Nissan Micra SR
Discussion
It looks like the wife and I have both agreed on a Nissan Micra SR as our second car and household runaround.
In the end the toss up was between a 2005 Ford Focus, 1.6, 55,000 mile, and the Micra. We've selected the Micra for a number of reasons, it's from a dealership just around the corner from us, so should we have any issue we don't need to go far. The Micra is a 55 plate, 1.6 with 45,000 mile on the clock. Comes with full service history and all receipts, and two lady owners.
Although the focus is a great car, it just looked bland, like an every day normal car, and the car we looked like was in an old man burgundy red, where as the Micra Sport to me has something about it, it stands out a little. It's small, and with the 1.6 engine is should at least be a little fun to drive.
The only downside is that I'll more than likely be using the car to get to work 3-4 days a week while the wife has the bairn and bigger family car, work is only 1.5 mile away. I would normally call the Micra a girls car, but when I look at the sport version (especially in black), it looks a little more manly.
So my question is, should I be bothered about driving the micra once in a while?
I think the Micra looks good, we're going to keep it for 3 year and probably put 10,000 mile on it. So even when we're done it'll still have only covered 55,000 mile and have life still in it.
In the end the toss up was between a 2005 Ford Focus, 1.6, 55,000 mile, and the Micra. We've selected the Micra for a number of reasons, it's from a dealership just around the corner from us, so should we have any issue we don't need to go far. The Micra is a 55 plate, 1.6 with 45,000 mile on the clock. Comes with full service history and all receipts, and two lady owners.
Although the focus is a great car, it just looked bland, like an every day normal car, and the car we looked like was in an old man burgundy red, where as the Micra Sport to me has something about it, it stands out a little. It's small, and with the 1.6 engine is should at least be a little fun to drive.
The only downside is that I'll more than likely be using the car to get to work 3-4 days a week while the wife has the bairn and bigger family car, work is only 1.5 mile away. I would normally call the Micra a girls car, but when I look at the sport version (especially in black), it looks a little more manly.
So my question is, should I be bothered about driving the micra once in a while?
I think the Micra looks good, we're going to keep it for 3 year and probably put 10,000 mile on it. So even when we're done it'll still have only covered 55,000 mile and have life still in it.
Why would you be bothered about driving a Micra and why does it matter which car you drive? The only people who bother about these things are brand snobs. The sort of person who usually looks down on others in their s
tbox.
I work with some really odd car brand snobs. For example, they've recently been ripping into someone who turned up in a 4.0 litre supercharged Jaguar XJR. On another occasion they took the pee out of someone who turned up in a Punto. They also complained that they had to drive a Fiesta hire car.
The funny thing is that between them they have a diesel Citroen Xsara Picasso, an old and battered 2.0 diesel BMW E46 3 series, a 2002 diesel Mondeo, an old diesel VW Sharan and a SportKA.
Very odd bunch!
Anyway, the Micra looks good. The older K11 shape has a great following on here.
Edited to add - It would be good to let us know how you get on with this shape of Micra. They seem to appear on the 'cheap(ish) small car' radar quite a lot.
tbox.I work with some really odd car brand snobs. For example, they've recently been ripping into someone who turned up in a 4.0 litre supercharged Jaguar XJR. On another occasion they took the pee out of someone who turned up in a Punto. They also complained that they had to drive a Fiesta hire car.
The funny thing is that between them they have a diesel Citroen Xsara Picasso, an old and battered 2.0 diesel BMW E46 3 series, a 2002 diesel Mondeo, an old diesel VW Sharan and a SportKA.
Very odd bunch!
Anyway, the Micra looks good. The older K11 shape has a great following on here.
Edited to add - It would be good to let us know how you get on with this shape of Micra. They seem to appear on the 'cheap(ish) small car' radar quite a lot.
Edited by funkyrobot on Wednesday 22 May 08:27
funkyrobot said:
Why would you be bothered about driving a Micra and why does it matter which car you drive? The only people who bother about these things are brand snobs. The sort of person who usually looks down on others in their stbox.
I work with some really odd car brand snobs. For example, they've recently been ripping into someone who turned up in a 4.0 litre supercharged Jaguar XJR. On another occasion they took the pee out of someone who turned up in a Punto. They also complained that they had to drive a Fiesta hire car.
The funny thing is that between them they have a diesel Citroen Xsara Picasso, an old and battered 2.0 diesel BMW E46 3 series, a 2002 diesel Mondeo, an old diesel VW Sharan and a SportKA.
