There's no getting away from the Nissan Qashqai when it's Britain's sixth best selling car. Hell, if you're from the north east, you probably even feel a bit of affection for the old crossover given that around 90 percent of the 2 million that have sold worldwide since 2007 have been made in Sunderland.
Nissan is promising a lot with new CVT tech
Now Nissan has unveiled the new one, on sale early Feb, and we must admit, it's quite a handsome thing if you're in the market for something that's like a Golf, but not a Golf.
We went along to have a look and were quite impressed by a some of the technology improvements. It comes standard with intelligent braking that'll give a kind of torque vectoring function by pinching the inner brake disc to better help it round corners.
That's not new, but the Qashqai also has something Nissan calls Active Ride Control. As one of the lead test engineers, Peter Brown, told us, this uses the brakes to "settle" the car over larger bumps. "It applies them subtly to take out some of the movement, so it feels like it's better damped," he told us. Both this and the corner brake pinching is a function of the Bosch ABS electronics, into which Nissan has plugged its own box of tricks.
Brown reckons the changes make the Qashqai "the best ride and handling crossover out there", but admits the Golf still has the edge because of the Qashqai's higher centre of gravity.
Second-gen Qashqai has a hard act to follow
Also interesting is the new Xtronic CVT gearbox available (for now) just on the 1.6-litre diesel. CVTs (continuously variable transmissions) should be the best kind of autos because the infinite ratios mean they're always in the right gear for the best performance and economy.
In reality they can feel horrible because of what Brown calls the 'rubber band' effect when you accelerate hard. "It feels like there is a disconnect between engine-speed and the actual driving," he says.
Nissan's solution is to keep the smooth CVT feel in town, where Brown reckons they win over conventional autos and often jerky twin-clutch DSGs, but the program the CVT to mimic those two on harder acceleration by kicking down and appearing to hold onto ratios. As others have done with CVTs, in sport mode, you can move the gearlever between seven fixed ratios.
Peugeot might be close to solving the lurching automated manual issues by filling in the torque gaps with electric power, now let's hope Nissan has rescued the CVT.
Other info about the new Qashqai - it kicks off with a 115hp 1.2 four cylinder turbo petrol replacing the old 1.6, followed by a 1.5 diesel with CO2 emissions of 99g/km, then a 1.6 diesel with 130hp and a 150hp 1.6 petrol turbo that Nissan reckons will still do 50mpg. No prices given yet but it's likely to start around £17,000.