Nissan Juke - Creta Rival Is Under-Equipped But Drives Well | Faisal Khan

Hi guys and welcome to another vlog. I'm driving this. This is the Nissan Juke which has actually been showcased in India but that was a left hand drive. However, they showcased the X12 which they've already launched. They've also showcased this Juke and they've also showcased the Qashqai. So three Nissan SUVs which are likely to make it in India but I don't think the Juke is coming. Now let's look at the key of the vehicle. Very plain. Unlock the car, lock the car and that's about it. In fact, I dropped it and I've also managed to break this. Yeah, that's kind of unfortunate. In terms of design, the Juke actually looks quite nice and bold. It's very quirky as well and has a typical Nissan design language with this V-Grille here. In fact, this is the LED DRL as the indicator obviously. This is the main headlight and the first generation model was even quirkier. It was a love it or hate it design. This one definitely looks slightly neutral in that regard. There's no front camera here. This is the lowest variance. Obviously, it misses out on a lot of things. There are no front fog lights. That is the towing hook. It gets four parking sensors at the front. That is the panel for ADAS, the big Nissan logo right there. Honeychrome grille. In fact, there you get cameras for the ADAS function that is lane keep assist and all that. Let's open the engine bay because this is, oh my God, it's actually heavy, surprisingly. So this is the lower variant which is basically the lower engine. This is a one litre engine. So yes, performance isn't that good. They have a bigger engine which is hybrid and there is insulation there as well. Oh my God, this is so damn heavy. It is crazy. Cars have to be very well built here in the UK for passing safety norms. Obviously, not the same case in India though. And yes, coming to the side, this car is obviously shorter when compared to the Creta because the length is 120 mm less when compared to the Creta. However, the packaging is so good now. The wheelbase is actually 26 mm more than the Creta. So wheelbase is approximately 2636 meters is the wheelbase of this car. Length is obviously 4 to 10 mm. So yes, it is not as long as the Creta, but the wheelbase is longer than the Creta. So that's amazing packaging here. Tyres you get from 16 to 19 inches. These are 215 60 17. I like the alloy wheel design actually looks quite nice. You get this body cladding as well. Black finish on the outside rear view mirrors, but no black finishing on the roof. There's no sunroof here either. You get a shark fin antenna, dark tinted rear windows, obviously, because that's something which is allowed here. You can tint your rear windows, but I think this is activated. Obviously, you get rear discs and at the rear, you will definitely appreciate the design because it looks quite nice. I love the design. I love the sloping roofline. I like the floating roof treatment because of that particular thing there. Yeah, this particular panel will give it a sloping roof treatment lights or not all LEDs because this is halogen here. Yeah, you can see indicators actually halogen says Juke right there. You get rear parking sensors. In fact, you get three rear parking sensors, not four. And this is a plastic panel right there. In fact, you can also see that as from the rear because the design is such nice. It feels a bit bulky. You get a rear spoiler with a high mounted stoplight, get a rear wiper as well. Straight away, I'm going to be opening the boot, which is a bit of a risk because the boot is completely full. This boot is 422 litres, which is 11 litres less than the Creta, but you can adjust the boot floor height, which is a good thing. We have put it all the way down because there's so much luggage to carry today. The passenger has gone for a toss. Yeah, a bit of a toss. And obviously, you can recline the seat in 4060 format as well. So that's also available here. Now straight away, let's get inside because first thing I want to show you that the door handles at the rear are here. So they're hidden door handles, which is quite good. Door pockets are big enough, lot of hard plastics in this car, but some soft material here. Otherwise, a lot of hard plastics and the seat is a bit upright, but centre passenger gets ahead, but there is no centre armrest, which is quite surprising. You get ISOFIX child seat mounts and space at the rear is actually good enough. Yeah, it's good. It's decent. Another is support is poor. You get a USB-A charging socket, no USB-C. You don't get rear AC vents, which is quite surprising. Seat quality is actually good. Headroom seems decent in spite of the fact that this is a sloping roofline. The dashboard does look nice. However, it's a bit old when compared to the Creta and the Seltos because it lacks a lot of features. High adjustable seatbelts, six airbags here. Obviously, that's become the norm, which is mandatory. Getting in and out is quite easy. So they call it an SUV, but it is a jacked up hatchback at the end