Very odd bunch!
Anyway, the Micra looks good. The older K11 shape has a great following on here.
Edited to add - It would be good to let us know how you get on with this shape of Micra. They seem to appear on the 'cheap(ish) small car' radar quite a lot.
Thanks, you're right of course, it doesn't matter to anyone else what we're driving.tbox.I work with some really odd car brand snobs. For example, they've recently been ripping into someone who turned up in a 4.0 litre supercharged Jaguar XJR. On another occasion they took the pee out of someone who turned up in a Punto. They also complained that they had to drive a Fiesta hire car.
The funny thing is that between them they have a diesel Citroen Xsara Picasso, an old and battered 2.0 diesel BMW E46 3 series, a 2002 diesel Mondeo, an old diesel VW Sharan and a SportKA.
Very odd bunch!
Anyway, the Micra looks good. The older K11 shape has a great following on here.
Edited to add - It would be good to let us know how you get on with this shape of Micra. They seem to appear on the 'cheap(ish) small car' radar quite a lot.
Edited by funkyrobot on Wednesday 22 May 08:27
I'm taking the car for a test drive at lunch time, and providing everything is ok I'll stick a deposit down on the car. I will of course report back with my thought.
The Micra is a scourge on our roads. I rarely see one driven properly, i.e. maintain reasonable progress, or take a corner in anything other than 1st gear. Dreadful car to drive, dreadful car to look at, and a dreadful car to be stuck behind.
The Ford may be dull as dishwater to look at, however it will be the nicer car to drive and own. Visually the Micra is abhorrent. Bah! Normally I'm a 'live and let live' kind of bloke but they make my blood absolutely boil.
The Ford may be dull as dishwater to look at, however it will be the nicer car to drive and own. Visually the Micra is abhorrent. Bah! Normally I'm a 'live and let live' kind of bloke but they make my blood absolutely boil.
daveco said:
The Micra is a scourge on our roads. I rarely see one driven properly, i.e. maintain reasonable progress, or take a corner in anything other than 1st gear. Dreadful car to drive, dreadful car to look at, and a dreadful car to be stuck behind.
The SR is a bit different - I've seen a number of them driven quite enthusiastically, and apparently they're rather fun.Krikkit said:
daveco said:
The Micra is a scourge on our roads. I rarely see one driven properly, i.e. maintain reasonable progress, or take a corner in anything other than 1st gear. Dreadful car to drive, dreadful car to look at, and a dreadful car to be stuck behind.
The SR is a bit different - I've seen a number of them driven quite enthusiastically, and apparently they're rather fun.
These are great under-appreciated little cars. I badly wanted a 1.4 Sport a few years ago but struggled to find a good one in my budget.
At the time i was looking at the likes of the Swift 1.3 (similar cost to buy and insure as Micra 1.4 Sport) and I thought the Micra Sport was a better by a long way.
Great level of kit - 6 CD Changer (and the fact that it's in the cabin not the boot makes it 1000x more useful), nice alloys etc.
At the time i was looking at the likes of the Swift 1.3 (similar cost to buy and insure as Micra 1.4 Sport) and I thought the Micra Sport was a better by a long way.
Great level of kit - 6 CD Changer (and the fact that it's in the cabin not the boot makes it 1000x more useful), nice alloys etc.
Driven loads of them when spending summer holidays working for a well known car rental company. Great fun in a light, chuckable kind of way. Make sure you are comfortable with the seating and cabin - you sit quite high, which is good for visibility but maybe not so much for comfort. Also completely although nothing ever seemed to break on them, the gearbox, clutch and cabin as a whole don't feel particularly robust.
My girlfriend had one of these a couple of gears ago. It was hopeless.i would struggle to name a single thing I liked it about it. It went for years without problems, then suffered a cracked exhaust manifold and a gearbox failure in the same year, at which point it was sold off. I hated it. My mam and dad bought a really cheap K11 Micra as a runaround a few years before that, and even though I hated that car too, it was far better than the later Micra.
I would add, based on the comment above:
I too have worked for a well known hire company who had a fleet of Micras and in the two years before they were replaced with the (inferior) new mode we never had a single problem with them.
I would agree though that the gear change in particular has a very light, plasticky feel to it, but I'm sure it's built to last.
I too have worked for a well known hire company who had a fleet of Micras and in the two years before they were replaced with the (inferior) new mode we never had a single problem with them.
I would agree though that the gear change in particular has a very light, plasticky feel to it, but I'm sure it's built to last.
