Nissan Juke Review 2024

If you want a stylish small SUV, the Nissan Juke is a pretty good choice. It’s an easier car to justify than before thanks to its improved interior, but its slightly mediocre engine line-up limits its appeal. Still, if you mainly drive around town or you’re not fussed about effortless performance, you could certainly do worse. You could buy the old model.

While the Nissan Juke was a pioneer of the small SUV market, the segment is now flooded with some very competent competition. If you’re considering the Juke, you should also look at the latest Renault Captur. It shares a platform with the Juke, but has less divisive styling and a wider selection of engines to choose from.

The latest Peugeot 2008 is another really good alternative, with a bold interior, while the Ford Puma is the compact SUV of choice for people who enjoy driving. The Volkswagen Group has some very strong rivals in the form of the Skoda Kamiq, Volkswagen T-Roc (and smaller T-Cross), and the SEAT Arona. The Citroen C3 Aircross is a comfortable choice, meanwhile, while the Honda HR-V is a very versatile option. Don't discount the sporty Mazda CX-3, either.

While the old Nissan Juke's interior offered a catalogue of hard plastics, the only hard materials you'll find in the new one are on the tops of the doors and in the lower reaches of the cabin – hardly unheard of at this price point. The main sections of the Juke's dashboard, though, are made from expensive-feeling squidgy materials. 

Mid-range Juke N-Connecta models feel a bit posher thanks to their leather-trimmed steering wheel and gear knob, plus their ambient interior lighting. Top-spec Juke Tekna+ models give you the option to choose from interior colour packs including Engima Black, Energy Orange or Light Grey with half-leather seats. 

The Nissan Juke range kicks off with Visia model, easily spotted by its old-school stereo. It's got a tiny non-colour screen and lacks most of the useful features fitted to the infotainment screens on the rest of the range, although you do get a small TFT display between the dials on the instrument binnacle. 

Acenta models are a lot more like it. They have a proper 8.0-inch infotainment screen and it comes fitted with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto so you can use your phone's apps on the car's big screen – instantly giving you access to things like Google Maps, Waze and Spotify. N-Connecta models add to that with a seven-inch TFT display between the dials on the dashboard. 

Tekna models keep the same infotainment, but add a Bose stereo, which has eight speakers including two in the front seat headrests that are designed to envelope you in sound. 

The Nissan Juke's seat gets lots of adjustment, as does the steering wheel, so you'll find it easy to get a comfortable driving position and there's loads of room for another tall adult on the front passenger seat.

Where this new model marks itself out from the old car is in rear-seat space. Its longer wheelbase means tall adults get more knee room – two six-footers will fit in the back seat – although the Juke's sporty roofline means they won't have loads of headroom. There are three seats in the back, but you'll struggle to fit three adults abreast without wedging them in uncomfortably. 

When it comes to fitting a child seat, you get ISOFIX points on the two outer rear seats so it's easy to get a seat locked in place, although if it's bulky, you may need to slide the front seat forward. High-end versions of the Juke also get ISOFIX mounts on the front passenger seat. 

If you have a baby, you'll appreciate the Nissan Juke's sizeable 422-litre boot space – which is bigger than you get in a Volkswagen Golf. Its high load lip makes it a bit of a pain to load, but you do get an adjustable boot floor to make up for this and, with it in its highest setting, you have space to hide the parcel shelf underneath. Fold the back seats down – they split 60:40 – and you'll have room to carry an adult's bike. 

In the Nissan Juke Hybrid, the batteries are positioned underneath the boot floor. That means passenger space isn't affected, but overall luggage space does drop to 354 litres.

In terms of smaller storage spaces, you get big door pockets up front and a place to put your phone, but the glove box is small and so are the pockets in the rear doors. All in all, a Volkswagen T-Cross's interior is easier to keep tidy.

The latest Nissan Juke was initially offered with just one engine: a little 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol unit with 117PS. It can be combined with a six-speed manual or a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox.

The manual gearbox in the Juke is fine, although the gear change doesn’t feel as precise as you’d get in a Ford Puma, for example. The dual-clutch gearbox is much better than the CVT transmission that was used in the old Juke, although it does hamper performance (on paper, at least).

With the manual gearbox, the 1.0-litre engine can hustle the Juke to 62mph in 10.4 seconds. That’s quick enough, if far from ground-breaking (the equivalent Skoda Kamiq is around half a second quicker). This extends to 11.1 seconds with the automatic gearbox. For comparison, a Skoda Kamiq 1.0 DSG accelerates to 62mph more than a second quicker.