of the day. Get a request sensor on the left side as well and because it has is mandatory here, it has a lot of ADAS functions as well. What do you think of the design? I think it looks quite quirky and nice. The boot is even smaller in the hybrid version because of the battery and the Qashqai's boot is also the same in terms of the carrying capacity and it says airbag here, but no electric adjust. So you see, it misses out on a lot of features when compared to the Creta. So they can't launch this car more than the Creta's price because it will miserably fail and you don't even get illumination on other power windows. Only the driver's side is one touch up and down. That's it. Your pockets are decent size here and obviously, you get speakers, which are okay, okay, not great because Bose sound system is available on higher variants. You get a dead pedal, thankfully. Something seems to be rusted there, which is quite surprising. Oh my God, that kind of rust is not expected on a car which is just one year old and this is to increase or decrease the illumination of the cluster. This is for lengthy buses, this is for stop start system and this is the headlight leveller. Turbine style AC vents, controls for the wipers on the right side, which should not be the case. I don't know why it's ulta here, but technically, Japanese don't do it this way. Seats are comfortable, no height adjustable, headrest at the front. Seats are actually nice and comfortable. The material is good, sort of the tri-star pattern, tri-arrow pattern of Tata cars, which is quite surprising. I didn't expect that and because this car is a year old, they have actually updated this car. So here, you can see, this is analog tachometer, analog speedometer, both in terms of miles and kilometers per hour and you have a 7-inch screen here, which is fine. You have a lot of information. So, it's a compass obviously and it'll tell you what is the fuel efficiency like and you can browse through a lot of information like it's overloaded, but the graphics are so plain and basic. Now, it's just out of place in a car of this category or price. Obviously, you've got for collision warning and all those things. You can get into a lot of settings as well. So, buttons here to operate that. Buttons here for the cruise control system. Nissan logo actually looks kind of out of place on the steering, which kind of feels old. Steering is adjustable both for reach as well as right. Now, this screen, okay, I'm not going to accept it. Now, this screen is actually an 8-inch unit. It is old and now they've actually updated it. In fact, a 12.3-inch screen has been given to the cluster as well. So, that is the update, auto-dimming mirror and light replacement here on the top. You get a mirror here along with a no-no light, not even here. What is happening? Okay, anyways, twin cupholders, electric parking brake, auto hold and some storage space here as well. USB-A charging socket. There is no USB-C in this car, which is quite surprising and 12V as well. Some storage space here, that's the start button. So, it does not get a sunroof, which is shocking to say the least, but you get a light on the top here in the center. You get lights here as well. This is for SOS. Does it have connected car? Maybe it does. Glovebox is actually huge. You can keep a lot of stuff on the inside and you can turn off the co-passenger airbag as well. Three AC vents in the center, which will remind you of Mercedes cars. Climate controlled air conditioning system. Air conditioning is actually very effective in this car and lot of physical buttons here, which is actually a very good thing, but this is like Bajaj freedoms sourced cluster because it is so dated. It's unbelievably dated. The audio quality is also not great, but at least you have a lot of physical buttons here, something I definitely appreciate. I'm going to get into reverse, which is like this and that is the reverse parking camera, which is horrendous to say the least in terms of quality. Yeah, you really can't see much inside, which is a bit disappointing here. So, in terms of the features now, it just cannot compete with either the Seltos or the Carreta. This is more like an elevated competitor, which means that if Nissan launches this car in India, they have to price it accordingly. Anyways, the interior is quite plain and basic. However, there is some soft touch material here. This double stitching also is nice. This is soft. This is also soft. Only thing is the lower parts are hard. Otherwise, it's soft and the co-passenger can also lock and unlock the vehicle, which is quite cool, something you don't see in this segment of a car. So, they've given it a few features, but they've not given it a lot of features and this is actually to change the drive mode. So, there are three drive modes. There's Eco, there's Standard and there is Sport. So, you can operate it from here. Yeah, that's about it. I'm quite baffled that the Juke is a car, which is obviously showcased as something, which is very expensive and premium and stuff, but