Nissan Almera 1.5V Test Drive Review in Penang
This weekend I was suppose to go back the Eng Guan body spray shop to touch up the grey colour on my GT Street Vios kit that cracked due extreme weather in our country. He promise will fix it free for me but not today due to the a lot cars already queued up. Since my touch up paint plan is failed, I went to test drive Nissan Almera instead 🙂
I went to Edaran Tan Chong Motor Sdn Bhd. showroom at Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah, Bayan Lepas which located beside The Star office. The Nissan showroom come with the service centre which make the office looks much bigger. Upon entering the showroom, I was greeted by young salesman and I told him that I would like to test drive Nissan Almera.
In the courtesy manner, he refer me to another lady know as Miss. Chua. She give me brief explanation between 4 different specification offered by Nissan Almera packages before we go for the test drive.
The spec that I’ve chosen to drive is Nissan Almera 1.5L VA/T. This Nissan Almera 1.5L VA/T variant has 2 air bags, come with fog lamps,15’inch alloy wheels.
Indeed, what Nissan claimed is right. The Nissan Almera do really have a roomy interior. The rear seats and leg room is spacious, after I have seated on the rear seat, my leg room still left plenty of space. Nissan claimed that Almera has the longest legrooom in its class (B-segment).
After I have explored the cabin space, we proceed for the test drive. The dashboard is shorter compared to its rival, Toyota Vios and I felt that it looks more dull and boring, this opinion based on my own personal reviews. Nissan Almera do not have auto fold side-mirror function for the variants which I find it very useful when we are parking or maneuver through tight slot. Other than that, the Nissan Almera side mirrors are much smaller than Toyota Vios and Honda City, which I so not use to it when I was driving the car.
While the dashboard is dull looking, but the panel meter looks attractive. The self illuminated panel meter with white light looks beautiful.
The panel meter come with digital information display to calculate your trips distance, average fuel consumption, petrol tanks status and temperature of your engine. The chrome door handles pretty unique, as it was so chrome while the rest of the interiors are black which outshine the door handles.
Then, we started to drive the car around the area. On the road, I can feel the Electrical Power Steering (EPS) is lighter as compared to my Toyota Vios and Honda City that I tested previously. I can turn the wheels effortless but I don’t really like the weight as it is too light to move around. Perhaps, we need to take the optional accessories to upgrade to Impul 16′ or 17′ wheels to enhance the steering weight ratio as bigger wheels increase the steering weight.
The car performance is meeting my expectation with the HR15DE engine plus the CVTC delivered 102 ps@6000rpm and 139Nm/@4000rpm. In fact I feel the acceleration momentum is almost same as my Toyota Vios.
The test drive was testing by flooring the gas pedal, the pull back force that I felt is similar to my Toyota Vios. The engine roar noise is far more quiet than Toyota Vios even though the RPM have reached at at 5.5K. I am sure I’d bring out the most from this Nissan Almera.
Paul Tan blog stated the Nissan Almera able to deliver up to 24km/l on the fuel consumption. This figure only can happen to Hybrid vehicle, I’ve test my Toyota Vios from Penang-Kuala Lumpur only able to achieve 17km/l with 110km/h speed. That was my optimum fuel consumption that I ever achieved. Checkout my Toyota Vios fuel data.
The Nissan Almera 1.5L VA/T handling seem much rigid compared to Toyota Vios, and the bodyroll of the car is much better than Toyota Vios J as I am trying few turns with sharp corner and the car don’t really maneuver to opposite site.
Nissan Almera 1.5L VA/T comes with O/D (overdrive) On/Off button on the side of the gear knob. This is alternative way to present the 3rd gear for auto-transmission car. I like the gear knob but Nissan Almera do not have arm rest! There is arm rest for rear seats but not front seats!
Another drop point for me as I enjoys put my left arm on arm rest while holding the gear knob during driving. The arm rest was replaced by a 2 slots of bottle holder. Well, this car do have a lot place to seat your stuffs. The car come with 4 speakers for all variant, 2 at the rear boot, another 2 at the front doors. The whole test drive journey last than 10 minutes.
For safety wise, Nissan Almera seem doing great on the all aspect from the body construction until the advanced braking system. The body construction divided into 2 zones which helps to protect occupants.
Braking system come with advanced Electronic Brake Distribution (EBD), Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS) and Brake Assist (BA). The pricing for Almera 1.5L V A/T is RM74,000 without additional accessories.
Overall, Nissan Almera is a spacious with great fuel consumption and good handling car. But the car looks dull for the interior design and the exterior doesn’t really attractive compared to its rivals. Yet, I found Nissan Impul Almera is very sporty and attractive after the dull outlook car refined with sporty skirting and wheels. Nissan Impul kits can be purchase as an optional accessories from Nissan.
My test drive story may sound dull to some of you, but still please give me a ‘Like’ at the bottom of the post if you enjoyed it 🙂
voted one of fourteen most ugly car in the world
The car outlook is kinda dull if compared to other similar car segment, but it have great fuel consumption on road 🙂
I am actually glad to read this web site posts which consists
of plenty of valuable information, thanks for providing these kinds of statistics.
I agree, i thought the design is not too appealing but of course, relatively cheaper than Vios and City
yea! and it is the most spacious among its class….