SA Roadtests
South Africa
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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.
Posted February 4, 2013
Published in Weekend Witness Motoring on Saturday February 9, 2013
There’s this little Eurasian guy who appears out of nowhere, with a big grin on his face and riding his skinny little motorbike; usually right after you and your big ugly 4x4 have conquered a challenging piece of real estate. You know by his grin that he rides that trail every day of his life on that same little 125; meaning that what you have just done is not special at all. Let’s call him Ho Lee McCarroll. He has other last names, but this is a family website.
We muttered one the other day while out driving the Nissan X-Trail. Although this was our first drive in one, we know what it can do because we have driven its French equivalent across the De Wildt off-road course and through that forest near the famous hill climb at Knysna. That was the reason we decided to simply take it out on our local tenderfoot trail; just to get it dirty and have a little fun.
What we did not know was that someone had generously covered the scrambly, rocky section with a good few tons of imported dirt. A few days-worth of rain combined with the passage of harvesting trucks and contractors’ “real” 4x4s had churned it into lumpy hillocks of sticky brown stuff you do not light-heartedly aim a soft-roader at. Ho Lee McCarroll, that’s ugly.
Back down for a minute; lock centre diff and suss out a course. We need the hardest-looking surface and the smallest number of nasty objects. Choose automatic rather than lock-in a gear and get it moving quietly and steadily. Gulp, scrape, small slither, keep power on and keep it going, no matter what. And it’s done. Easy-peasy when you get lucky. The contractors were parked in the roadway near the top, having chosen the long and easy way to work that day. They seemed surprised to suddenly find a mud-spattered “girly” SUV quietly stopped and waiting for them to move over.
Not that Nissan would like anyone to call it that out loud, you understand. Admittedly, it does use on-demand all-wheel drive rather than full-time, there are no low range gears and you cannot lock the rear differential. You can even run it in pure front wheel drive on the blacktop. Its ground clearance is only 203 mm, its approach and departure angles are fair but not fantastic at 28 and 24 degrees, while wading depth and breakover angle are simply not mentioned. You can, however, take it beyond where most weekend enthusiasts would want to go. Those in the know bought more than 22 000 X-Trails between 2001 and 2012, making it by far the best-selling single SUV model in South Africa, according to Nissan.
In Clark Kent mode, it’s a well-equipped family car with comfortable all-independent suspension and all the powered gadgets and safety kit you need. There are six airbags, ABS with EBD and braking assistance, vehicle dynamic control, electronic limited-slip differential, hill start helper, cruise control and hill descent assistance. Naturally, one gets a radio and CD player (driving six discs in top models), Bluetooth, four to six speakers, automatic air conditioning, central locking with autolock, powered seat adjusters, more cupholders than you will ever need, including two on top of the fascia, 124 litres of tray storage under the floor of the load area and the deepest glove box (chilled, naturally) in all of SUV-dom.
The roof rails on top models like this one have lights built in, so you can see all the way to mother-in-law’s house, long before you get there. Seriously, we’re sure you’ll find a need. Rear seat backs not only recline so big passengers can chill, but are split 40:20:40 so you can load almost anything, while the cushions tumble forward to allow the backrests down to form a completely flat loading area. This extends the normal 479- or 603-litre boot space to 1773 litres. Nissan reckons you can get a mountain bike in there with its front wheel on – probably take Ho Lee’s motorcycle as well.
Test unit supplied by Nissan SA press fleet
The numbers
Price: R462 900
Engine: 1995 cc, four-cylinder, commonrail turbodiesel
Power: 110 kW at 4000 rpm
Torque: 320 Nm at 2000 rpm
Maximum speed: 178 km/h
Zero to 100 km/h: 10,9 seconds
Real life fuel consumption: About 8,6 l/100 km
Tank: 65 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km; with roadside assistance
Service plan: 3 years/90 000 km; at 15 000 km intervals
Our review of the 2015 X-Trail 1.6 dCi XE 4x2 is here
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This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.
I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.
My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police.
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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8