Nissan Juke facelift (2014) first official pictures

By Ollie Kew

First Official Pictures

04 March 2014 06:30

This is the facelifted Nissan Juke. Chief among the visual changes to Nissan’s divisive-looking but best-selling crossover are reshaped LED running lights inspired by 2013’s Extrem concept car, a revised front bumper that look less like a wine rack, and revised tail lights.

There are also new alloy wheels and, as you can see, garish paint schemes, but the real headlines here lurk under Quasimodo’s skin.

The thirsty old 1.6-litre turbo engine has been binned. In its place, you now have a 1.2-litre turbo engine. Sounds like a raw deal, but this Renault-Nissan-developed engine is a much better ownership bet on paper.

It’s 2bhp down on the 1.6 (114bhp plays 116bhp), but torque is actually up from 116lb ft to 140lb ft. That should make the 1.2 feel stronger in the mid-range, and save fuel when cruising.

The 1.2 DIG-T engine is lighter than the 1.6 it pensions off, and has stop-start as standard. So, it wins the CO2 battle (126g/km beats 139g/km) and claimed fuel economy is better: 36.7mpg is well and truly trumped by the 1.2’s 51.4mpg official figure.

The 1.5-litre diesel engine survives the facelift unchanged, but the marginally bigger, brawnier 1.6-litre dCi has been tweaked to deliver more torque below 2000rpm.

You can now spec a glass roof to brighten the cabin, and there’s updated tech in the form of moving object detection, blind-spot warning and lane-departure warning systems. Two-wheel drive Jukes now have a bigger boot: space is up 40% to 354 litres.

So, while the Juke’s facelift isn’t radical, the price changes for the British-built crossover shouldn’t sky-rocket either. And with 420,000 Jukes sold so far (almost 99,000 of which live in the UK), chances are the Juke didn’t need to change. What’s popular with buyers is good news for the British car industry – the Juke is built in Sunderland.

Tell us if you think the tweaks for the Juke went just far enough – or otherwise – in the article comments below.

By Ollie Kew