Versa

Vehicle: 2012 Nissan Versa SL
Price as tested: CDN$16298

Performance: Cheap car used to drive and feel cheap. This is the 2nd generation of Nissan Versa, which Nissan claims its the least expensive car which has a big car feel.

While the Versa has bought nothing new, when it comes to technological advacements to the table, consider its a basic transportation. Its powertrain has done more than its worth for its asking price. It all began with a rather sophiscated directly injected 1.6 liter DOHC 16-valve 4-cylinder engine with the usual variable valve timing and electronic throttle, all good enough to generate 109hp and 107 lb/ft of torque. A jump of 2 horses and reduce torque by 4. However, those who are looking for a basic appliance possibly won’t care about how much stallion going through the front wheels. What they really care is the fuel economy. Thanks to Nissan’s Xtronic CVT, this engine is able to get around 6 liters per 100km on the day average of testing, is very impressive. That’s especially true when you consider a loaded SL is weighting in just barely under 2500 lb. What is less impressive is how noisy this engine has to ranked up from south to 100 km/h. One has to listen to such a noisy racket for 11.5 seconds when accelerating from standstill to highway speed, which is rather annoying. Despite of its noise, this little engine is refined enough for highway speed, if its still busy at upper end of the rev range.

Handling: Given Versa’s basic transportation mode, one shouldn’t expect it to drive like a GT-R. That’s where we found it to be quite impressive given its pricepoint. While its nothing remarkable, dynamically speaking. Its balance of ride quality and confidence-inspiring driving experience should be fine enough for most of its target audience. Although it can’t compare to the likes of Honda Fit and Mazda2, which have charming dynamics to appeal to both enthuisasts and commuters alike. What the Versa provides is the fail-safe driving dynamics. While its narrow 15″ tires don’t provide much grip, body rolls feel rather pronounced and terminal understeer are not too far away. Its the ride quality which should make Versa appeals to those who are looking for cost-saving transportation mode. It rides with much more expensive car, when it comes to smooth out the roughness and frosties on the poorly paved roads. There aren’t exactly much feel and feedback going through its electric power steering, despite its quite responsive on its turn-in. The standard ESC certainly would serve well for those who are looking for active safety feature standard across the board.

Brakes: The standard active safety feature is another area which makes Versa attractive at such a pricepoint. Along with standard ESC, it has ABS standard across the board right from the S stripper right up to our loaded SL. The front discs, rear drums with standard ABS are able to provide decent enough stopping distance with good pedal feel all around. ABS has acted at the right time certainly added up to the points.

Interior: The original Versa’s biggest selling point was interior space. The same goes for its successor. With one more inch of rear legroom, Versa is not only offers the best interior space in its class. Its better than those of a Mercedes E-Class when it comes to rear legroom.

What is not impressed at all has to deal with its trunk layout. I don’t expect a 15 grand subcompact to have uninstrusive trunk hinges. However, I do expect it to have wider side sills and lower liftover point for luggage loading. The result is a trunk which has the opening of a letter box. Even if it has fold-down rear seats, it doesn’t help much neither.

The rest of the interior is typical subcompact. It got all the necessary items from a supportive cloth seats to user-friendly HVAC. However, there are seas of hard plastic across the dashboard and center console.

Conclusion: When the economy turns sour and everyone has less disposable income. A basic transportation like Versa makes so much sense. As it stands, it provides excellent fuel economy with class-rivalling interior space. However, its dorky looks might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Competitions:
Chevrolet Sonic
Ford Fiesta
Hyundai Accent
Toyota Yaris
Kia Rio

OVERALL VERDICT FOR 2012 Nissan Versa
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Performance: 2.5/5
Handling and ride/fun-to-drive: 2/5
Interior/ergonomics/user-friendliness: 3/5
Fit-and-finish/build quality: 3/5
Cargo/accessibility/layout: 3/5
Value-for-money: 4/5

Overall rating: 2.5/5

Vehicle: 2009 Nissan Versa sedan with automatic transmission pkg, convenience pkg and ABS pkg
Price as tested: CDN$17123

Performance: There is no better time to introduce a base model with an entry-level compact during economy downturn. Nissan decided to decontent the Versa sedan with a 1.6 liter instead of hatchback’s 1.8 liter, while cutting some of its standard features and left it as an option. But there is a catch, which we will tell you later on.

