We get super cosy with Nissan’s very plush Qashqai. Can the third iteration of the car that basically helped reinvent the SUV continue to woo the British motoring public to open their wallets? – follow our journey here…

Report by Percy Lawman – Senior Product Content Manager

Jump to:

• Update 2: Interior, equipment, specs and safety
• Update 3: Engine and driving impressions
• Update 4: Buying and owning options
• Update 5: In Summary
  

Update 1: Introduction

Introducing the Nissan Qashqai Tekna XTronic

Fifteen years after the introduction of the first-generation Qashqai, Nissan has now launched the third generation car. Back then in 2007, the Qashqai was seen as a bit of a gamble with the new family ‘SUV’ [Sports Utility Vehicle] concept hoping to introduce a different spin on mainstream motoring. The idea being that the great British motoring public needed something more akin and in touch with their varying and expanding lifestyles.

The idea of the SUV/Crossover was born. A car that was equally happy in a town or city environment, but had that additional ruggedness associated with the off-road world. Of course, not all SUVs are pure 4x4s, very few actually – but since 2007, the motoring arena has been awash with SUV’s coming in from every angle and a multitude of manufacturers. The choice has grown massively over the years and continues to be immense. As you can imagine, competition is fierce.

Our friends at Nissan’s press office have kindly lent us a new third generation Qashqai and we’re here to put the new recruit through its paces. The great thing about running a vehicle over an extended period is that you can really get inside the skin of the car. Things that you like become more apparent and of course those little things that niggle in the back of your mind and never seem to fade away are always in the discussion.

Our new colleague is OE21 NXH – a 1.3 DiG-T MH 158ps Tekna+ 5dr Xtronic in a very deep pearlescent grey. It seems to be the ‘In thing’ during the last 12 months or so that many motor manufactures now seem to offer a premium metallic grey colour option.

Chatting to friends outside the pub one evening, an older chap mentioned that ‘We used to call that primer!‘ He has a point and coming from a similar generation, I know what he’s referring too. But having had a similar colour scheme on a MK8 Golf that I’d run in 2021, I know that many people really liked the colour scheme and commented the fact. It did look smart. To be honest, the modern-day finish is a much more intense and refined affair than just a dull grey primer finish – so it gets my vote and actually looks very bright and sharp. The ‘Ceramic Grey Pearlescent’ paint comes as a worthwhile factory option at £745.

The car has only one other factory fitted option and that’s the Two-Tone Ceramic Grey & Pearl Black Roof [£400]. On the road price is £36,125, topping £37,200 including the two factory options. All other equipment mentioned in this article are standard fit items. As we’ll mention later, the equipment list is very comprehensive indeed. You’ll certainly not be lacking anything.

One exterior item that’s also included as standard fit equipment is the monstrous 20-inch alloy wheels. Now, we’re not quite into ‘monster-truck’ territory but certainly riding on the same route. The wheels are yes, [REALLY] big and chunky. They make a car [that already stands high and proud], lift itself skywards. The view from the cabin once seated is if you are sitting one floor up with a vast panoramic view in front of you. In a car that actually feels bigger than it is, it’s a welcoming introduction and you don’t feel too intimidated.

At home, the Qashqai sat next to an older generation Kia Sportage which was fitted with ‘17s’ and it made the Sportage look very small in comparison.

As you’d expect, the alloys are fitted with premium rubber. The OEM Michelin Primacy 4 235/45 R20 V-rated tyres will set you back a hefty £225 for each one, replacing on a like-for-like basis. No small outlay and I’m sure owners will be pretty conscious of that fact that they will be £900 lighter in the pocket after purchasing a new set of four.

The present Qashqai range includes only two engines. Both are mild-hybrid 1.3 DiG-T petrol variants producing 138 and 158ps with either manual or Xtronic auto gearboxes. There are no diesel or purely electric options. Our own car is the 158ps variant with the Xtronic automatic gearbox.

