I often wonder how some of these cars ever got to production.

The Micra is bad in comparison to the famous reliability and build quality of the Mark 1 and Mark 2 (upto 2003) Micras and what they offered to buyers at that time.

Since then the Micra has been dreadful but has somehow kept its reputation.

It now falls well behind many rivals in terms of what it offers.

The most dissapointing element is Nissan, who as a company have drastically changed for the worse since they got into bed with Renault.

Interestingly. Nissan Japan and to a lesser extent Nissan USA have not allowed their standards to fall as low as Nissan Europe.

Other than the latest Note (which is predominatly based on the success and Japanese engineering found throughout the old Note) and the Qashqai, I struggle to see what Nissan offer that is worth consideration.

Edited by daveyK_UK on 22/12/2014 at 08:41

The Micra is bad in comparison to the famous reliability and build quality of the Mark 1 and Mark 2 (upto 2003) Micras and what they offered to buyers at that time. Since then the Micra has been dreadful but has somehow kept its reputation.

We have a Micra. 57 plate, 1.2 Acenta. Just over 7 years old. Was originally dads car, now the wifes.

It always been serviced by Nissan and in those 7 years the replacement parts bought (other than service parts such as oil and filters) are one front spring, 4 tyres and a wiper blade.

It runs perfectly with no rattles and nothing falling off. Does 45 mpg knocking about locally with a few trips to garden centres etc.

There are another 2 just like it on the street and from what the wife tells me (having spoken to them like women do) those have been and continue to be just like ours.

If that is dreadful I have no concept of what peoples idea of good reliability is.

Saw a Pulsar yesterday fo the first time--a nice looking car although in a terrible faecal brown. I agree it may struggle, it won't compete head-on with Golf/Focus as a drivers car and it has Auris/Corolla to contend with for the premium reliability/robustness prize. And of course the Civic as the other well-established Japanese contender. But i do hope it succeeds, we had a Note which was first class and if the price was right Iwould consider another Nissan. How much of the Pulsar is Nissan and how much Renault-sourced though, that concerns me, so look forward to seeing how it fares reliability-wise down the road.