Instead of using the 122hp 1.8 liter as its hatchback silibing, Nissan decided to source the 1.6 liter from across the shore. This 1.6 liter has 107 ponies and 111 lb/ft of torque, in relative to 1.8 liter’s 122hp and 127 lb/ft of torque. While we were terribly unimpressed with that 1.8 during our initial test drive with Versa a couple of years ago, this 1.6 liter is just add forst to the snow. This 1.6 liter continues to feel unrefined and noisy when pushed, also feel rather gutless on low-end pick-up. The most fortunate fact of the whole powertrain combination is the use of 4-speed automatic, which won’t create as much noise as its Xtronic when pushed hard during acceleration. But anything is in relative to price, especially when Nissan considers this as the “recession edition”. When you factor in the base price of this Versa sedan, all those rough and noisy engine notes have become forgivable. The 4-speed automatic, on the other hand, has a low enough gear ratio for 1st gear during acceleration. Its surprisingly comfortable with high gear ratio for 4th gear while 2nd and 3rd are spaced out enough in between. Even though Xtronic is an efficient combination due to its gearless CVT, we actually find the 4-speed automatic a more refined choice for the Versa.

Handling: Versa’s dynamic qualities have never impressed us. Its soft suspension combines with tall center-of-gravity have made Versa drives more like a minivan than a compact. There are just too much body rolls, which already exaggerrated with its tall driving position. The soft suspension has added insult to the injury during process. The standard 15″ wheels won’t helped neither. Understeer is the name of the game whenever you start to push the vehicle. Steering feels darty and numb, without any feedback. The best attribute of this Versa is the ride quality. In the hatchback, we felt choppy and ungainly. The smaller wheels actually help it improves the ride comfort.

Brakes: Despite of its so-called affordability, Nissan is stupid enough to offer an ABS package. That package alone adds $500, plus you have to add that additional $1 grand for convenience package to get it. Criticism aside, Versa’s front discs and rear drums provide better than average pedal feel. The stopping distance is acceptable while ABS, as so equipped, acts at the right time at the right place.

Interior: Versa’s best attribute has always been its spacious interior and decent use of materials. In this Versa, however, you have to add $1 grand to get all the necessary features. Without that convenience package, Versa sedan only comes with a steering wheel and an engine. This package adds power windows, locks, mirrors; a stereo, a clock and air conditioning. When you add both ABS and convenience package, along with auto transmission package; all of these are going to add up to $17 grand. That price is enough to get a better Versa hatchback with 1.8 liter engine.

Conclusion: Although Nissan has responded to the economy downturn with the introduction of a decontented Versa sedan, it doesn’t offer as much value as one expected. As we have mentioned earlier, the base car only comes with a steering wheel and an engine for $12 grand. Add up all the features, then it becomes poor value with $17k. What a pity!

OVERALL VERDICT FOR 2009 Nissan Versa sedan
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Performance: 1/5
Handling and ride/fun-to-drive: 2/5
Interior/ergonomics/user-friendliness: 2/5
Fit-and-finish/build quality: 2/5
Cargo/accessibility/layout: 2/5
Value-for-money: 2/5

Overall rating: 2/5

Vehicle: 2007 Nissan Versa SL with Xtronic and Technology Pkg
Price as tested: CDN$20673

