
The transmission has one of those damped clutches that just sort of goes in and out, but combined with a notchy shifter, you can really bang through gears quite fast. With the upgraded exhaust, there's even a nice gurgle when downshifting, which is easy enough to do with the rev float (2nd gear takes double-clutching most of the time, though.) 6th gear is not super tall, but that means you tend to be on boost at highway speeds so you can pass without downshifting unless you're trying to drive like a nutcase. Fuel economy is eh, about 27MPG combined. However, I drive the shit out of it, and get 27MPG. On 10% ethanol - premium, for maximum power. It's a high-compression engine with a turbocharger; that's how they roll. (There's some forum talk about how the engine runs too rich, which some ECU tuners are planning to fix. It runs rich enough to soot up the exhaust pipe quickly.)
I test drove two of the CVT-equipped AWD models, which have some additional fun bits. The X-Tronic 2 CVT is quite decent most of the time, hurtling you 0 to 60 quite fast, although they tend to exaggerate the initial boost lag and make it feel like you're in mud until you hit 15MPH. Otherwise, it's quite responsive. The AWD has independent rear suspension and true torque vectoring AWD, which helps yank you through corners. It really works, although it isn't an off-road 4WD system. The manual shift feature on the CVT even works fairly well, although the lever is irritatingly backwards from a manual shift lever and there are no 'flappy paddles' on the steering wheel.
While the suspension really is rough and the short wheelbase means you bounce around, going through corners the car really seems to want you to try going faster, rather than scaring you into slowing down. 35MPH corner? You can probably take it at 55 with no sweat. Even more surprising, dirt roads are no more unpleasant to drive on than pavement. My xB felt like it would shake to bits on a dirt road, but the Juke happily skitters along in a cloud of dust. While FWD cars are not meant for drifting, I might have drifted through a dirt corner the other day 'by accident'.
Plus, on road trips, it's really quite comfortable - cruise control in a stick shift even works quite nicely thanks to the turbocharger's torque blast, only requiring downshifts if you actually have to go up a steep hill or quickly pass another car.
After a whole lot of babbling: The Juke is weird. It is far from perfect, and is probably not a good first choice unless you want a weird-looking sporty car that is form over function (but still functional). As a 'my first sporty car', it is definitely a blast.
I started off driving a Toyota Van (aka the Bolivian Terrorist Van), then graduated to a Toyota Previa (The Blue Jellybean), then bought a Scion xB (which was still a Toyota but shaped like a toaster this time). The xB was a great car in that it was cheap, spacious, still a compact car, and economic. Those are all really good 'getting from a to b' characteristics. However, as a car that you drive, it stank. It had no power, the engine sounded like it would blow up if you revved it up, it smelled like farts all of the time (a known issue), and hitting a bump larger than a pebble made a sound like something was punching through the sheet metal. Also, turning a corner meant you felt like you were going to understeer into a ditch or roll over, with lots of tire squealing. And the shifter felt like it was a sponge. The clutch felt like it was another sponge.
Now, I have a Nissan Juke SV FWD 6MT. You can see a picture of one here: http://www.nissanusa.com/juke#/phot.....terior-photos/ The sort of slate one in the 360 thingy looks exactly like my car. It looks either like a frog, a hippo, an alligator, or from some angles, somewhat catlike. The headlights are from some little European rally car, the wheel bulges are from an old Corvette, the front grin is like someone shrunk the smile on a Murano, and the back door handles are those weird 'hidden' ones.
If you think this car looks like a hunk of ugly shit, you can stop reading, because you will probably not ever change your mind. Go buy a WRX or some old crappy furry car you can 'fix up' or a BMW or something.
Otherwise, it is easily summed up as: one gigantic quirk.
There are no places to put your stuff, really - the cargo area is cut off by the hatch, and the floor is rather high so it isn't that big in the back. Back seat passengers will hate you for making them get into it unless they're short or have no legs. There are no storage cubbies. The dashboard is too curvy to set stuff upon. The radio is irritatingly bare-bones, and the available nav system... forget about it.
The suspension is quite harsh, the engine tone sounds more like a blender than an engine (the CVT model is far more blender-like), the direct injection system clatters like a diesel at startup or under high rev/low load conditions, and the programmed rev float that makes shifting easier makes it impossible to 'creep' along in first gear without giving yourself whiplash. The door armrests are too high to use, the window opening makes it painful to reach out into ATMs. The brake pedal makes an annoying clank when you quickly step off it (it's only a cosmetic issue). The automatic climate control tends to fry you in winter and freeze you in summer. The hood over the gauges seems to be off center, although it's designed that way. The seats are kind of uncomfortable at first, and aren't bolstered very well - combined with sitting upright, you have to hang on tight when taking a corner quickly. They're also hard to adjust if you have the wrong combination of body parts, so you end up too close to the steering wheel or having the active headrests tilt your head forward. On top of all that, there's no torque under 2500rpm.
