Nissan Juke Review 2025: Price, specs & boot space

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, and the Juke’s styling is still among the most distinctive in this class, without being as polarising as the old car.

The Nissan Juke might have kicked off the small SUV trend but that doesn’t mean Nissan’s competitors are letting it off easy. This is one of the busiest segments in the market; you can barely move ten yards without tripping over an alternative to the Juke.

Some of the biggest players are the Ford Puma (a good option for driver appeal), Renault Captur (related to the Juke, but a little more classy), and Peugeot 2008 (high on style), while the Volkswagen Group trio of the Volkswagen T-Roc (and T-Cross), Skoda Kamiq and SEAT Arona is talented too. The Nissan’s fellow Japanese small SUVs are the Toyota Yaris Cross and Honda HR-V (though the talented Mazda CX-3 is unfortunately now only available used), while left-field alternatives include the comfy Citroen C3 Aircross, luxurious DS3, chunky Jeep Avenger Hybrid, and sporty Alfa Romeo Junior Hybrid; coincidentally all but the Aircross there share a platform.

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. 

Early Visia models were unusual in that they didn’t come with a touchscreen system, just a low-profile radio display sitting above the air vents. It had a tiny non-colour screen and lacked 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. You can still plug in a phone via USB if you want to listen to tunes too, so if you’re not a fan of touchscreens, keep an eye out for Visia versions on the used market.

Today’s Acenta Premium instead has a 12-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 12-inch TFT display between the dials on the dashboard (seven inches on earlier cars). 

Tekna models keep the same infotainment, but add a Bose stereo, which has eight speakers plus 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. Current versions have 114PS.

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 10.7 seconds. That’s quick enough, if far from ground-breaking (the equivalent Skoda Kamiq is around half a second quicker). This extends to 11.8 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. 

In the most recent HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index, Nissan finished an undistinguished 23rd place out of 33 brands, and the lowest position of any Japanese manufacturer – Lexus, Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, and Mazda were all in the top ten, in contrast. Nissan also finished 23rd for owner satisfaction. That’s equal with Mercedes, but really at the wrong end of the table…

With the Juke specifically, the latest generation is neither among the best nor worst for reliability in the small SUV class. It does have one advantage over its predecessor, in that the dual-clutch automatic gearbox has a better reputation than the old CVT, with the CVT among the more frequent repairs needed on older models. Bear in mind that as a car often bought for family use, not all Jukes will have been looked after or maintained as fastidiously as they should be; prioritise used models with good service records.

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 groupings run from 1 to 50, with group 1 cars being the cheapest to insure, and group 50 the most expensive.

First-year tax on the Nissan Juke will set you back £390 for the hybrid model thanks to its 109g/km CO2 rating, and £540 for both manual and auto versions of the 1.0 DiG-T petrols. After that point, you’ll pay a flat rate of £195 per year, and the same applies to any existing petrol, diesel, or hybrid Juke sold since April 2017.

The hybrid has the lowest Benefit-in-Kind rate of 27%, but this is still pretty high compared to plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars, so if you want a small SUV that’ll be cheap to run as a company user, you’re better off looking at electric models like the Peugeot E-2008 or the new Ford Puma Gen-E.

Someone in the Nissan marketing department must have ants in their pants because the lineup has changed several times since the car was introduced. As of spring 2025, the range comprises Acenta Premium, N-Connecta, Tekna, Tekna+ and N-Sport models, but search the used market and you’ll also find Visia (an entry-level trim with 16-inch steel wheels, cloth seats and LED headlights), Acenta (17-inch alloys, 8-inch media display, and a rear-view camera), and special editions such as the Premiere Edition, Kiiro (a Batman movie tie-in, of all things) and Enigma.

The current Acenta Premium starting point features 17-inch alloy wheels, a 12.3-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a rear-view camera, a contrasting black roof and door mirror caps, cruise control, four-speaker audio, and LED headlights.

N-Connecta steps up to a different 17-inch alloy wheel design, built-in TomTom navigation, a 12.3-inch digital driver’s display, wireless phone charging, front and rear parking sensors with a rear-view camera, and automatic climate control.

With the Tekna, you then get 19-inch alloys, Bose 10-speaker audio, heated seats, a heated steering wheel, and heated windscreen, interior ambient lighting, and Nissan’s ‘Advanced Safety Shield Pack’ with a 360-degree parking camera, blind spot intervention, rear cross traffic alert, intelligent cruise control, lane keep assist, and other safety features. Tekna+ gets a different 19-inch wheel design, two-tone metallic paint, satin grey exterior details, and leather and Alcantara interior trim on top of the Tekna.

Finally there’s the N-Sport, which is similar in spec to the Tekna+, but swaps its silver-finished 19-inch alloys for black ones, has gloss black exterior details rather than satin grey, gets yellow details on the leather and Alcantara seats and err… an N-Sport badge.