OK, let’s just deal with the elephant in the room right up front. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Sadly, when I look at the Nissan Juke, I don’t behold any beauty. In fact, it kind of repulses me. Fortunately, I didn’t let my judgement of this little book’s cover stop me from driving the Juke because it actually has a lot to recommend it.
The debut of the Juke five years ago really kickstarted the modern subcompact crossover utility movement in the U.S. We’ve actually had small SUVs going back to at least the 1980s with the likes of the original Suzuki Samurai and later the Sidekick and its twin, the Chevy/Geo Tracker. However, unlike the car-based crossovers we’re surrounded by today, these were more like mini-Jeeps with their body-on-frame architectures. Since the arrival of the Juke, the segment has been quickly populated at a variety of price points with the likes of the Chevy Trax, Buick Encore, Honda HR-V, Jeep Renegade, Fiat 500X and Mercedes-Benz GLA. More entries are due in the next couple of years from Ford, Hyundai and Toyota.
For the 2015 model year, the Juke got some minor visual updates, with projector beam headlamps, LED accent lights and revised grille. More lighting updates and a resculpted bumper bring up the rear. Love it or hate it, you’re not going to confuse this for anything but a Juke. The big, bold wheel arches certainly give the Juke a hint of go-anywhere aggression that would look at home on a Jeep. Even though the bug-eye lighting isn’t my thing, I understand that a lot of people actually like it and I laud Nissan for being willing to take a risk.
Inside the cabin, things are generally a bit more conventional although I did have some ergonomic quibbles. The first time I opened the door, I was a bit taken aback at the dark red plastic trim on the center console and doors which stood in stark contrast to the bright yellow body shell. I almost thought that they had installed the wrong interior during assembly, but it was actually meant to be this way and the color contrast actually works. The steering wheel and instrument cluster are typical of contemporary Nissans with rockers on the spokes to manage volume and speed control. The display between the two main gauges can be toggled through multiple pages of information including a torque vectoring gauge that shows which corner engine output is going to.
The surprisingly thick steering wheel rim is a pleasure to hold, providing steady management of vehicle heading. The front seats are supportive in spirited cornering and comfortable when cruising on the highway. The Juke comes in three mainstream trim levels, S, SV and SL plus the higher performance NISMO and NISMO RS. The SL I tested gets a cabin trimmed out in standard leather rather than the cloth upholstery found in the S and SV. The front seats of the SL also get standard heating for cold winter mornings.
A boost gauge at the bottom of the center stack isn’t particularly useful
One of the less desirable aspects of the Juke interior is the secondary display on the center stack. A 5.8-inch touchscreen at the top provides output for the entertainment system, navigation, phone and around-view camera. Below that is a smaller full color display between the climate control switches. In addition to showing the temperature setting, if you press the drive mode button and switch to sport, it can also display auxiliary gauges such as boost or torque, but the position so low down on the stack makes it completely useless.
Click here to compare the Juke to its main competitors
The Juke is the smallest of the current crop of small crossovers and that takes a toll on the space behind the front seats. At almost seven-inches shorter and 1.4-inches lower than Honda’s HR-V, the rear seat and cargo area are significantly compromised. In profile, it’s clearly visible that the Juke’s roof slopes down toward the back, giving it a more coupe-like shape. The result is 36.7-inches of headroom and only 32.1-inches of rear leg room. This space is really just for the youngsters. In comparison, the HR-V, like its Fit sibling provides ample room for two adults in back. At 10.5-cubic feet with the rear seat up, the Juke also has less than half of the HR-V’s 23.2-cubic feet of cargo space.
The real fun with the Juke begins when you press the engine start button. All Jukes are powered by a 1.6-liter turbocharged and direct-injected four-cylinder engine. Non-NISMO variants like my tester generate an impressive 188-horsepower and 177 lb.-ft. of torque that hits a peak at just 1,600 rpm and stays there until 5,200. Despite being about 100 pounds heavier than the HR-V, the Juke feels way more lively when you step on the accelerator, even with the standard CVT. After driving the Juke, I’m even more convinced that Honda should replace the 1.8-liter normally aspirated engine in the HR-V with the 1.5-liter turbo coming to the new Civic this fall.
While both the Nissan and Honda have continuously variable transmissions, Nissan has consistently done a better job than any other automaker in tuning its CVTs to provide better performance and especially feel. Like other Nissan’s the Juke transmission mainly uses simulated step ratio control to give a more natural feel. This is a CVT I could live with especially paired with this torquey little power plant. Nissan should consider dropping this engine into the Altima as well to replace the old 2.5-liter.
When the roads are changing direction rapidly, the Juke certainly feels up to the task with good steering feel and a suspension that keeps the body stable while absorbing rough pavement. Despite being a higher riding crossover, the Juke is actually a lot of fun to drive either cruising down the highway or attacking a twisty country road. The back seat won’t be much fun for adults but if you think of the Juke as more of a sporty 2+2, all-wheel-drive coupe rather than a true utility, it will make a lot more sense. If you’re more interested in the utility part of a CUV, you are probably better off at a Honda dealer looking at the HR-V.
In that context, the base price of $21,000 for the front-drive S and $28,225 for the relatively loaded SL AWD doesn’t seem very unreasonable. Since we aren’t getting a production version of the rear-wheel-drive iDX coupe concept, this or one of the NISMO models might be closest we get to that ideal anytime soon. The EPA rates the Juke AWD at 26 mpg city, 31 mpg highway and 28 mpg combined and I saw 27 in my week behind the wheel. As your parents and grade school teachers always said, don’t judge a book by its cover. Climb in and try out the Juke or one of its increasing number of competitors for size.
Click here for full specs of the 2015 Nissan Juke
