Micra-20,000 km update & 2nd service experience!. Review on Nissan Micra

23/11/2011-  I bought my micra about 1 year back and now it has covered 20, 000 km and due for second free service. I did my first free service (at 10000 km) at EVM Nissan, Kochi  and since I am a resident of Thiruvananthapuram, I went to new Nissan showroom here-Marikar Nissan. Service was good and I got the car delivered on time. Service cost was Rs 2700. (First service at EVM cost me Rs 1600.) Even though I had some rattling of the front glove box lid initially

(that was rectified at 1st service at EVM), Micra has not given me a single trouble after that. No further rattling, excellent mileage, reasonable performance,  very good climate control, and electronic gizmos! I am extremely happy with my choice.

My original review was---I considered new fabia, polo, new  i10 asta, maruti swift and jazz (All petrol and all top variants)  before settling with micra XV. I did not consider i20 as I did not like  its mediocre engine and driving position -it was good for those  travelling at the back seat. Fabia-I liked the interiors and the looks.  But previous experience with Skoda service (We have an octavia) was a  big turn off. Polo-I thought was a bit cramped at the back. The dash was  a bit high set and not suitable for a relatively shorter driver like me  (my height is 168 cm). Besides both cars on test drive had only average  performance. i10-I liked the engine response, but it was smaller in  size and clearly a segment lower than other cars here.

I got contrasting  feed back about fuel efficiency also.Regarding maruti swift-I agree that  its a great car to drive but I disliked the build quality and overall  finish, especially cheap plastics inside. I know no swift which does not rattle in 6 months! Also swift was due for a new  model in March 2011. Jazz- my heart was with it initially. But my cousin  has a jazz and I have more than 1000 km experience on it. I was not  comfortable with its visibility at the driving position due to thick A  pillar and quarter glass. And the base version of jazz costs nearly 1.5  lakhs more than the top XV version of micra. My brain succesfully  controlled my heart and I went finally to the nissan dealer at EVM,  Kochi.                                                                    
                                                 I liked the looks of micra (My cousin did not like the rear  though). It has great visibility and a comfortable driving position. Key  less entry was convenient and space inside was really good. (My knee  was not hitting the dash board even after pushing forward the driver  seat to full, which was a problem in i10, jazz and even fabia).  Dealership experience was good and car was delivered on time. Driving  micra was a joy except when you require more power like while overtaking  or when climbing uphill with full load and AC- you have to really press  the throttle to the full or downshift gear. Micra gives good  performance above 1500-2000 rpm and performance was better than polo and  fabia. Drive was comfortable otherwise and automatic AC was excellent.  Gear shift was ok but not as refined as that of Jazz and the long throw  was tiring. Clutch was a bit firm too compared to jazz. Stereo was  reasonable but without USB coonnectivity.                                                                  
                               The best part was fuel  efficiency.    A word of caution about my mileage description of micra though.  My running is roughly 25% in city and 75% in highway. I noted that micra  gives 13-14 km/l in city and 18-19km/l in highway with ac on all the  time.. Overall my mileage now is 16-17 km/l with ac. Overall figure is  full tank to full tank figure and there is an error of 1.5 to 1.7 km/l  if we follow the trip computer in micra. (This error is verified thrice  by me by full tank to full tank method.) So simple way is -Check the  mileage as said by the trip computer and reduce 1.5 or 1.7 km/l from it  to know the REAL mileage. Even then I am happy with micra’s mileage.                                                                        
                                                                     The  biggest negatve I found was micra’s low ground clearance. Larger bumps  especially those that shaped odd touches your car unless you are  careful. When you are careful and able to slow down, its ok. Other negatives I found were - even though there are a few bottle holders and storagespaces inside micra , most are useless. Door bottle holders cannot carry 1 litre bottles. While reversing at night you discover that you have only one rear light and the one on the right is a dummy! This is absurd and I  think Nissan should not try to cost cut like this. (I heard that  it is a norm in European cars-say polo, fabia, renault logan etc  but we are in India and we need better illuminatin due to our traffic conditions) Otherwise I  am happy with my choice . It indeed gets a lot of attraction while on  road. Its 5500 km now, but my 1st service is only at 10, 000km - long way to go. Shall post service experience after that.