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Does Nissan’s British-built, mould-breaking crossover hold up in the face of trendy new rivals?

It’s thanks to the commercial success of the original Nissan Juke that the market segment known to some as B-SUV (B being the prefix traditionally used to identify superminis) exists at all.

It’s at least partially Nissan's doing that the compact crossover hatchback has become Europe’s biggest automotive market growth area.

The original Juke pioneered the split-level headlights that so many crossovers have copied. This one adds Y-shaped daytime-running lights within the lower round lamps for extra visual appeal

Inevitably, that success cleared the path for a second-generation Juke. And given how much more competition there is for this one than there was for its predecessor, you can bet that it'll be a few years before we see the third generation, set to go electric.

Plenty is different about the car this time around. Whereas the original had a specially adapted chassis used only by Nissan, this one is based on the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance’s CMF-B platform, which also underpins the likes of the Dacia Sandero, Renault Clio and Renault Captur.

Diesel and four-wheel-drive powertrains have been ditched in favour of a more modern petrol unit, sending its power exclusively through the front wheels.

Inside, it has a much bigger boot – almost doubling the original’s tiny 251-litre capacity to 422 litres – as well as extra passenger space and more upmarket materials.

But is that enough to meet the mark set by popular rivals like the Ford Puma, Skoda Kamiq and Vauxhall Mokka? Read on to find out.

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The Nissan Juke range at a glance 

The second-generation Juke was launched in 2020 with a lone choice of engine, the 1.0-litre turbo petrol three-pot that’s also used in the Sandero and Clio, here producing 112bhp. It’s available with a six-speed manual or seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox.

It was joined in 2022 by Renault’s E-Tech hybrid powertrain, which combines a four-speed unsynchronised dog ’box with a 48bhp electric motor, a 20bhp starter-generator and a 93bhp naturally aspirated 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol engine. 

Trims range from Visia up through an unusually swollen mid-range of three intermediate steps (Acenta, N-Connecta, Tekna) and culminate at Tekna+, which comes with 19in alloy wheels, two-tone paint and part-leather seats as standard. N-Connecta cars have sat-nav, a rear parking camera, cruise control and LED headlights.

DESIGN & STYLING

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nissan juke hybrid review 2024 02 panning side

For the second-generation Juke, Nissan moved to the CMF-B platform: an all-steel chassis suspended via independent struts at the front and a torsion beam axle at the rear, with its wheelbase stretched by just over 100mm compared with the original Juke.

The car is slightly larger than its predecessor, having gained less than 50mm in height and mirrorless width and only a little more than 50mm in length.

I was never a fan of the bug-eyed look of the first Juke. This one appeals more to me, but I can see it’s a little more derivative. Can’t imagine owners will care, though, given that it’s a better car in so many ways

The entry-level Visia version weighs only 19kg more than it used to – no bad result for a car with more standard equipment as well as a little more sheet metal, which, as we will come to, offers notably more interior space than before.

So, if Nissan has succeeded in adding rational practicality on the inside, the car’s exterior certainly doesn’t make it look any plainer or more sensible than the old Juke did. That can be considered a key success.

With the hybrid powertrain came a set of minor visual tweaks for every variant of the crossover (reprofiled bumpers, different wheel options and a new rear spoiler), but you would be hard pressed to pick a newer model out of a line-up. The hybrid also gained an equally subtle blanked-off front grille.

INTERIOR

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nissan juke hybrid review 2024 06 dash

The quirkiness and sense of fun of the original Juke’s interior design was toned down a little this time around, and it was augmented by a pretty clear effort to add some richer material and technological allure. There’s still plenty of visual character and a little bit of fun factor in evidence, though, and both can be dialled up beyond the level of our test car if you opt for range-topping Tekna+ trim.

While the design flair hasn’t been allowed to take over, or to prevent the Juke from delivering passenger space or ambient perceived quality to make it competitive with its rivals, there are still plenty of curved, bulbous surfaces distributed throughout the cabin. That’s quite a contrast against the flat-faced Kamiq and the drab Vauxhall Crossland. The gear lever’s encircling within a ring of ambient lighting is a nice touch, too. 

Tekna’s Bose stereo puts speakers in the seat head restraints. It’s good at creating ‘surround’ effect in music but doesn’t sound particularly powerful

You sit high and slightly bent-legged at the controls, with better visibility of the world outside than you get in a traditional hatchback like the Clio. The instruments are analogue dials, with a good-sized digital drive computer screen positioned between them that can display the usual choice of trip computer or in-car entertainment information. The ritziest small crossovers now offer fully digital clocks, of course – but the Juke’s instrument binnacle is far from antiquated and it’s clear, simple and easy to configure to your liking.

Nissan’s use of leather and chromed plastic smacks of an attempt to lift the Juke’s ambience upmarket, which is moderately successful, although perceived quality is a little inconsistent. More impressive is how much extra space has been found inside the car relative to what was a pretty impractical showing previously.

