Which bring us to that issue we touched on earlier.
While entrance and egress is no big thing, the seating position leaves a little to be desired. This is especially true if you suffer from slight T Rex syndrome (long legs, short-ish arms) as I do. I was required to move my seat back (manual seat adjustment is your only option), which is no big thing (except for the compromise it asks of back seat passengers), but since the wheel has no reach adjustment, I found myself having to really stretch to get there. Then, when I wanted to rest my overly stretched arm, there was nowhere to do so, expect on the passenger beside me. Which can be awkward, depending on who it is.
It’s too bad because other aspects of the seating position are pretty good; you get 1,007 mm of front headroom (980.4 if you have the moonroof, and 933 mm in the back), 1,068 mm of front legroom and a pretty nice view forward thanks to a surprisingly high seating position. Yes, at 815 mm rear seat legroom is, to put it lightly, snug (which is generous, I’d say; it is very, very snug back there), but what do you expect when it shares underpinnings with a city car?
The Hockey Bag Test
So, if you’re going to squeeze the rear seat passengers, you should have plenty of room in the rear cargo area, right? Well…
As you can see from the photos, getting an adult-sized hockey bag in there is not a problem, widthwise. The rear hatch’s opening is a little narrow, but the real problem comes with fitting longer items. In many cars, you can slide your sticks over the back seats, even if there is a tonneau cover installed.
With the Juke, however, the space between the tonneau cover and rear window is so snug, you really have to manipulate longer items. You’re better off folding the rear seats (they split 60/40); when done, the seatbacks sit completely flat, and 1,017 litres of cargo room is available. That number shrinks to 297 L with the rear seats up.
The Rest
Otherwise, I rather like what’s going on in the Juke’s cockpit.
For starters, there’s the centre stack, whose ability to change from a set of driver aid controls to a set of climate controls never really gets old. Look! The buttons say different things if I press this button! How DO they do that?
It’s a pretty neat trick, one that’s quirky and fitting with the Juke’s mission.
Being the top-flight SL model, our car has all the goodies as standard: navigation, Sirius satellite radio, heated front seats finished in leather, and Nissan’s AroundView camera system. While that last one may not be as necessary for a small vehicle like this as it would in, say, a Pathfinder, it’s still a nice feature to have as the rear window isn’t huge. The side-view mirrors are quite large, however, and can even get in the way when it comes to forward visibility.