A hybrid version, badged the Nissan Juke Hybrid, arrived in 2022. This pairs a 1.6-litre petrol engine with an electric motor to produce a combined 143PS – enough to provide 0-62mph acceleration in around 10.1 seconds. It's still not that quick, but it's around town that the Juke Hybrid is in its element. The 1.2kWh battery allows the Juke Hybrid to set off under electric power alone. It won't run for any significant distance on electricity (unlike plug-in hybrid alternatives like the Renault Captur E-Tech PHEV), but Nissan says you can theoretically reach 34mph before the petrol engine is required to kick in.

One novelty of the Nissan Juke Hybrid (which comes as standard with a clever 'multi-mode' automatic gearbox) is the addition of an e-Pedal button which, like in the Nissan Leaf electric car, ramps up the regenerative braking and slows the car down as you lift off the accelerator. Unlike in the Leaf, though, the deceleration isn't that noticeable and we reckon you'd struggle to drive about town without touching the brakes.

As we mentioned earlier, the Nissan Juke can get quite noisy on the motorway, so if you'll do a lot of long drives, you might want to avoid cars with 19-inch wheels, which project the most noise into the cabin. Things are quieter with the 16- and 17-inch wheels and, for that matter, a little bit more comfortable. You'll also have to contend with some wind whistle but at least Nissan's tiny 1.0-litre engine is barely noticeable over the din of the wind and road. 

The hybrid model is very refined at lower speeds, particularly as it can set off in traffic under electric power alone. If you're heavy with the accelerator, though, the 1.6-litre petrol engine springs into life with a fairly intrusive roar – a pure-electric alternative like the Hyundai Kona Electric is a much better choice if you're seeking serenity.

The Nissan Juke scored five stars when it was tested for safety by Euro NCAP under 2019's test conditions. Even the basic model comes with lane departure warning, traffic-sign recognition, lane assist and emergency call, which will call help if the car's involved in an accident.

Juke Tekna models add a host of big-car features including active cruise control, rear cross traffic alert – which will stop you reversing into oncoming traffic – and driver alertness detection that'll warn you when you need to take a break. 

The latest Nissan Juke is still a bit too new for us to have a proper idea of its long-term reliability, but even anecdotally, we haven't heard any horror stories so far. Its dual-clutch automatic transmission ought to be a lot stronger than the old CVT auto gearbox. That was a particularly weak point for the previous model in terms of reliability. 

Nissan performs pretty mediocrely in the HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index, with an average reliability score of 9.04.

Go for the 1.0-litre engine, and your car will sit somewhere between groups 11 and 14 for insurance, depending on trim level and transmission. Select the hybrid model, and your grouping will be either group 14 or 15. No version will cost the earth to insure, then, considering that grouping run from 1 to 50, with group 1 cars being the cheapest to insure, and group 50 the most expensive.

Buy a Juke with the 1.0-litre petrol engine, and you'll pay the same flat rate of VED as all conventional petrol and diesel cars, that flat rate being £180 per year. Go for the hybrid, and you'll get a discount, although that discount only amounts to a tenner a year.

The Nissan Juke range starts with the Visia model. This is pretty basic, with its 16-inch steel wheels, cloth seats and DAB radio with four speakers. It also gets a 4.2-inch digital instrument display and LED headlights (with daytime running lights). Driver-assistance tech includes cruise control (with a speed limiter), a lane-departure warning system and traffic sign recognition.

The Nissan Juke Acenta adds desirable features like 17-inch alloy wheels, an 8.0-inch touchscreen media system (with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto) and a rear-view camera.

For those after a more premium choice, the N-Connecta trim level features a bigger seven-inch digital instrument display as well as a navigation system. It comes with keyless entry and start as well as an electric parking brake with auto-hold function. Automatic climate control is a nice feature, as is a leather steering wheel and shift knob - not to mention interior ambient lighting.

The Nissan Juke Tekna comes with 19-inch alloy wheels, heated front seats, a heated windscreen and a fancy Bose audio system. It also comes with the Advanced Safety Shield Pack, with a 360-degree camera, Intelligent Driver Alertness, Blind Spot Intervention, Rear Cross-Traffic alert, Intelligent Cruise Control, Lane Keep Assist and Moving Object Detection.

Topping the range, Tekna+ models look a bit more special, with two-tone paint and various contrasting body inserts (on the front and rear bumpers and side skirts). Interior finishes are also available in a variety of colours (Enigma Black, Energy Orange or Light Grey).

Various high-value special editions have come and gone over time, too, which add extra kit for a knock-down price. These include the Premiere Edition, the Kiiro and the Enigma.