Although the Juke isn’t the best-packaged or most accommodating car in its class, it no longer gets the wooden spoon for second-row occupant room or for boot space. Taller adults can sit line astern now pretty comfortably, whereas they wouldn’t have had a hope of doing so before. The car’s 422-litre boot is respectable for capacity, too – up 20% for volume on the last car, better than the Puma (401 litres, discounting its underfloor Megabox) and equal to the Captur (422 litres) and made accessible by an adjustable-level floor.

The hybrid loses 68 litres of space, owing to the placement of its 1.2kWh drive battery, but it’s still larger than that of the Captur E-Tech (326 litres). Rear seat space is more generous than in that car, too.

Nissan Juke multimedia

Only the very cheapest, Visia-grade Jukes go without a 8.0in touchscreen infotainment system. You needn’t venture beyond one-up Acenta trim to get that, and it includes smartphone mirroring for both Apple and Android phones, as well as NissanConnect live information services and a rear-view camera.

N-Connecta spec includes TomTom sat-nav with live traffic information, and it’s a pretty good system that’s simple to programme and set up and easy to follow – much as most are likely to use it.

It’s a shame that the addition of the hybrid to the Juke line-up didn’t bring with it the integration of the more modern screen used in the latest Nissan Qashqai and Nissan Ariya. As it stands, the 8.0in system feels outdated graphically, although it’s unlikely to offend either.

You only get the Bose Personal Plus surround audio set-up if you climb all the way to Tekna grade. It’s not the best reason to spend the extra money, although it does create a convincing sense of width to its surround sound music reproduction.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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The 1.0-litre Juke’s vital statistics indicate that it should perform quite well relative to the competition, but our real-world experience suggests otherwise.

In our on-track performance tests (albeit in wet and chilly weather), it missed Nissan’s claimed 0-62mph sprint time of 10.4sec by a full 1.5sec. It also failed to get within 1.0sec of the less powerful Seat Arona 1.0 TSI when accelerating through the gears from 30-70mph.

It feels more agile than most rivals, aided by good grip and a resistance to roll, yet it blends its driver-friendly handling with a ride that’s firmly controlled but never harsh

At full power, the Juke’s three-cylinder motor seems to work keenly enough from a subjective standpoint, revving freely up to about 5000rpm, although not with what you’d call genuine enthusiasm. It suffers with some notably slow turbo response at low crank speeds, though – enough to represent a slight drivability hurdle until you’re used to the way the engine responds to part-throttle.

It’s less problematic in the short term if you avoid using the Sport driving mode and isn’t really a problem at all once you’re used to taking particular care with the first couple of inches of accelerator travel.

Operating the car’s other pedals is easier and more intuitive, thankfully – they show evidence of more harmonious and attentive tuning – and the shift quality of the six-speed manual gearbox is fairly light, slick and well defined.

The dual-clutch automatic provides rapid, well-judged shifts. However, it struggles at lower speeds, often delivering a shunt as you try to exploit a gap at a roundabout or pull away from a junction. It’s even worse during manoeuvres like reverse parking, which can bring you to a juddering halt.

The hybrid’s gearbox is better, though: you just put it in Drive and, most of the time, the software does a decent job of keeping everything rolling. It avoids the elastic feeling of the CVTs in the rival Toyota Yaris Cross.

The extra torque of the hybrid system makes it feel more effortless under acceleration than the standard petrol engine, too.

Nissan Juke assisted driving notes

Compared with rivals, the Juke is well provisioned and tuned for active safety.

Its lane keeping system operates only when the intelligent cruise control is active, which makes sense given the places and roads on which you’re likely to want it active and the ones where you’re not. It’s clearly tuned to help you, not replace your concentration or inputs, and it’s supplemented by a Blind Spot Intervention system that works well.

The speed limit recognition system pretty consistently reads the posted limit but doesn't seem able to adapt the car’s set cruise control speed to match. Equally, its propensity to warn if you go only slightly over the limit isn’t too insistent or distracting.

RIDE & HANDLING

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Although it’s probably not a car many will describe as fun to drive, the Juke has more athleticism and handling poise than the average crossover of its size and price. It retains the zippy dynamic appeal that helped to mark out the original version as a car intended for more energetic and youthful drivers as well as older ones, yet it also overlays a new-found level of ride sophistication that makes it more comfortable and pleasant than its predecessor.

The steering is medium weighted and intuitively paced, and the suspension slightly firmer than the class norm but also little less comfortable than even the best rivals, thanks to good, progressive vertical body control.

Those 19in alloy wheels wouldn’t be my first choice, even though they fill the Juke’s arches quite nicely. I’d opt for something smaller in a bid to get a slightly more settled town ride. It’s a touch too fidgety as is.

