Nissan Juke review - Engines, performance and drive

The new Nissan Juke has been tuned for UK roads, or, more specifically, on the roundabouts of Milton Keynes. The car’s engineers have worked hard to make the Juke more fun to drive, and in some ways they’ve achieved this. In others, not so much.

The Juke is based on the same small car platform as the latest Renault Clio and Captur, yet it drives quite differently. While the French siblings prioritise comfort, the Nissan feels much stiffer and more alert. Body control is excellent, but the trade off is a firm ride. The chassis is rigid, yet the Juke manages not to crash too terribly through bumps and potholes. It does fidget at higher speeds, however, with seemingly little suspension travel to soak up small imperfections in the road. Strangely, it didn’t seem any worse on the larger 19-inch wheels – so don’t avoid these purely in the pursuit of improved ride quality.

For a car of this type, the Juke does handle quite well. There’s very little roll in the bends and grip is good. The steering is light and doesn’t offer all that much feel, however, and the long-throw manual gearbox – and oddly spongy pedals – mean it’s not always that easy to drive smoothly.

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We’ve got reservations over the single engine option, too. While it feels punchy enough around town, it can feel laggy, with a tendency to bog down if you try to pull away without many revs. The DCT auto is better in this regard, but it’s jerky at slow speeds and you might find it changing down a gear more often than you’d like – especially on steeper inclines.

Engines, 0-60 acceleration and top speed

At launch there’s only one engine for the Nissan Juke, although buyers do get a choice of manual or automatic transmissions. The latter adds around £1,400 to the car’s list price.

The 1.0-litre turbocharged three-cylinder petrol engine has 115bhp and 200Nm of torque, which pulls the Juke along with reasonable efficiency – but only if you keep the revs up. Officially, 0-62mph takes 10.4 seconds for the manual, or 11.1 seconds in the DCT auto, although our official tests (on the manual car) showed these numbers were hard to replicate. The long-throw gearbox and spongy pedals don’t help.

Still, the engine is relatively quiet, although there’s quite a bit of tyre noise – especially on the biggest 19-inch wheels. And despite its sleek body, wind noise can be an issue at higher speeds; rivals are quieter.