>> Check out the specs of the new Nissan Qashqai here

With the vast number of SUVs on offer, today’s market place is a pretty crowded affair and competition rife. With the likes of key rivals such as the SEAT Ateca, the Kia Sportage, Skoda’s Karoq and the upmarket Peugeot 3008 – our Qashqai needs to really be punching above its weight.

So, stay tuned with us over the coming months as we get to know our Qashqai more intimately, living with it on a day-to-day basis.

Update 2: Interior, equipment, specs and safety

Interior equipment:
Inside the cabin, the Qashqai offer acres of room. Open the door and sit on the very plush quilted premium leather fronts seats. The initial position of the driver’s electric seat is nicely set well back which allows the driver more than enough room to get seated and comfortable. Press the engine ‘start’ button and the seat automatically moves forward, remembering the position it was last set too. In real terms, this car could easily fit a driver of well over 6 feet tall [plus] without any issue.

Inside the feel is of a plush, airy and spacious cabin. It’s very apparent in that the ambience feels very high-end from the word go. Even after a couple of weeks of owning it was clear that the leather seats exceeded all my expectations.

In the rear the car will easily seat three adults, although its ‘cosy’ for the person in the centre. Compared to the previous generation car, knee room has been increased by 20mm and shoulder room by 28mm. Leg room will accommodate the 6-footer plus club with ease and as in the front, the plush quilted leather seats are extremely comfortable.

Factory fit BOSE audio
The BOSE sound system is a factory fit standard option. Parkers readers who have read some of my articles in the past know that I’m a keen audiophile. Having the BOSE system on-board gave me the opportunity to dissect the system and get underneath the skin of the Qashqai’s audio experience.

Consisting of a 10-speaker array [a change from the previous 8-speaker offering], the sound system has been designed and engineered individually around the new 2021 on vehicle. The manufacturers claim this gives you custom tuned equalisation to deliver an accurate and life-like audio experience.

In certain audio circles, some audiophiles have been critical of the BOSE sound. I’ve owned 4 different BOSE systems and combinations over the years including the heavy weight 302 ‘Acoustimass’ Series-2 bass drivers and 802 MKII full range drivers but have since moved away from this direction.

The default ‘BOSE’ sound seems to lean more towards a custom electronic ‘EQ’ rather than towards any ‘reference’ audio experience.

In practice, the system didn’t quite hit the mark. You can hear the EQ [which sounds rather bland] and although it’s pleasant to listen to, it just didn’t deliver any kind of sparkle or ‘wow’ factor. The lows from the on-board Chinese built subwoofer in the boot did, however, give a good enhancement to the bass and lower frequencies although seemed a little held back. You can also push the system quite hard and very little distortion was detected even at higher volumes.

Most BOSE systems that I’ve heard seem to have a neutral mid-range and there was no perceivable change here. The tops felt a little dull – like they were missing some clarity and brightness.

BOSE use a 2-band EQ [Bass/Treble] which we found would potentially limit the frequency bands of adjustment. In practice, this mixes more frequencies into fewer bands and as such, the crossover points can occur at less than optimum points. It seems though, BOSE has a set of built in pre-defined crossover frequencies based around the speaker characteristics and as such, it uses their own EQ algorithms.

It’s a nice thought for factory fit standard equipment and all-in-all sounded OK, but in our opinion, it’s only a small token upgrade as the end results didn’t really blow us away.

15w wireless charging system
For any smartphone user, a wireless charging system is a useful addition to the normal USB cable option. In practice and using an Android Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, the wireless system immediately detected the phone and began its charging sequence showing a ‘green’ charging logo on the panel just above the charging surface. All-in-all a very easy and fuss-free affair. Incidentally, if you put the ignition key close to the charging area it can cause the charger to flash ‘amber’ [error/not charging].

If you have an older smartphone without wireless charging, then the onboard USB and USB-C connectors will save the day.

Around view 360-degree monitor
For safety, the new Qashqai enjoys 4 cameras to monitor all angles of the vehicle with selectable focus on the front, rear and kerb-side views to help you park with confidence. This is topped with a premium 360 degrees digital high resolution ‘Around View Monitor’. This we love as the system enables a ‘Drone-Mode’ view which [seems] to view the vehicle from a height of a few meters above the car.