doesn't have any features only to justify the premium pricing. There's no button here. There is one for the hazard light. Anyways, let's start driving right away. All right, let's turn on the car and straight away, I'm going to change the mode to Sport and air conditioning off and off we go. Gearing of this car is super duper duper tall. Yeah, very tall geared a car. In fact, I'm going to take in first and first gear, 31 miles, which is approximately 1.6 into three wheels, 48 kilometres per hour into second and that's almost reaching 96 kilometres per hour, very close to 100 kilometres per hour. So, this car is powered by a one litre turbocharged petrol engine. It's a three cylinder unit and I think it is one of the best three cylinders or one litre engines. Only thing is, it's in the wrong car because this car is going to compete with the Creta and the Creta obviously has a bigger 1.5 litre turbocharged petrol engine. However, Nissan also has a 1.6 litre strong hybrid engine, which produces 141 horsepower, but because of the weight of the battery, obviously, that's a heavier car. However, it accelerates 0.6 seconds faster to go from 0 to 100 kilometres per hour. This one takes 10.7 seconds, that one takes 10.1 seconds. Okay, there's so much traffic today. So, I'm just going to upshift to a higher gear. There are three drive modes, there's Eco, there's Standard, there's Sport, which obviously changes the map and obviously the car performs the best in Sport mode. This engine is producing 115 horsepower and 200 Newton metres of torque, which is kind of the highest in the segment and yes, there is so much traffic. I'm just waiting for cars to pass so that I can make a quick lane change and finally we shall. The problem is that the steering also has a lot of feel. It wants to centre very quickly. So, you have to fight the steering there and this car is underpinned by the CMF-B platform, which is shared with the second generation of the Renault Captur. Gearbox is decently slick shifting, the clutch is a little on the heavier side but because this engine doesn't have low-end punch, there's a lot of lag lower down and it really starts to accelerate once the turbo spools up around 2000 rpm. Because of which, this car actually tends to stall a lot. So, if you don't like stalling, you can opt for the automatic, which happens to be a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox. Yes, it comes with a 7-speed DCT as well. Now, this CMF-B platform is actually lighter. This car weighs 63 kgs lesser than the first generation model because of which it is obviously slightly faster in comparison. Now, this new engine feels good to drive. It's refined, it's smooth but there's a lot of road noise you can hear. There's a lot of wind noise you can hear as well and this engine is just out of place in a car of this category. Although this car will hit a top speed of 180 kmph, it starts to struggle past 120 kmph because it's a small engine at the end of the day, more tuned towards efficiency. Ride quality is actually good. Handling is also decent. Body roll is well in control. The steering is also decent. Only thing is it tends to centre very, very, very quickly and you're not really going to complain much about in terms of the driving feel of this car and if you want a bigger engine, the 1.6 hybrid is obviously there. Being heavier will not really take a big toll in terms of the handling characteristics. Brakes are good, ADAS system works well, not very intrusive, forward collision warning is there, automatic emergency braking is there, wipers work randomly whenever they feel like. So, all these features are definitely there in this car. The first generation Juke was launched in 2010. Basically, they removed the name from a jukebox, a musical instrument sort of a thing and that's where they got the inspiration for this car and then the second generation came in 2019. This car has already got a facelift. In fact, got an update with the interior built only last year, late last year and now I think it's sort of the end of the life cycle and the next generation model might not even arrive because this car is being replaced by the Kicks, the one with the V platform, not the B0 platform which we got in India. The developed market Kicks is replacing it. So, it's no longer sold in Japan. Although it was produced in Japan, now it's produced in the UK and it was actually designed in the UK and the finishing touches of the design were done in Japan. This car is being sold in certain countries in Europe. It's also being sold in New Zealand, in Australia. So, what I realised is a lot of right-hand drive market focus for the Juke right now. It's no longer sold in the US and Canada. I think they discontinued it in 2017 because obviously when the Kicks came in, they decided let's just continue the Kicks because this car kind of feels small. In developed markets, definitely feels small because size matters abroad, right? Anyways, let me put it into sixth gear. Fuel efficiency, it would return somewhere around 10 to 12 kilometres per litre