Nissan Micra long-term test review
Nissan has given its fifth-generation Micra a radical makeover, so can it now compete with the best small cars? Six months of everyday use should provide the answer...
- The car: Nissan Micra 0.9 IG-T 90 N-Connecta
- Run by: Hemal Mistry, digital reviews editor
- Why it’s here: Nissan claims it has created a no-compromise supermini, with a striking new look, plenty of personalisation options and some impressive technology, but can it rival the best in the market?
- Needs to: Do what all the best superminis in the class do – be practical, refined, frugal, deal with motorway jaunts and be fun to drive.
Price £16,115 Price as tested £19,110 Miles covered 3568 Official economy 61.4mpg Test economy 40.8mpg Options Powder Blue paint (£575), Vision+ pack, includes 360-degree camera, blindspot monitoring and moving object detection (£550), Exterior pack, includes 17in alloys and chrome trim (£800), Interior Powder Blue personalisation pack (£350), Intelligent Key (£200) and Bose personal audio pack (£500)
26 July 2017 – Nissan Micra third report
Audio systems in small cars tend not to be very good, with many producing a tinny sound while others vibrate loudly at higher volumes, providing an rotten music experience.
However, when the Micra’s brochure landed on my desk prior to its arrival, I perused the options with interest, but my attention was piqued by the Bose personal audio pack on offer. It is a standard fitment on the range-topping Tekna models, but is a £500 extra on our N-Connecta trimmed car.
The standard set-up on ordinary Micras, excluding the Tekna trim, includes four speakers – two door speakers and two tweeters – located in the front. The Bose system adds two more speakers purpose built into the driver’s headrest with the emphasis on giving three very different audio experiences.
The first setting pushes the audio mainly through the tweeters by the windscreen directly towards the driver, while the middle set-up gives a richer, more involving sound experience in the front. The final setting has been engineered to give a 360-degree, generous and fully immersive music listening experience. You aren’t limited to those three settings as you can adjust the output gradually across ten steps to fine tune your listening experience.
The difference between the three main settings is startling. The driver only mode gives a very one dimensional audio experience, while the other two modes give a nice balanced multi-dimensional feel, which in my mind are the settings to choose pretty much all of the time.
Regardless of which setting you choose Bose has installed a superb set of speakers in the Micra, which refuse to vibrate under pressure of higher volumes and bassier notes. The system also produces a crisp music experience no matter which input you use – DAB radio, streaming via Bluetooth and USB (no Apple CarPlay on this spec Micra).