We’re not totally sure how the Nissan boffins have achieved this but it’s highly useful. When manoeuvring in and out of tight spots as you can see what is effectively a 360 panoramic birds-eye view around the whole car. Great tech!

A bumper pack of standard fit equipment
The list of standard equipment is highly impressive and, on our Tekna+ trim level model, the following equipment is included as standard factory fit items. It’s not an exhaustive list, but gives potential owners the feel of what to expect.

SECURITY AND SAFETY

• 2 Curtain airbags + 2 Side airbag (FR) + 2 FR airbags + 1 FR far side airbag
• 2 ISOFIX child seat anchorage points (rear)
• Anti-theft alarm
• Drive modes
• Driver attention alert
• Electronic parking brake
• Hill start assist & auto hold
• Intelligent cruise control
• Intelligent forward collision warning
• Intelligent forward brake with pedestrian, cyclist & junction assist
• Lane side support systems: Lane departure warning, Lane departure prevention, Blind spot warning, Blind spot intervention
• Traffic sign recognition

AUDIO AND NAVIGATION

• 12.3” Full TFT Digital Combimeter
• A-IVI Navi 9” with connected services
• Audio system with DAB
• Bluetooth® with audio streaming
• BOSE sound system 10 speakers
• Head up display [HUD]

STYLING

• Ambient lighting: front doors & centre console
• Quilted premium leather seat fronts
• 20″ alloy wheels
• Glass roof + roof rails
• Power tailgate with hands-free function
• Privacy glass

CONVENIENCE

• Advanced i-Key with memory functions: driver seat & exterior mirrors
• Assist seat: Electric seat + 4-way electric lumbar
• Auto dimming interior mirror and folding mirrors
• Driver seat: 8-way electric with slide + recline + lifter + tilt
• Electric adjust & heated outside mirrors
• Front massage seats massage (3 modes)
• Wireless charging pad

VISIBILITY

• Around view monitor with moving object detection
• Automatic headlights
• Front & rear LED turning signals
• Front LED adaptive driving beam and high beam assist
• Front and rear parking sensors.
• LED headlamps (low/high beams)
• Rain sensing wipers

>> Check out the specs of the new Nissan Qashqai here

Navigation, audio and infotainment system:
The 12.3” Full TFT Combimeter system is generally a joy to use with nice high-resolution graphics and a good user interface. On the nav side, the 9 inch A-IVI Navi screen has good functionality and an easy to use interface that’s quick and intuitive. Saying that, from time-to-time, it seems to have its own agenda on whether it will work or not.

Owners have reported similar issues over the last generation car and during our first 5 weeks of ownership the nav screen has locked up 4 times and an error reporting that a ‘Battery Management Fault’ had occurred and to contact your dealer appeared once.

On the nav system, getting out of the car, locking it and then re-opening the car seem to fix the issue. On the hard ‘Battery Management Fault’ the same reset and coming back to it later didn’t resolve the issue. The issue persisted during the same day but resolved itself the following day. It hasn’t done it since and the car performance seems unaffected when it was reported.

Safety:
The current Qashqai enjoys a 5-Star Euro NCAP rating just like its predecessor and first-generation cars did. Obviously, the safety gurus at Euro NCAP thought this was a winner from the word go and over the years each generation Qashqai hits the top marks – scoring a solid 5-stars.

It’s a super safe car to be in and scores particularly well with safety tech and enjoys a state-of-the-art adaptive cruise control system. Over the years, Nissan has improved the safety tech constantly.

In the new 2021 Euro NCAP test, adult occupant and child occupant protection both scored 91% and safety assist technology 95%. In comparison major rivals Kia’s Sportage returned 90, 83 and 71% respectively and Skoda’s Karoq scored 93, 79 and 58%.

In our next report and update, we’ll be taking the Qashqai out and about. Eagle-eyed readers will have already observed that we’re getting better than excellent fuel economy from the very frugal 1.3 DiG-T power unit. We’re keen to test this further as on one trip, an indicated 60.1mpg was achieved and that wasn’t really trying that hard.