So aside from being 'ugly', it probably sounds like this car is basically crap. But, and this might be due to Nissan and Renault owning each other, the Juke has a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi that makes it quirkily awesome.
No place to put your stuff? Why do you need stuff while driving around, anyway?
No torque under 2500rpm? Yes, but thanks to the turbocharger on the little 1.6L engine, you get almost flat torque from about 2800 to the fuel cutoff at about 6400rpm, and that means you have almost all of the 177ft-lbs to play with when you're actually moving. Keep the RPMs low and you'll get a turbo kick every time you shift, not to mention a bit of huff from the turbo dump valve. Keep them over 3000 and you won't feel but a tiny little smidge of turbo lag. And unlike my old xB, the 1.6L in the Juke really _wants_ to be revved up a lot. The engine sound really is terrible, although an aftermarket glasspack exhaust helps quite a bit.
The transmission has one of those damped clutches that just sort of goes in and out, but combined with a notchy shifter, you can really bang through gears quite fast. With the upgraded exhaust, there's even a nice gurgle when downshifting, which is easy enough to do with the rev float (2nd gear takes double-clutching most of the time, though.) 6th gear is not super tall, but that means you tend to be on boost at highway speeds so you can pass without downshifting unless you're trying to drive like a nutcase. Fuel economy is eh, about 27MPG combined. However, I drive the shit out of it, and get 27MPG. On 10% ethanol - premium, for maximum power. It's a high-compression engine with a turbocharger; that's how they roll. (There's some forum talk about how the engine runs too rich, which some ECU tuners are planning to fix. It runs rich enough to soot up the exhaust pipe quickly.)
I test drove two of the CVT-equipped AWD models, which have some additional fun bits. The X-Tronic 2 CVT is quite decent most of the time, hurtling you 0 to 60 quite fast, although they tend to exaggerate the initial boost lag and make it feel like you're in mud until you hit 15MPH. Otherwise, it's quite responsive. The AWD has independent rear suspension and true torque vectoring AWD, which helps yank you through corners. It really works, although it isn't an off-road 4WD system. The manual shift feature on the CVT even works fairly well, although the lever is irritatingly backwards from a manual shift lever and there are no 'flappy paddles' on the steering wheel.
While the suspension really is rough and the short wheelbase means you bounce around, going through corners the car really seems to want you to try going faster, rather than scaring you into slowing down. 35MPH corner? You can probably take it at 55 with no sweat. Even more surprising, dirt roads are no more unpleasant to drive on than pavement. My xB felt like it would shake to bits on a dirt road, but the Juke happily skitters along in a cloud of dust. While FWD cars are not meant for drifting, I might have drifted through a dirt corner the other day 'by accident'.
Plus, on road trips, it's really quite comfortable - cruise control in a stick shift even works quite nicely thanks to the turbocharger's torque blast, only requiring downshifts if you actually have to go up a steep hill or quickly pass another car.
After a whole lot of babbling: The Juke is weird. It is far from perfect, and is probably not a good first choice unless you want a weird-looking sporty car that is form over function (but still functional). As a 'my first sporty car', it is definitely a blast.
I also figured out how to drive one of these long before I bought the Beemer, like it was a beemer 500x_61beetleblue‑frt_lh‑500px.jpg 'cept mine was yellow. If you 'know' where in a turn the rear end starts to roll under you making a end for end rear-ward flip, you can brake and add gas to right yourself and actually slide a corner like cars with single axels.
your new car is a truck chassis with a car body on top. Basically a Stupid Useless Vehicle, (as we call them in Detroit) cause if you try to take it off road, stuff will break or fall off. You car I am afraid is downright, (well there is only one that truely is hideous; the Fiat), but looks like a 90's version of a 64' Carmen Ghia.
But the thing about my BMW was this I could still get to 140mph without a turbo-charger, plus while F-250s, Explorers and GMC four wheel drives were stuck in snow banks, a 1985 325e was going up the snowing icy hill, though slightly sideways with an air dam scooping snow where all those new 2006 cars couldn't!
I went over an ice froze bridge and the car did not move (even though I was going 90) but several of the big three's car-trucks were headlights-taillights, headlights-taillights off the road even before the bridge. I'd taken a corner on another road (in the summer) at 65mph it was a hairpin with no slide area on the sides of the road it had a giant 100 year old oak with bumper gouges from the last hundred years where cars had not know the curve was a hairpin, the other side of the road was the St. Clair river about fifty feet deep off the bank. My car did not move, no slide at all even. All BMW's drive the same like a surgeon's knife.
The thing you got is not a BMW so I am sorry for you. There are about five or six parts you need to replace every five years on a BMW then you don't have to touch it for five years of racer like driving. and used ones drive the same as new ones, can't say that about any other car.