Nissan Note 1.5 dCi Tekna

Report by Charis Whitcombe

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You can buy a Note for less than 10k. That's the thing to bear in mind - 10k and you can have a spacious mini-MPV which really will seat four 6-foot adults in comfort, or split and slide its seats in various ways to make room for your family's skis / surfboards / kitchen sinks. But 10k is the entry-level price and we drove something a bit smarter: a 1.5 diesel model in the upmarket, 'Tekna' trim, which would set you back £14,290.

Most mini-MPVs are a bit strange-looking but, compared with such duck-billed oddities as the Fiat Qubo, the Nissan Note is rather restrained. Too restrained, perhaps. If you're going to plump for the practicality of a cross between a van and a car, you might as well have something that looks fairly funky. The Note is about as funky as my dad at a football match. Struggling to find something visually striking to comment on, there is - I suppose - the top, rear corner, where the rear light cluster is built up above the roof, and then descends in curly pod-shapes round each individual light. But that's about it.

Still, on with the show. Inside the Note (and I'm doing my best to avoid musical puns here), there's a high-quality feel, and the Tekna trim level offers seat-trays for rear passengers, plasticky and sharp-edged but useful for hungry children on a long trip. I just can't get rid of the image of cleaning sticky drinks and hardened egg out of the fiddly bits. You know how seatback trays on aeroplanes always have a faint, sickly odour? Ugh. Better than the foldaway tables is the satnav, standard on the Tekna trim, which is easy to use and works brilliantly - it even found our out-of-the-way rural house, which stymies many systems.

To view in depth information on this model click here

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