Morning all,
Newbie here, been registered a few weeks as the OH has been waiting for her Flame red Ntec+ 1.5DCI to arrive...and now it has.
She got it Friday morning and since then I have driven it 500 miles so thought I would give it a little initial review.
Firstly to give you some background to base the review, I myself drive a '15 plate Passat TDI DSG GT which I got new in March, I also have a '72 beetle, an Alfa 147 for hooning about in, an old Volvo estate on LPG for tip runs and dog duties and I have a 55 plate fiesta which is for when I am working in town and need something I can park anywhere with no fear of damage. So you should hopefully get the idea that I like cars!
The QQ is the OH's first step in Chelsea Tractoring as we have a little one on the way in December, so it was obtained for kiddy purposes and for her to commute. We chose the Derv as although she will only do about 8k, its leased and the black fuelled cars are a fair bit cheaper to buy that way.
So first thoughts....
Positives first:
It Looks great. I have seen plenty of white QQ's but we went for the solid red free colour and I must say it looks really good with the diamond cut 18's.
Its a great motorway cruiser, I am now used to radar cruise in my Passat and have covered 15k in that in 6 months, I was a bit concerned that I might have become dependent but the Nissan system is quite intuitive
Fuel economy is reasonable. I have no miss conceptions that I will achieve the nonsense number quoted by the dealer for any car. Is it 74MPG on this?....no idea but mid 50's on a zero miles car at a reasonably cruising speed is not bad IMO, with 2 adults, one child, and luggage.
Ergonomics are good in the main, few niggles but nothing too silly. I think I am a bit spoilt with the VW "infotainment system" (which seems to be industry standard speak for radio and nav these days) but the Nissan effort works well, its easy to use, and the hifi seems to make a decent sound. Its more basic than the VW system but the designers I think have spent some time studying the German effort because it is startlingly similar which is no bad thing.
Space is very good, for a jacked up Golf sized car its much bigger than a golf. Feels wide inside, plenty of room in the back and big boot. The glass roof really makes a big difference I think in this respect, its the best pano roof I have had in any car and I have had a few. Also the abundance of storage is really good.
Gear change is nice and light and pretty positive, this is a good thing as it needs moving around a lot to keep the car buzzing along at a decent pace.
Smart key....its the future. Genuinely very impressed with this simple feature
The mirrors and general visibility is really good. you can tell its a car designed to be easy to drive. The mirrors are huge, and the cameras which I thought would be gimmicky are actually very useful. I have 360 degree sensors on my VW but this is better
Bad points:
It feels flimsy, the doors don't thunk, they clang, the metal seems thin and it "feels" light, but not in a good way. The interior again to me feels low rent, cheap hard plastics on the door tops is a pet hate for me especially, for a £24k car its not good enough. Even the KIA Sportage feels much more solid
3rd and 4th gear have stupid ratios. I used the speed limiter set to 33 and this causes the change up/change down to flicker almost constantly, 3rd is too short, 4th is too long. annoying. Really with the lack of power 6 gears is overkill, 5 better spaced ratios would have been better. Acceleration in 6th on the motorway is non existent so its pointless.
There is no where to put your right foot when cruise is engaged....Why????!!!?!??!...I sometimes get the impression that car designers (something I actually have a degree in) don't drive, gets on my last nerve.
Its no Fun.....no fun at all to drive. I took it on a little blast around some back roads to my mums place and it feels anodyne. I know its not built to be fun to drive but some interest would have been nice. Its competent but its deadly boring.
The auto light switch is dumb, when you flick the indicators it moves the end of the stalk. stupid design flaw.
There is no power socket in the back. cost saving obviously
The stop start is poor. If the A/C is on it appears not to work, and it takes a long time to restart when it has stopped. Too long in actual fact. I got caught out a few times when i lifted the clutch and it hadn't had time to catch. this could be dangerous in some situations, but also it could get better as the engine runs in a bit. Brain now trained to give it a second to restart, every manual car i have owned with this feature was much quicker to restart.
Overall, however I like it and the missus does too so that's the main thing. Overall it certainly works, and this weekend was a bit of baptism of fire and it passed comfortably, and I don't think I will have any quarms about jumping in it if I have to, I still would have preferred a VW tiguan which would have been cheaper to lease, but not as well specced, smaller, and more expensive to run, but she made the choice and i cant say i am disappointed.
Hopefully it will be a loyal servent and suffer no issues. Fingers crossed!
