If I had been in the room when the decision was made, I would probably have stood there blinking for a few seconds before asking, "Are you serious?" The decision in question was the one to fit the Nissan Juke not only with the entirely sensible 108bhp 1.5 diesel and 115bhp 1.6 petrol engines but also with the 187bhp 1.6 DIG-T direct injection turbo petrol unit. Having experienced the last of these, I'm now even more puzzled than I was when I first heard about it.The DIG-T engine certainly gives the Juke resounding straightline performance. With manual transmission (which the test car didn't have, but I'm coming to that) the top speed is 134mph, and 0-62mph takes eight seconds - much more and much less, respectively, than lesser Jukes can offer.I'm tempted to say that I don't believe anyone would buy a Juke in this form, but Richard Dawkins - if he happens to be a CARkeys reader - would quite properly describe this as an Argument From Personal Incredulity. Another scientist who made a name for himself as a writer, the late Carl Sagan (creator of the wonderful Baloney Detection Kit), would have been equally critical, and with equally good reason. Arguments of this sort, after all, are of no use to anyone.What I should really say, then, is that I would be surprised if more than a tiny proportion of UK Juke buyers will have any interest in the power of the DIG-T model, and that Nissan will be doing well to shift more than a couple of hundred of them in this country.I say "the DIG-T model", but actually there are four. You can have this engine with a Juke in the mid-range Acenta trim level with either the Sport Pack (racy-looking alloy wheels, one-step-above standard upholstery, privacy glass) or the Premium Pack (Sport Pack equipment plus a reversing camera, six audio speakers and the Nissan Connect navigation/audio system), or in the form of the Tekna, which gets leather upholstery and the Intelligent Key system.That's three so far. The test car is an example of the fourth, which is another Tekna with CVT automatic transmission and four-wheel drive. If you must have the DIG-T engine in your Juke, this is the model to go for, even though it's the most expensive in the range by a very long way, and in fact the only Juke at the time of writing to cost more than £20,000.It's also the slowest of the DIG-T options, because the CVT and 4x4 bits knock 10mph off the top speed and add 0.4 seconds to the 0-62mph time. But they perform an important service which is immediately obvious if, as in my case, the car you drove before this one was another DIG-T with manual transmission and front-wheel drive.The fact is that the Juke has a hell of a time coping with 187bhp. There's a clue to why this should be in the press pack, from which - since your local Nissan dealer probably won't have a copy - I now propose to quote. "Despite its SUV looks and the comparatively high eye-point," it says, "Juke's front and rear roll centre heights are as low as possible - closer to a conventional hatchback than a typical SUV - to reduce body roll in corners."The problem with this is that a low roll centre will increase body roll, not reduce it, especially in a car with a centre of gravity as high as the Juke's must be. And I can quite believe that its roll centres are indeed very low, because - sure enough - there is a fantastic amount of body roll. This isn't a problem with the less powerful models, but it's a serious issue in the DIG-T cars.Especially the front-wheel drive manual ones. Turn one of those into a corner and it leans over like a yacht in the South Atlantic. Apply a reasonable proportion of the engine's 187bhp and the Juke doesn't know what to do with it. The inside front wheel struggles to find grip, and the whole operation becomes a bit of a mess - not necessarily dangerous, because you can wrestle the car through the rest of the bend, but definitely a mess.This is where the CVT and the 4x4 system come in. The gearbox means there's more of a delay between the application of the throttle and the wheels knowing about it than in the manual, and thanks to four-wheel drive the front tyres don't have quite as much work to do when the power gets to them. There is still every bit as much body roll as before, and quick cornering is still a clumsy business which makes sporty driving far less enjoyable than you might expect."But I don't want to drive sportily, you silly person." Don't buy this Juke, then. Buy one with an engine that suits it.Update (13 June 2011): A further week behind the wheel of the most expensive Juke didn't make it seem any better. On two occasions its straightline performance made possible overtaking manoeuvres which I would not otherwise have considered, but apart from that the most obvious effect of the engine was to overpower the rest of the car and drag its fuel economy down to about 33mpg, according to the trip computer. Despite previous remarks in its favour, I'm becoming less tolerant of the CVT transmission. It makes the Juke a little difficult to control at low speed (you have to be very careful on the throttle to avoid sudden bursts of acceleration when these are not required) and its habit of making the engine rev before the car gains speed is made more annoying by a distinct whine from under the bonnet. Many times I abandoned the "continuously variable" part of the CVT technology and opted instead for making my own choice from the six available manual ratio holds. As for the Juke in general, it's not very practical (there's less luggage space than in a Micra, for example) and if it's not necessarily the ugliest car on sale in the UK, it surely has to be counted in the top six. Yes, of course, that's a personal opinion, but it's one shared by everyone with whom I discussed the matter during this test. Okay, the performance came in handy twice. For the rest of the week, I did not enjoy driving the Juke, nor did I enjoy having it parked outside my house. This is quite definitely not the car for me. Engine 1618 cc, 4 cylinders Power 190 bhp @5600 rpm Torque 177 ib/ft @2000 rpm Transmission 6 speed semi-auto Fuel/CO2 37.2 mpg / 175 g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 8.4sec Top speed 124 mph Price From £20291.00 approx Release date 01/09/2010
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