Nissan Juke Mk2 Review (2020-present)

What is the Nissan Juke?

When the first-generation Nissan Juke was unveiled in 2010, jaws hit the floor. It was one of those rare cars that took a big risk with its styling, and while some hated it, plenty loved it, and it sold by the bucketload. This is the second-generation model, on sale since 2019, and while it might not be quite so outlandish by modern standards – perhaps due to the similarly-styled rivals that the original spawned – it’s still an eye-catching machine.

This newest Juke is still a small crossover-style SUV, and counts as its rivals cars such as the Renault Captur, Ford Puma and the Volkswagen T-Cross to name just a few. This is an area of the market that’s increasingly popular, and plenty of new machines are joining the fight for customers’ attention all the time.

How practical is it?

The Juke is a nice car to look at when you’re inside it as well as when you’re outside it. It has a well-made, premium-feeling interior made up of solid plastics and lots of soft-touch bits. This was improved further by a 2024 update that introduced some even plusher cabin materials.

Your driving position has plenty of adjustment, with rake and reach adjustment on the steering column – something the Mk1 Juke didn’t have – and a lever to crank your seat up and down. The tiny back window does hamper your rear view, though.

There’s more room inside than the previous Juke, especially when it comes to legroom, which is now very reasonable. Headroom isn’t quite so plentiful, so passengers much over six feet tall might find themselves scooching down in their seat to fit, but everyone else will be fine. If you regularly carry rear passengers, though, you might want to consider one of the Juke’s roomier rivals, of which there are plenty.

Carrying three people across the rear bench is a bit of a squeeze due to the narrow cabin, and what’s more, the rear side windows are rather small, which limits the amount of natural light you get in the rear seats.

The boot’s a good size at around the 420-litre mark, but a Volkswagen T-Cross or Skoda Kamiq is a bit roomier still. And also, do bear in mind that if you go for the hybrid version, the boot is around 70 litres smaller because the hybrid batteries have to live under the boot floor. Still, at least the space is a good square shape, and the rear seats can fold down to extend the loadbay if needs be.

What's it like to drive?

The entry-level engine in the Juke is a 1.0-litre, three-cylinder petrol unit. That might, on paper, sound small and weedy if you’ve not bought a new car in a while, but thanks to modern turbocharging technology, it’s got quite a bit of pep, with 113bhp. That’s enough to zip around town with ease. You can choose between a six-speed manual gearbox or a seven-speed automatic, and all models are front-wheel drive.

If you’ve got a bit more to spend on your car and you fancy spending less on fuel, you can also have the Juke with a self-charging hybrid drivetrain, which was introduced halfway through 2022. It combines a naturally aspirated 1.6-litre petrol engine and a couple of electric motors to give just over 140 horsepower. When you first fire up the car, it always starts in electric-only mode, each and every time, and the system defaults to using electric-only power as often as it possibly can.

It also has the e-Pedal function pioneered by the Leaf electric car. Engage this function, and when you lift off the throttle, you feel reasonably heavy engine braking as the car recycles kinetic energy back into the battery as electricity, and once you’re used to it, you barely have to use the brake pedal at all. However, you do have to press the brake pedal to stop completely.

The hybrid Juke system uses a very unconventional kind of gearbox, which generally manages to switch around the gears relatively smoothly. However, in order to keep the car in electric-only mode, you have to keep your throttle inputs very light indeed, and picking up speed with even moderate pace will cause the petrol engine to cut in. And even when it does, your progress is still pretty leisurely, even when you work it hard. And because the engine often has to work hard to achieve fairly modest road speeds, there’s also a fair bit of noise emanating from under the bonnet.

The ride is perhaps a shade firmer and lumpier than many will expect in an SUV, and while it’s comfortable enough most of the time, can feel a tiny bit jittery and unsettled on poor surfaces, particularly at low speeds. And despite that firmness, you still feel a fair amount of body roll in bends. However, that aside, the Juke does actually handle fairly neatly. It is very grippy, the steering has a nice weight to it, and there’s even a decent amount of feedback to be felt through the wheel.