Update 3: Engine and Driving

Engine opinions:
The 2021- Qashqai had in essence 4 available engines, all petrol with 136 or 158ps output with manual or automatic [Xtronic] transmission. However, 2022 earmarked a change and the brand new 1.5 190hp e-POWER hybrid variant made centre stage. The e-POWER unit uses the petrol engine to power an electric motor.

Our own 158ps petrol car needs a little coaxing when the revs are below about 1500rpm. There is a small pause in proceedings before the car leaps quickly into action. It feels a little odd at first but something you get used to and then never really think about afterwards. In terms of performance there’s very little between both engines. The DiG-T 158 has an official 0-62mph time of 9.5sec which is only marginally quicker than the DiG-T 140’s 10.1sec. However, the new e-POWER Qashqai seems to be the ‘must have’ engine with a 0-62mph in a brisk 7.9 seconds.

Driving opinions:
So, time to take our new partner and get out and about. Our first journey in the Qashqai was the typical ride-around-town and trip to the supermarket. We found the car very easy to deal with around tightly packed car parks with the ‘Around View Monitor’ giving us all the required feedback when parking and moving in and out of limited spaces.

The car in essence feels quite big, especially at the front. When you look outside, the front of the car looks quite imposing as it sits high off the ground with the larger than life 20-inch wheels. In the cabin, the onboard tech and four cameras help the driver negotiate out of any potential problem area. The tech is excellent, easy to use and one of the Qashqai’s big plus points.

In the supermarket car park, the Qashqai certainly had no issues in swallowing enough shopping to keep us going for a year. In practice, the cavernous boot, giving a maximum of 1593 litres of space [with the seats folded down] is ready to carry more or less anything you throw into it.

There are two luggage boards which offer up to 16 different configurations depending on what your luggage requirements are, and to top it off, a very useful hands-free powered tailgate which at the click of a button will open or close. It’s easy to use and fuss-free.

Out on the open road with the large 20-inch alloy wheels we thought the ride may well suffer, but in reality, this isn’t the case. The higher spec suspension option that is fitted to both Tekna and Tekna+ trim levels seem to mainly mitigate this. Fast road cruising is very comfortable and seamless with little road noise. On more unforgiving ‘B’ roads, the car didn’t feel overly out of its comfort zone and we could really fault the ride quality although smaller diameter wheels should [in theory] handle poorer road surfaces better.

From the outset, I was very impressed with the levels of comfort in the Qashqai with the seats being exceptionally good. A longer 350-mile trip proved that fact straight away. The old ‘numb-bum’ feeling that seems to affect many a car never reared its ugly head. Super-comfy over both short and long distances. Driver fatigue is defiantly a thing of the past with this car!

Night-time driving:
On the dark night time roads, the Qashqai is ahead of its segment in offering ‘Adaptive Driving Beam Technology’. This splits the high beam into 12 individual segments, automatically turning off segments which could potentially dazzle oncoming drivers. This new generation tech provides maximum visibility for both you, the driver and for those around you. In practice it works extremely well and the transitions are seamless as the amount of light generated constantly moves up and down to the varying road conditions. It’s very good and get a thumbs up here for a useful piece of new tech.

Super frugal fuel consumption:
Nissan’s official figures on the 1.3 GiD-T MH 158ps engine gives four different ‘phase’s, in affect each phase is allocated to different driving environments. The ‘low phase’ returns an average of 35.5mpg. We’re presuming this is a worst-case scenario when using the car for town or city driving. The ‘medium phase’ which is most likely an average with some town/city driving combined with the occasional longer run return an average of 45.9mpg. The third [high] phase returns an average mpg of 51.6mpg which is most likely dedicated mainly to longer runs and finally the ‘Extra high phase’ which returns an average of 40.9mpg is long distance ‘fast-road’ type cruising.

In real terms I’ve been finding the Qashqai to be extremely frugal with fuel when driven under the right conditions. In particular, a trip over a weekend that I deliberately limited to under 60mph and mainly on motorways and dual carriageways, resulted in the car exceeding 700 miles from its onboard 55 litres giving an average consumption of 12.72 miles per litre. In old money that’s 57.82 miles per gallon and 25% better economy than official figures.

I think this deserves a much closer inspection as a few years ago, I took a small city car [Suzuki’s Ignis] from Land’s End to John O’Groats on just over £60 worth of fuel. Today, we’re all aware that the price of fuel due to world events is much higher, but on the face of it – the Qashqai looks like it may well return over 60mpg which is well above the ‘norm’. We’ll look at an extended trip in the coming months and report back.

Update 4: Buying and owning options

Owning a car comes in many different flavours these days. The old-school ways of just buying and owning that car are well and truly gone. Today, you have a plethora of choices of how to get your hands on that new chunk of shiny metal.

In this update, we’ll take a look at the options and check over the pricing for each one.

Where possible, we’ll include links to deals which will be correct at the time of originally publishing this article, but as the car market is a very fluid place to be, deals may not stick around for very long so it’s worth keeping your eye on the ball on a regular basis.

But, before we get into the nitty gritty, it’s worth mentioning that the many varying global factors in play right now [Ukraine, Covid and specifically the shortage of some electronic components and chips] – the lead times for many manufacturers have increased by a large margin.

A local friend who recently enquired at the main Peterborough Nissan franchised dealership was told of a waiting list of over 9 months – but that was for a specific trim level and specification car.

Potential buyers may be put off by this and the waiting times are not consistent across the board. Some model ranges don’t seem to be affected that much. Others are totally opposite with a waiting time of over a year.

An online search on Nissan’s UK site found a wide range of trim levels available for delivery within 10 days or so. The cars were scattered across the country and some with factory fitted options so it’s not all bad news. Generally, the choice was more than adequate.

Buying a car outright
We live in a modern society and apart from you presenting yourself as a huge security risk as you sit on the bus with wads of cash hanging out of a bag, dealers are very well setup to perform all transactions electronically. It’s much safer and on top of that you are very well protected.

For credit-card owners, buying on your card has many advantages. ‘Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act’ protects buyers for purchases between £100 and £30,000. This means if in the unlikely event something goes wrong [say the dealer goes insolvent and has taken payment], then you are covered up to the maximum of £30,000. It’s akin to having a cast-iron insurance policy.

We’ve a comprehensive rundown of top buying tips which buyers may find useful before marching off to do a deal.

Buying from a main franchised dealer – or through the manufacturer
Here you get all main dealer thrills and peace-of-mind. Chances are though, you won’t find the lowest actual price for the car. Main dealers effectively represent the manufacturer and are geared up to sort out any issues quickly and effectively.

Nissan’s UK site shows all the currently available new Qashqai stock from their dealer network. The site is simple, easy to use and fuss-free.

Buying from an independent dealer or internet outlet
Here’s where you’ll find the keenest prices. Independents don’t have the same outlay that main dealers have, so can offer much keener outright ‘Buy’ prices than main dealerships. Whilst this looks to be the magic bullet, not all independents are the same. Most dealers you’ll have no trouble with but you are unlikely to get the same level of attention to detail of a main franchised dealership.

We’d say buy on credit card from an independent as you’ll be covered should something go wrong. Expect ‘Cash Buy’ prices to save you quite a lot. Normally, you’ll find the greatest savings from an independent dealer.

As an example, we found a similar model Tekna+ Qashqai that we are running from Nationwide Cars with an RRP saving of just over £5300.

Car leasing – Personal Contract Hire [PCH]
We don’t always have the cash on hand to buy a new car every three years – that’s where car leasing (or Personal Contract Hire – PCH) comes in. In essence, it’s a ‘Renting Agreement’ and when the rental period is over – you hand the car back. Car leasing offers an alternative to purchasing a car up-front or arranging finance. You can adjust the length of the term, your expected annual mileage and the upfront amount you pay (known as the Initial Payment) to find a monthly payment that suits you.

