Nissan X-Trail - long-term review

“It’s fine”. Pretty much the daily response I would give to anyone who asked me what this fourth generation SUV is like. It’s... “fine”. But “fine” in a solid way. It does everything it says on the tin but nothing that ever really blows your mind.

But do car designers and engineers really want a family SUV to be mind-blowing? This latest X-Trail has taken the car from cheap and boxy to one that is softer and more premium... but still with a cheap-ish price tag. It'll cost you upwards of a “fine” £32k.

And they’ve created a “fine” drive system that gives you all the advantages that electric and ICE cars offer, like smooth instant power but none of the range anxiety. A bit like claiming you’re a vegetarian but still eat chicken.

Despite all the cleverness though, it’s still just “fine” to drive and over a six month tenure I couldn’t get my head around the fact that you can hear an engine constantly running out of sync with your driving. No doubt onlookers thought my throttle input was very much not “fine”. There’s a battery and fuel range, yet one doesn’t work without the other so really you only need the fuel range.

The battery range is always “fine” because you can never run it empty as the engine (fuel) will always top it up and if you want to try just electric mode it lasts for a few miles only for the engine to kick in and charge it up again. MPG was consistently around 43 which is “fine” though, dare I say it, would a regular engine get better mpg? Still, I love that Nissan has found a way to perhaps keep the ICE alive.

It's inside where it’s a bit more than “fine”, obviously helped by the fact that we opted for the top spec Tekna+ which does come in at £45k but features a lot of creature comforts. It's practical too, there’s ample room for all the family - though it perhaps needs a slightly bigger boot, especially the seven-seater. I must admit I rarely used the in-car entertainment as it still felt a bit cheap, and I opted regularly to use Apple CarPlay. But I never once got tired of being inside the car.

But does “fine” mean you shouldn’t consider this car? Completely the opposite: this family SUV goes straight to the top of the list populated by every other “fine” affordable family SUV out there.