Technology, equipment & infotainment

Buy an early second-generation Juke on the used market, and you’ll have a variety of trim levels to choose from, and all have a very reasonable level of equipment, with every model sporting bright LED headlights, alloy wheels and a DAB radio. The entry-level Visia is the most spartan, and lacks the touchscreen infotainment screen of the rest of the range, but upgrade to Acenta and you’ll get that, plus 17-inch wheels, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for smartphone integration. Oh, and a rear-view camera. We reckon that for a lot of people, this will be the sweet spot between cost and features.

N-Connecta adds satnav from TomTom, although it’s not a particularly slick system, while Tekna gives you big 19-inch wheels and a Bose sound system, as well as heated front seats. The top-of-the-range Tekna+ has two-tone metallic paint and some extra splashes of colour, inside and out.

Things changed a bit with a minor facelift in 2024. Entry-level Visia trim was withdrawn due to low sales, making Acenta Premium the new entry-point, while a new N-Sport trim was added at the top of the range. In all versions, the central touchscreen was upgraded from 8.0 inches to 12.3 inches, while all but the Acenta Premium also got an additional 12.3-inch screen behind the steering wheel to replace the 7.0-inch item there previously.

The Acenta Premium gets conventional analogue dials, and also misses out on the wireless phone charger, Amazon Alexa voice control and extra USB ports that the rest of the range gets. It does, however, get upgrades such as wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, a higher-resolution rear-view camera, and a bigger glovebox.

The new digital dials work well, and the new central infotainment screen looks great, with sharp graphics and slick animations. However, it can still be quite distracting and confusing to use due to some complex menu layouts and some rather ambiguously designed on-screen icons.

Nissan Juke running costs

If you’re someone that does a lot of miles, you may be disappointed that there’s no diesel Juke, as diesel engines usually return better mpg figures than petrol on long journeys. If you do fall into that category, plenty of rivals are available with diesel power. But if you’re set on the Juke, you have the choice of either pure petrol or petrol-electric hybrid power.

Go for the former, and you’ll get an official WLTP fuel economy figure of around 48mpg if you go for the manual gearbox, or 47mpg if you go for the automatic. Hybrid buyers, meanwhile, get an official average of around 59mpg. Do bear in mind, though, that these are lab test figures, so buyers of the petrol cars should expect low 40s for real-life mpg, while hybrid buyers can expect around 50mpg, maybe a shade more if you do most of your driving in urban areas.

When it comes to purchase price, the value depends on which version you go for, and whether you’re buying new or used. New, lower-end trims represent pretty good value for money but the swankier trim levels are thousands of pounds more expensive, meaning comparisons against slightly more upmarket machines such as the Volkswagen T-Cross.

The figures for residual values on the Juke are fairly indistinguishable from those of rivals, so it’ll provide equally strong protection for your initial investment. Insurance costs will also be very similar. The Juke did require a service every year or 12,500 miles, while that figure was pushed out to 18,000 miles on later cars. Nissan offers fixed price servicing on its cars, which will protect you from inflation in future prices.

Nissan Juke reliability

Nissan hasn’t performed all that well in the various reliability surveys doing the rounds in recent years, but things appear to be on the up lately, and the Japanese firm is at least clawing its way back to mid-table respectability.

For example, in the 2023 What Car? Reliability Survey, the Juke placed 12th out of 22 models in the Small SUV class, while in the manufacturer standing, Nissan placed 19th out of 32 carmakers considered in the study. Not great, but not terrible, either.

Nissan’s warranty isn’t up to much, though, being a very bog-standard three-year, 60,000-mile arrangement. Rivals from Hyundai and Kia get five- or seven years worth of cover, while the Toyota Yaris Cross’ cover can last for 10 years provided certain criteria are met.