Mrs H had 2 160SRs. Both were cracking little cars. Nothing at all went wrong with either over probly 30K miles. They have an excellent spec and ours both returned 48mpg, were cheap to insure and felt faster than advertised, certainly capable of surprising people.
The best thing is that no-one wants them so they`re cheap, when little Miss H has a couple of years experience under her belt her K11 will be swapped for a 160SR. (She wants a Skyline but that won`t happen).
The best thing is that no-one wants them so they`re cheap, when little Miss H has a couple of years experience under her belt her K11 will be swapped for a 160SR. (She wants a Skyline but that won`t happen).
My wife has a 160 SR. Bought it with 8k on the clock and it is now on 110k or so, and in that time not one single thing has gone wrong with it. I absolutely love driving it, and have done my best to single handedly transform the image of Micra drivers when I use it. Criticisms would be a very busy engine note at motorway speeds, and that's it. It feels quicker than it's 10 seconds to 60 time suggests, and has really fun small car handling. Massively underrated IMHO, and great for surprising other motorists when it's not sluggish and not driven in a dithering manner.
It looks like the micra might be a no-go.
Got to the garage for a test drive, salesman got me to sit down and went through my car. Offered me £800 part exchange, which I got increased to £875. The problem is, when I spoke to him yesterday, he looked over the car and said I'd get £1000, which is the amount we used to factor in our budget. Obviously when it came down to it they've offered less than they said they would.
Couldn't get them to budge so I've walked away. Shame really as its a lovely car, and the only one like it I can find for sale in the north east.
Got to the garage for a test drive, salesman got me to sit down and went through my car. Offered me £800 part exchange, which I got increased to £875. The problem is, when I spoke to him yesterday, he looked over the car and said I'd get £1000, which is the amount we used to factor in our budget. Obviously when it came down to it they've offered less than they said they would.
Couldn't get them to budge so I've walked away. Shame really as its a lovely car, and the only one like it I can find for sale in the north east.
doogz said:
littlened said:
It looks like the wife and I have both agreed on a Nissan Micra SR as our second car and household runaround.
In the end the toss up was between a 2005 Ford Focus, 1.6, 55,000 mile, and the Micra. We've selected the Micra for a number of reasons, it's from a dealership just around the corner from us, so should we have any issue we don't need to go far. The Micra is a 55 plate, 1.6 with 45,000 mile on the clock. Comes with full service history and all receipts, and two lady owners.
Although the focus is a great car, it just looked bland, like an every day normal car, and the car we looked like was in an old man burgundy red, where as the Micra Sport to me has something about it, it stands out a little. It's small, and with the 1.6 engine is should at least be a little fun to drive.
The only downside is that I'll more than likely be using the car to get to work 3-4 days a week while the wife has the bairn and bigger family car, work is only 1.5 mile away. I would normally call the Micra a girls car, but when I look at the sport version (especially in black), it looks a little more manly.
So my question is, should I be bothered about driving the micra once in a while?
I think the Micra looks good, we're going to keep it for 3 year and probably put 10,000 mile on it. So even when we're done it'll still have only covered 55,000 mile and have life still in it.
I'm sure it'll be fun to pedal around in, and if you're happy with it, that's all that matters.In the end the toss up was between a 2005 Ford Focus, 1.6, 55,000 mile, and the Micra. We've selected the Micra for a number of reasons, it's from a dealership just around the corner from us, so should we have any issue we don't need to go far. The Micra is a 55 plate, 1.6 with 45,000 mile on the clock. Comes with full service history and all receipts, and two lady owners.
Although the focus is a great car, it just looked bland, like an every day normal car, and the car we looked like was in an old man burgundy red, where as the Micra Sport to me has something about it, it stands out a little. It's small, and with the 1.6 engine is should at least be a little fun to drive.
The only downside is that I'll more than likely be using the car to get to work 3-4 days a week while the wife has the bairn and bigger family car, work is only 1.5 mile away. I would normally call the Micra a girls car, but when I look at the sport version (especially in black), it looks a little more manly.
So my question is, should I be bothered about driving the micra once in a while?
I think the Micra looks good, we're going to keep it for 3 year and probably put 10,000 mile on it. So even when we're done it'll still have only covered 55,000 mile and have life still in it.
However, even with only 55,000 miles on it, I'd imagine that in 3 years time, your 11 year old Micra is going to be worth the square root of f
k all. Not sure if that's really what you meant when you said 'have life still in it.' just thought I'd say it though.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff