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After 12 months with the Nissan Juke, we managed to put 18,000 miles on the odometer. The little red devil looked odd but was fun to drive.
We had a few minor issues repaired under warranty and we managed to destroy two tires with our hijinks test activities.
Click here to read the full wrap-up on the 2011 Nissan Juke.
Donna DeRosa, Managing Editor
You may have noticed some changes here are the LTRTB. Cars are coming and going. In the past few weeks we've sold our Chevy Volt and have returned the Acura TSX Sport Wagon, Honda Odyssey Touring, Hyundai Equus Signature, Mini Cooper S Countryman All4, Mitsubishi Outlander Sport SE, Infiniti M56 and Nissan Juke SL AWD back home to their respective manufacturers. Plus, next Tuesday marks the end of our year long test of our Kia Optima SX.
Wrap ups on all of these 12 month tests are on the way, starting with the Mitsubishi Outlander Sport this Friday.
And we have new cars coming. Lots of them.
So when I last left you, I was about to leave Primm, Nevada for home, on the west side of Los Angeles. Instead of my "get the hell to Vegas as quickly as I can" approach that I used on the first leg of my trip, this time, I'd be in full conservation mode.
Before I left, I engaged ECO (aka SUCK), made sure the Juke was firmly in 2WD and promised to lock the cruise control to the posted speed limit. Unlike the trip to Las Vegas, the majority of the trip home would be downhill. I figured my chances of matching the EPA number of 30 mpg, as well as beating our in house personal best of 28.2 mpg, would be a piece of cake.
A little less than four mind-numbing hours later, I arrived home.
Numbers, along with the name of the lucky reader who guesstimated the closest to the actual MPG, is but a click away.
That's not my name.
I drive to get from point A to point B. And when Point B happens to be work related and also happens to be located on the other end of 280 plus miles of Interstate, I do my damndest to get there as quickly as possible. So with the Juke packed with gear, I rolled out of the local gas station and hit the road.
On a round trip to and from Las Vegas, the outbound leg out of Los Angeles is not going to deliver the best fuel economy. Just climbing over the Cajon Pass (3,800 feet) causes big-block levels of fuel consumption, not to mention the Halloran Summit, the usual swirling winds and elevated speeds you encounter on the 15.
That being said, I still got all scientific and stuff with the fuel mileage just to see how the Juke would fair under these conditions. Click on through for the numbers.
I know the Juke has four doors and can technically hold five people, but as my recent trip to Vegas to cover CES showed, I don't think the Juke could hold the bags of more than two people.
As I went to photograph the absolutely massive convention for two days, I packed a normal sized duffel bag, a camera bag, a pair of boots and a gear belt. Looking at the picture shows that not much of the trunk remains. Any other bags would have wound up in the back seat.
Is that the end of the world? Hardly. But, if you're in the market for a little adventure vehicle, it would be wise to lay out the stuff you, and possibly your companion, bring along and imagine having to stuff it all inside the Juke. Maybe you don't need to bring the big cooler after all...
Kurt Niebuhr, Photo Editor @ 17,877 miles
Oh yes we did. Our RTI ramp isn't just for Jeeps. Any vehicle that shows the barest hint of off-road potential (or marketing, for that matter) is going to face the music.
This morning I lined-up the 2011 Nissan Juke AWD with the ramp, locked it in AWD and drove it up the incline to an RTI of...
Place your bets.
Incidentally, this photo illustrates why the NSX hasn't visited the ramp, despite your pleas. A certain approach angle -- 20 degrees, in fact -- is the price of admission to this ride.
(Sure, we don't have our Raptor anymore, but we do have a Rotary Lift so this one counts. )
The 2012 Detroit Auto Show is over for us, but for the public the show continues until the 22nd of January. You've seen the tours, the blogs, the news and everything else and now you get to see how the manufacturers display the cars from our Long Term fleet. Some where good (TSX Sportwagon got a great spot, so did the Juke) some were not (Mazda 3 parked in the back of the stand). If they didn't have our Long Termer, I got a reasonably similar car.
Sunday morning at 5:00 a.m. I parked the Juke back in the Edmunds' test garage and caught a cab to LAX, headed for the Monday's Detroit auto show.
I'm a sucker for body color trim inside the cabin of a car. Any car. Keep your wood, your leather, your faux wood, your fake leather. I love the way the paint brightens up the center console and doors.
I was making a mental list this morning of how many current models carry the paint job into the interior.
How many can you name?
Kelly Toepke, News Editor @ 17,318 miles
"I told you I am seeing more women driving these in L.A. I am a woman now," my kid brother IM'd me about his 2011 Nissan Juke. I told him that he was probably just noticing the women more than the men, especially since the Juke is actually marketed to younger males like him.
"No, I always look to see who is driving when I see one. There aren't that many," he replied. So I decided to do a little research. I mean, could he be right that there are more women than men who buy the Juke? Not that that would be so terrible.
But sure enough, I was right. ::Doing Told You So dance:: Last year, Nissan reported that Juke owners tend to be men...of the 59+ persuasion. What did bro say when I showed him that press release? "I knew I should have got the white one to match my iPhone."
But seriously, Juke owners, do you fit the target demographic? (Borrowed this from this Juke forum.)
-- Are you male?
-- Are you in your 30s?
-- Do you lead an active, sporty lifestyle?
Caroline Pardilla, Deputy Managing Editor
There are a few things I'd change about the Juke's driving position. Nothing major, just a few tweaks here and there.
We've reported that some owners of the Juke have had problems with paint chipping; seems to be a much-discussed thing on many Juke forums. Well, it looks like we're starting to have some paint-job problems of our own.
The photo above is of the Juke's passenger-side front door handle. Doesn't look too good, and it's obviously not the kind of thing that you can blame on flying rocks or riding the bumper of the car in front of you on the highway. This handle is the only one with this problem; the paint on the driver-side front door handle is fine.
Probably something for us to mention during our next trip to the dealer. We'll let you know what develops.
Warren Clarke, Automotive Content Editor @ 17,091 miles
Since I was the one who took in our Juke for its 15,000-mile service and a satellite radio repair in November, I also was the one who got the customer satisfaction survey from Nissan North America. It arrived Tuesday.
The dealership itself had already called me to make sure everything was OK, but (not surprisingly) Nissan corporate is not just taking a dealership's word for how customers feel they're being treated. To that point, Nissan mails you a paper survey, but asks that you complete it online. I did, giving the service department at Hooman Nissan high marks.
The paper survey also implores the consumer, "Please do not return the survey to your Dealership." I guess a misdirected survey full of "Unacceptable" ratings could find its way into a trash can at an underperforming dealership.
See that? Looks like some mean old grinch took his claws -- or a key, more likely -- to our Juke over the holiday weekend. Maybe it was an act born of the holiday blues, or maybe someone found the Juke's sheet metal so "polarizing" that he just had to make a statement.
Anyway, in the end, holiday cheer prevails.
One thing that sets the Juke apart from some of the vehicles it's cross-shopped against is its ground clearance. With 7 inches between its undercarriage and the road, the Juke sits higher than models like the Mini Cooper Countryman (just under 6 inches), Kia Soul (6.5 inches) and Scion xB (5.1 inches).
An advantage of higher ground clearance is that it facilitates easier travel through snow. Combine this with the Juke's available all-wheel drive and the hatch with the odd sheet metal starts looking like an attractive choice for shoppers who frequently battle lots of white stuff on the road.
Do you live in a region that gets lots of snow? If so, is ground clearance something you consider when car-shopping?
Warren Clarke, Automotive Content Editor
It's about this time in the life of a long-tern car (almost 17,000 miles in this case) that it makes sense to look at the most obvious wear points. The Juke is holding up well, There's virtually no wear on the driver's side seat bolsters -- points which we touch every time we drive the car.
Friday afternoon I noticed a squeak coming from the driver's seat. It was so annoying, I attempted to record it on video so Test Fleet Commander Mike Schmidt couldn't call me crazy when I complained about it on Monday.
Nissan is recalling over 28,000 2011 Jukes, including ours.
"The turbocharger boost sensor bracket may separate from the air inlet tube due to a defective weld," says NHTSA. "If the bracket comes off, the vehicle could stall without warning, increasing the risk of a crash."
The recall affects Jukes manufactured from April 9, 2010 through May 12, 2011.
Nissan dealers will check the lot number on the air inlet tube and replace it.
The recall begins on January 9.
Kelly Toepke, News Editor @ 16,662 miles
I know, I know, the Nissan Juke-R isn't our long-termer (sigh) but if I was the owner of a 2011 Nissan Juke SL AWD, I'd be all about the GT-R'd crossover and hearing and seeing news on it. I know my brother, a Juke owner, is obsessed with the high-performance version of his daily driver.
Nissan came out with a bunch of videos detailing the development of the Juke-R. The most thrilling one I've seen is the one which includes the car's exhaust note. Squeee! Hit the jump for that video (exhaust note is at the 0:48 mark) as well as video on the Juke-R hitting the track (exhaust note at 1:35).
But if you really want to get a sense of what it's like in the driver seat, watch this. Things start to get really exciting at 1:36. I wish they turned off the music though.
No problem.
Scott Oldham, Editor in Chief
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