Living with the 2020 Nissan Juke Ti

• Welcome: Straight outta SunderLand
• Update 1: Get a Grip
• Update 2: Humble Pie
• Update 3: Hazards of Juke?

Welcome: Straight outta SunderLand

Price as tested: $37,219
This month: 397km @ 9.0L/100km

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As welcomes go, this one was a doozy. New Nissan Juke delivered, start the ignition and a fault flashes up on the dial pack. The radio cranks up playing ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This?’ by the Pet Shop Boys. I can tell that this relationship is probably going to be eventful.

The fault – a glitch in the stop/start system – clears itself after a run around the block and a reboot of the car. Prior to driving the new Juke, I wasn’t sure I’d get on with one. I knew that Byron Mathioudakis would bag me mercilessly after we’d done likewise to him when he proclaimed, not entirely without merit, that the first Juke was one of the most influential cars of the 2010s.

After attending the local launch, I was more encouraged. Although I did have a guilty penchant for the old 160kW Juke Nismo RS, I’d never been able to shake the impression that it was, at best, a 0.75 trick pony.

This latest car felt a good deal more mature in its execution without losing the puppyish verve of the original. Yes, it only has 84kW to send 1274 kegs of British-built baby SUV up the road, but it still has some pep to it. To get the most out of the Juke, you need to switch it into ‘D-Mode’, which my partner has a rather uncharitable nickname for. You can guess at that.

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This sharpens the throttle and steering and makes the auto ’box more aggressive. You’ll have to get used to the neurotic throttle map when you pull away, but after that it’s all good. The best part is that it loses the standard mode’s propensity to slot the dual-clutch ’box into seventh at the earliest opportunity.

My car is the Ti trim, which is the range topper and comes equipped with Bose Ultra-Nearfield speakers in the headrests. There’s a setting on the centre display which allows you to adjust the degree to which these speakers offer a surround-sound effect. Adjust it when the music’s playing and it feels like a scarf of sound enveloping you.

The rest of the cabin is a very welcome surprise to those of you who might associate Nissans with fairly rudimentary materials and design. The dash top is covered in Alcantara, the sports seats are supportive, the driver’s seat is manually height adjustable and can be set reasonably low. The passenger seat gets no such height adjustment, which seems a bit of a miss in a range-topper with a list price of $36,490, and as a result, taller passengers may have to recline a little further than usual.

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The standard-fit sat-nav is excellent, although the 8.0-inch touchscreen can occasionally require a couple of stabs to register a command. It runs a port of TomTom Maps & Live Traffic, so it’ll be able to route you around major snarl-ups. If you prefer, there’s also Apple and Android mirroring.

All Jukes run on passive suspension and the ride on the Ti, with its 19-inch alloys, is firmish. Overall body control is very good, but it can jiggle along tetchily on inside lanes that have been heavily trafficked by trucks.

It also runs out of suspension travel quite sharply if you hit a pothole, as I discovered on a recent drive. So savage was the report through the cabin that I pulled over straight away to check if I’d damaged the wheel in a fairly innocuous series of three ripples caused when a truck had braked and deformed the hotmix on what must have been a 40+ degree Celsius day.

The Juke is fun to drive, though, and part of that fun comes with the knowledge that with just 999cc at your elbow, everything becomes a giant-killing opportunity. I reckon that any vehicle that can raise a grin is off to a good start, even if that has meant that my fuel consumption is standing at exactly 9.0L/100km against an ADR figure of 5.8L. It’s becoming clear that D-Mode has a lot to answer for.

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Update 1: Get a Grip

This month: 1069km @ 6.9/100km

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I don't know about you, but I tend to do something fairly irrational whenever I get into a front-wheel-drive SUV. Because they have a modicum of extra ride height, I always feel compelled to drive them off road. I know, I know, this really needs to be filed under ‘Unsmart Things Done’ but there it is. The Juke is no exception.

There’s a track near my house that, for a short 100-metre pitch, climbs at a genuinely unnerving gradient. It has recently been regraded with fresh gravel, so on the face of it, the Juke’s odds of climbing it looked about on par with Clive Palmer’s chances of conquering Mount Midoriyama.

Undeterred, I vowed to get a good run at it and just bully the Juke up, but as I rounded the preceding corner with some verve, a dog walker forced me to jump on the picks. It was then a case of scrambling up at little more than walking pace.

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The traction control light started strobing like crazy as the front rubber scrabbled for purchase. At one point, the throttle pedal went ‘dead’, the Juke deciding that there was zero grip available at that instant. I started steering the car gently from left to right as I’d seen a Land Rover instructor do.

This only had the effect of pebble-dashing the dog walker, who had rather unwisely decided to watch this ungainly endeavour.

Against all odds, however, the combination of doggedly determined traction control, the 225/45 R19 Hankook Ventus front boots and a ground clearance of 172mm (compared to the 137mm of a Toyota C-HR or the 155mm of a Mazda CX-3) saw the Juke crest the bumpy rise. Curiosity sated, I don’t think I’ll make this part of my normal test route for the little Nissan. I expected to cop a bit of a spray in return from the dog walker but, to my relief, he was doubled up with laughter at my dubious route selection.