On Parkers, we’ve teamed up with leasing experts ‘Zen Auto’ who are the home of all things personal contract hire – or PCH as it’s sometimes known. They are part of Zenith, who’ve spent 30 years working with some of the UK’s biggest businesses to provide intelligent fleet solutions. They now extend offers to personal contract hire so you can get a slice of the action. Check out the very latest leasing deals on the new Nissan Qashqai here.

Car leasing – Personal Contract Purchase [PCP]
‘Purchase’ is the key word here. With PCP you have the option buy the car at the end of the agreement. PCP stands for Personal Contract Purchase. It works by spreading the price of a car across a deposit, a series of monthly payments, and an optional final payment. Typically, a PCP finance agreement lasts between 24 and 48 months. PCP deals are in abundance at main franchised dealerships.

Unlike with a bank loan – where you pay for the whole cost of the car over the contract – with PCP you just pay for the depreciation. That’s the difference between the initial price and what the car is expected to be worth (the Guaranteed Minimum Future Value GMFV) when you hand it back.

This means that you can run a brand-new car for an affordable monthly payment with the option to simply hand the keys back with nothing left to pay at the end of the contract – provided the car is in good condition, below the agreed mileage limit and has been serviced as stipulated by the manufacturer.

If you want to buy the car outright, however, you simply make the optional final payment. And then it’s yours.

Cash loan from a finance provider
In the past, many people would consider an independent loan from a bank or alternative loan outlet. This purchase method is still valid for some as the idea of owing your car outright still has that big zing factor about it.

Buying your car and personally owning it has advantages in that [unlike PCP], there’s no limitation on the number of miles you cover. Effectively you buy the car and it’s yours to keep.

On Parkers we’ve sourced the market and have found some pretty keen personal finance deals.

*Whilst we can’t advise on individual deals as everyone’s circumstances are different, we’ve found these very keen deals from outlets such as Tesco Bank. Tesco Bank has always been a firm favourite here on Parkers, consistently offering the consumer a low APR.

Tesco continue to offer a very low 3.2% APR on loans up to £25,000 although above this figure, the rate increases to 6.6% which we would not recommend as it’s too high.

Repayment figures are shown using their online calculator we found we could borrow up to £25,000 based on the following criteria.

Loan Amount – £25,000
APR – 3.2%
Monthly Payments – £450.93
Loan Period – 5 years [60 months]
Total Repayable – £27,055.80

In essence you choose the amount to borrow, loan period and the agreed payment per month then the company lend you the cash and you pay it back as per your agreement. In most cases [once the loan is approved], you’ll have your money fairly quickly [normally within 5 working days]. It’s then up to you to do the donkey work and begin your search for a new car.

*Deals are correct at time of publication. Everyone’s financial circumstances are different and credit is not always available – Parkers cannot recommend a deal for you specifically. These deals are indicative examples of some packages available this week [22/8/2022].

Check out our full Parkers guide on PCH Leasing here
/car-leasing/advice/how-does-car-leasing-work/
Check out our full Parkers guide on PCP Leasing here
/car-finance/advice/what-is-pcp-finance/

Update 5: In Summary

Over the Spring and Summer of 2022, we got the opportunity to dig really deep and get under the skin of the Qashqai. It’s a very likeable car and we enjoyed running it. It felt complete and very well put together with a quality interior and bar a few minor niggles, we can thoroughly recommend it.

Likes: Frugal to the extreme and more than excellent fuel consumption – getting over 700 miles to a tank and beating official figures by quite a margin.

The reversing camera operates in kind of ‘Drone-mode’ you can see 360 degrees around the car from a point which [looks] to be about 3m above the car – it’s very cool!

Dislikes: Nav system can lock from time to time requiring you to turn off the car, lock it and then unlock. A similar car which was with our sister publication ‘CAR‘ magazine was reported to exhibit the same tendencies.

Odd software error messages early on during the loan period reported such as ‘Battery Management Fault Contact Your Dealer’. In this instance, getting out of the car, locking it and coming back to it later didn’t resolve the issue. The issue persisted during the same day but resolved itself the following day. It hasn’t done it since and the car performance seemed unaffected when it was reported.

Percy Lawman – 11 November 2022