Nissan X-Trail: A pleasant family wagon

This is the fourth generation of Nissan’s flagship sport utility vehicle. It started off as a cheap and chunky pseudo 4x4 back in 2001, part of the vanguard of soft-roaders that included cars such as the Toyota RAV4 and Land Rover Discovery Sport.

Like those two cars, the X-Trail has gently poshed up and smoothed out its rough edges over the years, with Nissan trying to ape the success of its smaller Qashqai crossover in a larger format. Indeed, the X-Trail’s main sell is that it comes with seven seats and now in a more fuel-sipping form thanks to Nissan’s quirky petrol hybrid powertrain.

It is still on familiar territory for most drivers; you put petrol in the petrol hole and the car moves along when you prod the accelerator. Some people care about what happens in-between, some do not. What is interesting about Nissan’s e-Power gubbins is that the 1.5-litre petrol engine does not actually power the wheels; that is all down to a 201bhp electric motor. The petrol bit just acts as a generator and has fancy tech that enables it to vary its compression ratio to burn petrol more efficiently at different loads.

The standard configuration is two-wheel drive, but you can spend a bit more and get your X-Trail kitted with a 134bhp e-motor on the rear axle for four-wheel drive (or e-4orce, as Nissan calls it). The onboard computer trickery tells the car to produce the power where it is needed, which means the 4x4 version of the X-Trail produces 211bhp at the wheels.

Will I need to plug it in?

People’s reactions to the words “self-charging” will vary in extreme ways, but Nissan is marketing the X-Trail as an electric vehicle that charges itself up. This sort of hybrid powertrain is a solid bridging technology to full electric though; instead of plugging it in, the car stores up energy that would otherwise be wasted under braking and keeps it safe in a reasonably tiny 2.1kWh battery.

There is a mild hybrid option available too, which just has the 161bhp 1.5-litre petrol from the hybrid cars powering the wheels itself but with the help of a mildly beefed up battery that enables it to coast and use stop-start for extended periods.

The entry level mild hybrid manages the 0–62mph run in 9.6 seconds, the 2WD hybrid in eight seconds and the 4WD model in seven seconds, while fuel consumption for the three comes in at around 40mpg, 50mpg and 45mpg. We drove the e-4orce 4WD car for a week and it came reasonably close to its official figures, in the low 40s.

What is it like to drive?

You realise what a big car the X-Trail is when you look back in the car park to remember where you left it. There is no missing it; with that aggressive front end and high bonnet, but you do not necessarily feel the car’s weight on the move.

There is lean through corners, which encourages you to take it that bit easier; it is not a car that rewards any attempts to hustle it along. Likewise the steering is not full of feel, but there is enough that you do not lose where the front wheels are pointing.

The ride is occasionally disappointing, especially with the bigger wheels getting noisy over ripples and potholes, and noise creeps in at speed. You also appreciate that the electric motors have the guts to get the car moving, not like certain hybrid rivals where the electric bit makes a cameo instead of taking up a starring role.

Is the hybrid for performance or economy?

The behaviour of the car immediately indicates that the hybrid set-up is geared towards saving fuel rather than adding any particular oomph.

Dump the accelerator and there is noise, but the only measure of getting faster is watching the numbers on the digital dash track slowly upwards. Take it easy and you will be pleasantly surprised at how the car can tickle around town on battery power.

Interior

You can tell Nissan has made a bit of an effort with the inside of the X-Trail; it might even be a bit plusher than a workhorse family SUV should be, especially in the top tier trims. The materials are all pleasant, although not convincing on some of the shinier stuff around the centre of the dashboard that gets mucky quite quickly.

You cannot argue with the space inside the X-Trail; there is plenty of room in the middle row of the car, even without the sliding option. The third row is strictly for children and of course you lose a significant chunk of boot space with those folded up. In five-seat guise the X-Trail offers 575 litres of bootspace with the seats up, 1,396 with them down. Go for seven seats and you lose 100 litres of space in the same configurations; whip out all seven seats and you are left with just 120 litres in the back.

Buying

You have got three engines to choose from; the mild-hybrid 1.5 petrol, the 2WD hybrid or the 4WD hybrid. The MHEV and the four-wheel-drive car come in five- or seven-seat flavours, but the 2WD hybrid is only available with five seats. You have then got five trim levels to select from, although entry-level Visia is only available with the MHEV petrol.

The X-Trail range starts at £32,030 (about Shs150m) for the five-seater Visia MHEV, rising to £48,510 (about Shs228m) for the seven-seat Tekna+ 4WD hybrid.

Verdict

The latest version of the X-Trail looks much less like its Qashqai sibling these days, but has borrowed a lot from its sibling and retains the useful traits of practical day to day family usability and economy.

Seven-seaters by their nature are expensive to run, so anyone in the market for one will be grateful for the added economy boost from the hybrid set-up. This segment is as crowded as they come, however, and it is a pity there is not much more to the X-Trail than being big and frugal.

- Source: www.topgear.com