Nissan X-Trail long-term test: report 3

The Car Nissan X-Trail Tekna+ e-4ORCE Run by Jonty Renk, senior videographer

Why it’s here To prove that you can still buy an SUV that is both sporty and utilitarian

Needs to Offer a versatile and practical space for camera gear and triathlon equipment, be more frugal than a petrol-engined SUV and carry up to seven people comfortably.

Mileage 3215 List price £48,095 Target Price £43,317 Price as tested £50,240 Official economy 42.8mpg Test economy 39.8mpg

21 November 2024 – Space, space and more space

For me, one of the biggest attractions of big cars like my Nissan X-Trail is having plenty of practicality on offer in the back. And I don't just mean boot space – I like room to stretch out in the back seats, and for that area to be versatile too.

My car does it extremely well, which is no surprise given that the model has been around for long enough to know how to serve its owners with space designed to be used. Like the front interior, which I touched on in my previous report, the rest of the X-Trail has clearly been designed with the user experience in mind.

I'll get on to the boot shortly, but first the rear seats. In the middle row, my passengers always comment that the well-padded seats are comfortable on long journeys. And on top of that, my Tekna+ version equips the outer two rear seats with heating and the ability to slide and recline for a properly luxurious experience.

The panoramic roof lets in a lot of light back there, and if it’s too sunny you can close it and put up a sunblind for the rear windows.

People I’ve sat in the third row are less complimentary with the cramped space on offer. While seven-seat rivals like the Kia Sorento and Peugeot 5008 are comfier in the rearmost seats, I'm still grateful for the last-resort option of seats six and seven, and I'm happy to have added them for £1000.

The boot area offers some clever tricks. They include clips for all the rear seatbelts to keep them out the way when rearranging the seats. That's particularly handy in the third row, where the belts could easily get snagged by items I'm loading in if they weren't tidily tucked away.

The rest of the boot is brilliant too. The third-row seats fold down perfectly flat into the floor so there's basically zero load lip on the quite high tailgate. That makes my heavier bags that little bit easier to load – and with 575 litres of boot space to play with, there are plenty of bags I can fit in.

I do, however, have one slight complaint. I chose the spec of my X-Trail because the Tekna+ trim comes with privacy glass. Security is quite important to me as a videographer parking in the centre of London, and while the privacy glass does a fine job of masking what's behind it from a distance, if you peer in from up close, you can still see what's inside.

That's not the reason for my complaint though (no legal tint on the market is completely opaque anyway). My issue is with the retractable parcel shelf. The one fitted to the X-Trail does a pretty weak job of hiding what's beneath it. Huge gaps at the front of the boot and against the second row seat backs mean it’s pretty easy to peer in and see what’s there.

Those small gripes aside, the boot in my X-Trail has transported all my equipment to and from video shoots with much more ease than smaller cars I've had before. Its reputation for utility remains intact.

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