Alternative review of Nissan X-TRAIL

No one's pretending anymore. Compact lifestyle 4x4s never go off road. And if they ever did, it would have to be on something very easy. I know. I once tried to take a Nissan X-TRAIL over a dirt trail and ended up damaging the exhaust. As I probably would have done with most of its Freelander/Honda CR-V/RAV4-style rivals. No, these are school run family estates. And they're none the worse for that. Buyers like me love the elevated driving position, the chunky looks and the feeling that if we wanted to chase buffalos across the Serengeti, then we could. So where does all that leave Nissan's latest X-TRAIL, a car I've been trying? Basically, it had to become more car-like if it was to meet the challenge being laid down by a host of new rivals. So Nissan has obliged. There's more equipment, a smarter interior and, rather surprisingly, better off road capability. Now there's a turn-up.

New from the ground up, the current generation X-TRAIL is slightly larger than before: its wheelbase is larger and it's longer. Though this unfortunately doesn't mean that there are now seven seats, I was pleased to find that much of this extra length could be found in the luggage area, which has increased dramatically in size. With the rear seat in place, the original vehicle had a luggage area VDA measurement of 410 litres up to the lower edge of the rear window: in this latest X-TRAIL, the equivalent figure is 603 litres, an increase of 193 litres (including double deck trunk capacity). Fold the rear seats forward and this increases to 1773 litres. Which is as much as I would ever need. One nice touch that I liked was the addition of an innovative double deck luggage area, with space for a sliding drawer under the floor where valuable items can be stored away from prying eyes. The drawer has partition walls that can be placed in a number of different positions or removed altogether as required. The floor and the drawer can both be removed to increase load space even further. As a result, the luggage area of this X-TRAIL is deeper and wider than the original and, even with the false floor in place, virtually as tall. With it removed, luggage height is increased by 127mm over the original. This generation of X-TRAIL feels a lot smarter inside. The rather icky plastics of the first generation car have been replaced with more soft touch finishes, metallic highlights and tonnes of auxiliary storage space. Nissan claims an extra 50 litres of oddment stowage around the cabin with various bins, boxes cubby holes and cupholders never more than a few centimetres away. It would have been thoughtful to have allowed the rear bench to slide to and fro, prioritising luggage or passenger space at will but perhaps that's a job for the 2010 facelift. As it stands, there's a rather neat 40/20/40 split system for the rear bench.

The X-TRAIL is surprisingly competent off road, Nissan's designers rightly proud of All-Mode 4x4-i, an intelligent four-wheel drive system that reduces understeer and apparently gives this ostensibly front-wheel drive car some real capability, predicting when the front wheels are slipping and directing drive to the rears with lightning response. A rotary knob lets you choose either fuel-saving front-wheel drive, automatic four-wheel drive with a variable torque split between the front and rear axles, and a mode with the centre differential fully locked to help you crawl out of the mire. Hill descent control, a hill holder function, ESP stability control and individually braked wheels acting the role of axle diffs only add to its off-road ability. Economy, even of the punchiest 173PS diesel engine is respectable, this version managing a combined figure of 38.2mph while emitting 190 grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre. The 65-gallon tank affords this model a very hefty range indeed. Economy is helped enormously by the fact that you don't need to run the vehicle in power-sapping all-wheel drive mode all the time, the intelligent 4x4 system reverting to front wheel drive when possible. Insurance and ongoing running costs for the X-TRAIL have always been reasonable.

I might struggle to justify the premium being asked over a conventional spacious family estate. But then that comment applies to virtually every car in the compact 4x4 class. Viewed against its peers, this X-TRAIL stacks up well. If you're looking for a car of this kind, it's one you'll need to consider.

TOP 3 X-TRAIL DEALS

The results below show the top X-TRAIL deals on buyacar

Nissan X-Trail 2.0 dCi 173 Tekna 5dr Diesel Station Wagon
Price £24,699 Read X-Trail Reviews	Save £4,866
Nissan X-Trail 2.0 dCi 173 Acenta 5dr Diesel Station Wagon
Price £21,279 Read X-Trail Reviews	Save £4,486
Nissan X-Trail 2.0 dCi Tekna 5dr Auto Diesel Station Wagon
Price £25,954 Read X-Trail Reviews	Save £4,986
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