Unlike some cars of this kind, therefore, the Juke succeeds in making a virtue of its compactness on the road. It has the simple grip and body control to feel quite agile, whereas rivals can feel slightly soft and unresponsive by comparison.

You’re certainly not made aware that there’s any energy lost in body roll when you turn the Juke into bends and it takes plenty of speed and commitment to make the car roll enough to disturb its ever-even distribution of grip. You can hustle it along as you might any small car with plenty of confidence, then, and at no time does the Juke feel particularly big or heavy when you do.

During limit-handling testing, the stability control systems proved very effective, and less intrusive when indicated as switched off – even though they plainly remain active in the background at all times.

Nissan Juke comfort & isolation

There’s some background roar to the Juke’s ride at A-road and motorway speeds that is clearly perceptible in the cabin, although it doesn’t seem to punish the car’s measurable refinement levels, which remain pretty low. It’s a surface-dependent noise level, worse on coarser and more open types of Tarmac than smoother and better-sealed ones – but you can’t help noticing when the car crosses from the latter to the former.

The car’s secondary ride isn’t as terse or clunky over bumps and edges as you might think, however, and its primary ride control is commendable. Sharper inputs can draw the occasional thump from the axles, but they’re seldom harsh, which goes to show how much work has evidently gone into the dynamic development of the car and how carefully the ride has been tuned.

Seat comfort is good, albeit not quite at Qashqai levels of general support – and that’s partly as a result of Nissan’s decision to fit sportier-looking ‘monoform’ seatbacks with integrated headrests rather than seats with more adjustable separate head restraints.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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The Juke has resisted the price hikes that many rivals have succumbed to, so it now offers solid value for money. Even if you ignore the spartan Visia trim, it undercuts key rivals like the Puma, Kamiq and Mokka by a substantial margin.

It’s tempting to splash the extra cash for the high-grade Tekna trim, which buys you heated front seats, a ‘quick clear’ windscreen, Nissan’s clever Bose Personal Plus audio system and its Advanced Safety Shield active safety systems. Talking of which, the Juke’s active lane keeping and intelligent speed assist systems are among the better ones we’ve tested in cars of its class.

Popularity of the Juke probably plays against it here: residual values are respectable but below those of the VW T-Cross and DS 3 Crossback

The Juke’s fuel economy is reasonable, if behind rivals: the petrol manual officially returns 49.6mpg, and we found it returned 46.0mpg at motorway speeds, compared with 50.0mpg for the mild-hybrid petrol Puma.

The hybrid is claimed to return a much more impressive 56.5mpg (in Tekna trim), but you’re unlikely to recoup the extra £3600 that Nissan charges for it compared with the equivalent petrol manual. It makes more sense as a company car; its CO2 emissions are rated at 112g/km in N-Connecta trim, compared with 133g/km for the petrol manual. That places it in a lower benefit-in-kind (BIK) tax band of 27%, rather than 31%.

VERDICT

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The Nissan Juke is a solid choice if you’re looking for a quirky small car that stands out from more humdrum alternatives like the Captur, Kia Stonic and Suzuki S-Cross.

We like its convincing balance between a comfortable ride and sporty handling, which makes it one of the more agreeable options in the class for keen drivers.

New Juke is impressive in some respects, but outstanding in few

It’s also a fairly practical choice, with more leg room and boot space than the Captur in petrol and hybrid form.

The Juke undercuts many rivals on price, too, although so-so residual values mean that PCP finance and lease deals on one aren’t always as competitive as cars from better-perceived brands, such as the Volkswagen T-Cross.

And it’s hardly a class leader in other regards: the petrol engine’s throttle response is unusually slow, which presents a driveability issue at low speeds, especially when paired with the shunty dual-clutch automatic gearbox. The hybrid is a better option if you need an auto, but at £3000 more expensive, it’s not great value for money. The Puma offers a smoother, more exploitable petrol engine, while the Yaris Cross's hybrid powertrain offers better real-world fuel economy.

All that said, none of those shortcomings are significant enough to knock the Juke below the class average.

When a car looks as distinctive as this one does, that’s good enough for many a buyer. The Juke was the UK’s eighth-best-selling new car last year, and doesn’t look to be losing its popularity any time soon.

Charlie Martin

Charlie Martin Autocar
Title: Editorial Assistant, Autocar

As a reporter, Charlie plays a key role in setting the news agenda for the automotive industry. He joined Autocar in July 2022 after a nine-month stint as an apprentice with sister publication, What Car?. He's previously contributed to The Intercooler, and placed second in Hagerty’s 2019 Young Writer competition with a MG Metro 6R4 feature

He is the proud owner of a Fiat Panda 100HP, and hopes to one day add a lightweight sports car like a Caterham Seven or a Lotus Elise S1 to his collection.

Nissan Juke First drives