irishcar.com - Nissan X-Trail first view

There’s an immediate impression when you first take the wheel of an X-Trail. A deja vu kind of thing.

Though there are physical differences because it is after all Nissan’s own vehicle, we’ve been down this road before in a number of 4WD vehicles aimed towards the leisure and recreation market rather than the farmwork.

There’s not much you can do with a leisure SUV in terms of overall shape. It has to be a longbox and a little higher on the road than a ‘normal’ car. It can’t sacrifice load space for style, nor can it compromise road manners just because it will from time to time be taken onto the grass.

So the visuals are restricted to doing something distinctive with air grilles, badging, wheels and lights.

The X-Trail has a Nissan ‘toughie’ front end, with a couple of diagonal bars framing the marque’s badge. The front lights are housed behind large clear-fronted covers, the rear ones tall and high-mounted as inaugurated some years ago by Volvo. It’s not just copycat, though, because lights units are expensive to replace, and having them high like this makes car park shunts less expensive.

A rear roof-mounted spoiler does make a difference to a bare roofline, and from a side view there’s plenty of glass to promise an airy interior. Protruding wheel-arches add a haunchy look, and serve a useful purpose too. They’re made of a deformable plastic that will take a dent and simply pop out again when the pressure is off.

Inside, things are indeed airy, partly because of the centrally-mounted instruments cluster, which for the driver provides an unobstructed view over the scuttle line to the bonnet edge. The seats look and feel good, and the car comes with an electric sunroof, 6-disc CD changer, electric windows front and rear, and some innovatively-styled cupholders.

Putting down the rear seats gives a very flat and commendably long estate-like space, one which can be extended further on the front passenger side by dropping the back of that seat. The seatbacks themselves and the cargo floor are all covered in a plastic resin that helps to stop luggage from sliding and is fully washable.

We drove the X-Trail on a brief run to County Kildare (a full test will follow here in a later issue), and it was again a deja vu situation: good road manners, quiet operation. Mazda Tribute comes to mind as the driving experience, though the fittings and finish here are more European. Certainly, when it was (deliberately) taken over some of the county’s worst roads, it took them with aplomb and little harshness - though I thought the ABS came in a little too easily, perhaps reflecting what feels like a light (in weight) construction. Still, Nissan claims X-Trail to be the shortest stopper in its class, so I guess they have it well worked out.

The car normally uses FWD, saving fuel and power. But 4WD comes in immediately that a bunch of sensors feel slippage, and the vehicle is claimed to have a very good off-road performance. Certainly it will go anywhere most buyers will ever think of bringing it.

The only engine - and there’s nothing wrong with it - is a 2-litre petrol, outputting 140hp and returning over 30mpg. It’s no slouch, sprinting to 62mph in 11.3secs if necessary. The market for leisure SUVs in Ireland is slanted heavily towards diesel, but Nissan only has a 2.2-litre diesel available and won’t bring it here in the X-Trail because it would be price-compromised by our penal VRT system. This situation has already kept a diesel out of the Almera range.

So X-Trail in just one specification is now available at 33,260 euros. It is sufficiently tidy and comfortable to be a creditable alternative to an ordinary large car, certainly if you have a little of the outdoors in your lifestyle.