Nissan X-Trail 2020 review: Ti

For an older car, the X-Trail still looks pretty good, whether it's beside its Qashqai sibling or out and about. 

It's not particularly adventurous and has a very strong Nissan aesthetic about it (partly courtesy of a mild facelift in 2017). It's all nicely proportioned and the way the glass kicks up at the rear means it looks a lot like the smaller Qashqai and doesn't reveal its bulk. 

For an old, the X-Trail still looks good.

It's kind of a neat trick unless you're offended by people asking which one of the two you've bought. The high ride height should be a dead giveaway, however.

It's kind of the same inside. Bits of the car are looking dated and the small steering from a hatchback - complete with flat bottom - feels a little out of place in a fairly big SUV. 

You can tell how old the X-Trail is by how many switches in the cabin.

There's certainly nothing wrong with the interior but most of its competition is newer and often have more things to keep you amused.

You can also tell it's a bit on the old side by just how many switches there are in here.

The X-Trail has tons of room. The back seats have heaps of head and legroom and can slide back and forth to either improve access from the front seat or add more legroom for lankier folks.

The boot is huge at 565 litres and has an underfloor storage tray for valuables, or, as I once discovered, a good place for wet or muddy gear away from the rest of your stuff. 

The official figure with the rear seats down is a conspicuously conservative 945 litres. I'd imagine it's rather more than that.

Along with being quite spacious, the big rear doors open fairly wide making it easy to load and unload small kids. The outboard seats feature ISOFIX mounting points and there are three top-tether points.

Despite being a high-rider, it's easy to get in and out of the X-Trail and the low loading lip leads to a flat floor for loading through the electric tailgate.

The X-Trail lands in Australia with six airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, low-speed forward AEB, forward collision warning, lane departure warning and reverse cross-traffic alert.

One thing that has changed since the last time I drove the X-Trail is that Nissan now offers a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty which also comes with roadside assist.

Servicing is every 12 months or 10,000km, which is very much on the short side these days. 

The service pricing is capped for the first three years or six services, which ever comes first, and averages out at around $320 per service, significantly more than, say, a RAV4 and a few bucks more than a Ford Escape. Both of which don't need servicing as often if you're going by kilometres.

The X-Trail missed its official combined cycle fuel figure by a reasonable margin. The sticker on the windscreen says 7.9L/100km but in my week with the SUV the dashboard told me it was around 11.5L/100km, but that was almost a litre better than the last time I had one. Most of my driving was around the suburbs but it did get a run on the freeway.