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Otherwise, I’m still slightly shocked at how much I like this Juke Ti. Yes, there are some idiosyncrasies to overcome, such as the jerky cold-start process which can see it kangaroo truculently for the first 100m in the morning or the long-winded series of button-presses (thumb the starter, wait for the infotainment to boot up, OK the touch screen, switch into Sport, and kill the idle-stop) which is a two-handed affair as none of these buttons are anywhere proximate to each other, but these are very minor grumbles.

Even when there have been some more ostensibly exotic vehicles parked in the garage, the Juke still gets a run. Out on the road, the combination of just enough low-end turbo torque, strong body control, decent ride quality and enjoyable steering weighting is still more than enough to paint a big grin on my face. The tiny engine has also yet to become tiresome. Onwards and upwards, then.

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Update 2: Humble Pie

This month: 156km @ 9.6L/100km

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A piffling 156km. That’s my total for this month of Stage 4 lockdown here in Melbourne. The Juke genuinely hasn’t strayed beyond a five kilometre radius of my home, despite the temptation of deserted roads and nor has it broken curfew. That paltry figure has come about schlepping backwards and forwards to the shops, occasionally taking the back road to grab the groceries just so I don’t forget what going round a corner feels like.

Driving briskly for short distances is never a recipe for stellar fuel consumption and the figure has tiptoed up to close to double digits this month. These sorts of journeys only throw into focus the Juke’s staccato throttle pedal feel upon cold starts. Nevertheless, the fact that I want to drive the little Nissan and will accept virtually any domestic request for shopping as an excuse is a good sign. I still love its puppyish feel.

It’s also given me the opportunity to do a little research and, after much deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that a pie is pretty much the worst take-away food item you can consume in your car. Tell me if you think I’m wrong, but the inevitable explosion of flaky pastry and the constant risk of dripping beefy brown magma into the nether reaches of the centre stack make the humble pie a liability when grabbing lunch.

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The Juke’s particularly bad, because the electric handbrake button seems to be a magnet for pastry bits and trying to prise them out of the well beneath the switch just turns it into a greasy mess. At this point I’ll acknowledge that eating in cars is a big no-no for most, but, you know, unprecedented times, unprecedented things. Pies and Alcantara trim also make a horrible combo, especially if you were tempted by the luridly-hued curry chicken option. Never do this. It’ll result in hours of remedial cleaning.

I’ve now taken to standing next to the Juke to eat a pie. I was halfway through a pepper steak number last week when the local constabulary arrived and began taking issue with my lack of apparent mask. I’m not proud to confess that I lost my composure mid-mouthful and merely succeeded in blowing a fine spray of pastry at them as I remonstrated, whereupon they picked secondhand shortcrust detritus out of their moustaches, reconsidered their positions and continued on their way.

Fully re-energised on cow, lard and righteous anger, I went the twisty way back home again, like a big rebel, loving the Juke’s crisp low-end pick-up, tidy body control and punchy brakes. Yes, I smashed all the groceries to smithereens in the process, but doesn’t that just give me an excuse to go for another drive?

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Update 3: Hazards of Juke?

This month: 469km @ 8.0L/100km
Total: 2091km @ 8.0L/100km

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I’m calling it. The last long-termer I’ve run for Wheels is my favourite. That list includes a McLaren 570GT, a Range Rover Velar and a Kia Stinger GT, so there’s some talent in the back catalogue. I guess that’s the thing about pleasant surprises. The mark they leave behind is always that much more enduring.

As Victoria has battened down the hatches, the Nissan Juke Ti has shone. Woolies, Coles, Bunnings click and collect, the sneaky long route through the hills and paddocks to the furthest point of the 5km arc, rain or shine, battered with bulldust, bouncing up the gravel-road corrugations to gain a distant view of the beckoning ocean – the Juke has been uniformly eager to please. Rarely do you find a car this much fun this easy to get on with.

I nearly did a little remodelling of the Juke’s front end recently when, on a late-night recce looking for a spot to exercise, a wet wombat waddled out onto the track in front of the Nissan. A hard brake and gentle swerve manoeuvre saw vombatus ursinus disappear out of view and I steeled myself for the inevitable doof, but when I stopped the car, it was merely blinking dopily and wondering why its fur was now caked in dust and grit. The stability control had kicked in when it felt the Juke deviate from the line on the loose stuff, but it was an enabler in this instance, allowing me to safely steer without ploughing straight on or swinging the rear end wide.

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While it’s true that I haven’t loaded the Juke to the gunwales, or taken it for a big drive, most Jukes will see local, low-demand use, and it earns a solid recommendation from me. The ergonomics are brilliant, the driving position excellent, materials quality in the cabin is decent, and the infotainment system well up to par. The Bose headrest speakers deliver a cocooning feel to the sound quality and I still love the way clicking into D-Mode instantly makes the car feel all sinewy and immediate.

A glowing report is one thing, but would I put my money where my mouth is? Sadly not at this price. As much as I’ve enjoyed the Juke Ti, I just can’t get past the fact that in spite of its talents, this is ostensibly an 84kW 1.0-litre compact hatch on stilts. A 155kW Toyota RAV4 hybrid is almost identically priced and offers a lot more car for the money. But the fact that you can get the mechanically identical Juke ST for $28K is a different story.

Haggle hard on one of those and you could quite easily convince yourself of its value proposition. And you’d need no real effort to justify one in terms of sheer everyday likeability. I’d call that a win.

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