Nissan X-Trail - long-term review

The Nissan X-Trail has survived two major events of late. Event Number One: a version of it completed the Baja Aragon rally (albeit a teensy bit modified). Event Number Two: it completed nearly 2k miles with three children on board, right across France. The latter is of course, the most significant of the two.

At the Baja Nissan wanted to show off the drivetrain capabilities of its 'e-force' and 'e-power' systems, with extra cooling the only modification. It's the same tech featured in Top Gear's long-term X-Trail. We'd be putting our X-trail through similarly challenging conditions: fully loaded with luggage and kids, eking out mpg across long, arduous, gruelling motorway miles.

Just like the Baja I took this very seriously indeed, and really wanted to see what mpg I could get. Fully loaded (including a roofbox) and with the trip computer reset, off we went, covering around 1,800-miles of urban, motorway and rural roads.

Over 41 hours of driving across two weeks, I expected big things. Unfortunately it was... not. I couldn’t get past 36mpg. Surprisingly mpg picked up in the UK versus France - perhaps a consequence of the French Autoroute miles where I was constantly dabbing the throttle to keep an even speed, with the engine revving like nuts on the steeper parts.

Inside the X-Trail though, it’s a different story. Visibility when on the wrong side is brilliant and vital when you are constantly “entertained” by kids, there’s ample space for all passengers and boot space is decent but as I mentioned previously, we needed a roofbox to bring everything. And could the kids break it? Not a chance. It's more solid than The Rock, which is exactly how it should be for a family car.

Despite not being a huge mpg success, the X-Trail as a car very much is: Nissan has sold over 150,000 units of the e-power version. Wonder what the mpg was on that Baja run…