when you drive it aggressively, stretching all the way to almost 15 kilometres per litre when you drive it seriously. It has a 46 litre fuel tank as well, weighs 1200 kgs which isn't much but the first generation Juke now was really polarising. People loved it. Some people really hated it. The design was very in your face, kind of ugly but it still had hidden door handles at the rear, it still had, you know, the way the lights are being done. So, I think that Nissan had really thought about the future when they designed that particular car. In fact, it also had a Nismo version and then they also released a Juke R. So, what was the Juke R? They took the Nissan GT-R's 3.8 litre engine, yes, they took the R35's 3.8 litre engine with 550 horsepower, plonked it in the Juke and that would be a rocket, right? In fact, Nissan liked it so much that they made five units and two they kept for themselves and three were bought by customers. Imagine the value of those cars today would be through the roof because obviously a Juke which weighs so less having 550 horsepower is just mind-blowing. This car is actually Nissan's second bestseller in Europe. The first is obviously the Qashqai and in the UK, it is the top selling car because it's obviously sold in rentals and all that and the price is also aggressive. However, it costs upwards of rupees 23-24 lakhs making it quite expensive if it has been brought to India and earlier in the video, I said it's not going to be launched in India but now I'm convinced that this is going to be coming to India for sure. You see, they're not going to make a third generation version of the Juke, they will not because the Nissan Kicks e-power is taking over which means that whatever stock is left across right-hand drive markets will eventually land in India as limited edition units at a high price of around maybe 25-27 lakh rupees, just how Volkswagen had done with the T-Roc, remember two-three years back, almost four years back during Covid before they could actually bring in the Taycan but Volkswagen was not really stock clearing but this could happen with Nissan, I believe they will do something of that sort. However, it's not going to sell because the car is under-equipped and around in the UK, it has got not so great rating in terms of reliability, it's not a very reliable car as per various reports so that's another big problem with this particular car. Now, as far as I see, it's actually a nice car, it's quirky, the old one was much more quirkier, in fact, the Grand Tour gave it the award of the worst car of the year in 2017 just because of the way it looks. We're calling it the Nissan Juke award for the worst car of the year. Okay, I've come to the last lane so I can slow down, downshift to probably second gear and whack open the throttle, see it becomes quite loud, redline comes in at around 6500 rpm and this car's actually got five-star rating from Euro NCAP, otherwise it wouldn't be sold in this country because they're very strict in terms of emissions because if the car is not having a hybrid powertrain, it has to pay some amount of taxation when it goes through low emission zones as well as ultra low emission zones but new cars don't have to do that so that's also a boon there. Anyways, this car's warranty is three years, one lakh kilometer which is actually less when compared to what is offered by Hyundai or Kia or even Toyota for that matter, so the warranty is not that impressive although in India people are not caring much about warranty but there are certain brands which are offering 10 years warranty in this country. Anyways, as far as the Juke goes, it's not going to come to India but if it does, no one's really going to buy it at that price, they really need to uplift the interior, offer more features, there's no sunroof, there's no 360-degree parking camera, there is no heads-up display, there's so many features which are missing which is actually very shocking. Oh my god, I just saw an Espresso, let's go behind it. This engine really struggles in the top end, mid-range is actually very nice but beyond that it tends to struggle a lot, doesn't really have the grunt as such and that's largely because this engine is actually small in terms of displacement. Anyways, higher variants of this car get the option of Alcantara, it also gets heated steering, heated seats, heated outside rear-view mirrors, all those features are available as well. So as I see it, the Juke is a nice funky car which can't really compete with cars like the Creta or the Seltos but it can definitely sit alongside cars like the Honda Elevate and when it does that, it can sell in decent numbers. So guys, if you like this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up, that's a like button and also subscribe to the channel so you guys know what I'm saying. Okay, we're downshifting into third, I just hope they launch a Nismo version of this car or maybe plonk the R35's engine here as well, I don't think this chassis can take it though, I don't know how that chassis took it but anyways, bye-bye.