Performance: Versa is powered by Nissan’s new MR engine series. In this application, its called MR18DE. That means its a 1.8 liter 16-valver 4-cylinder DOHC engine with Nissan’s continuously variable valve timing or CVVTCS. Although it has 122 hp and 127 lb/ft of torque, everything from engine responsiveness to refinement are disappointing. The whole powerplant feels rough and sluggish on every rpm. The Xtronic CVT is a model of inefficiency. Instead of using power wisely, like its larger Murano silibing’s CVT, this one feels like an anchor pulling a ship during acceleration. The throttle response is slow without much response. When you pushed MR18DE up the high rev, it only creates more irriating engine sound that is more of an annoyance than an entertainment. With this engine’s 11 seconds to 100 km/h, you better be ready to listen to those unrefined engine sound when accelerating. Before you push the throttle, one better ready for lots of noise squad during acceleration. In a proper car with CVT, its usually the engine speed catch up to rev quickly. In this Versa, by the time the engine speed catches up to the rev. The engine is unwilling to go because its already felt breathless when continue to push the lagging throttle.

Handling: Well, Versa’s dynamics qualities are as terrible as its performance. With its mashmellow suspension and springs, it rolls like a truck in corners. When you pushed into fast sweepers, it has severe understeer. In a proper front-driver, a lift-throttle would save you when understeering. In the Versa, it only makes the whole pushing into an envalope more scary. To make matters worse, its steering is numb, unresponsive and totally imprecise. It feels like a remote control when turning the featherweight electric steering. One would have thought a soft suspension’s trade-off is a comfortable ride. Not so in the Versa. This Nissan has poor calibrated springs and shocks. When driven over washboard pavements and expansion joints, its a very hard riding car. Bouncy ride is an understatement to describe Versa’s ride. Nissan had experience with it comes to tuning rear beam suspension, say previous Sentra and Maxima. Their rides are more than acceptable even though are far from class leading. In the Versa, I just don’t know how to describe. I just feel like the chassis engineers don’t have good communication with those who are tuning the suspension and springs. But those who are tuning the springs don’t exactly how the suspension tuned. Its just crazy when think about Nissan is a car company, which came out with wonderful driving and riding cars called R34 Skyline and 350Z. If I am not going to criticize the Versa’s suspension engineers, the responsibility would definitely go to the beancounters.

Brakes: The soft suspension doesn’t help its braking neither. There are tons of brake dive during hard braking. The pedal feels mushy and numb. The pedal travel is long, and as you would expect from the Versa, completely void of anything called “feel”. The stopping distance is acceptable. By the time you are managed to control its poor pedal, that is on the bottom of the floor. The ABS already kicked in.

Interior: Versa has a very well-laid out dashboard. For the 1st time in the last couple of years, Nissan finally got the interior materials and fit-and-finish right in their car. The dashboard and seating materials are impressive for Nissan standard. All the knobs controlling HVAC and stereo have a high-quality tactical feel. Stereo is smart enough to put it above the HVAC control. There are plenty of interior space inside the Versa. With tons of head and legrooms for both front and rear passengers. That’s about all the good things have to come to an end.

The driving position is weird. You feel like seating on instead of in a car. With its elevated driving position, everything on the dasboard feel like its below instead of on the eye level. With Infiniti’s influence, Versa has put its height adjustable lever on the right besides the center console instead of proper left side. It makes the whole adjustment unergonomical. The power mirror switch is hidden on the left, which make me taken a long time to search for its existence. When its time to adjust the seat lower, the center armest can’t adjust its position lower.

The cargo area is another joke. It begins with a high liftover and a swallow cut-off. When its time to fold down the 40/60 split rear seats, they seat up a couple of inches above the floor. It doesn’t fold completely flat but sacifice plenty of cargo space.

Conclusion: “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything” would make this review completely blank. The Versa has to be considered as the worse car I have driven for such a long time.

OVERALL VERDICT FOR 2007 NISSAN VERSA
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Performance: 1/5
Handling and ride/fun-to-drive: 1/5
Interior/ergonomics/user-friendliness: 2/5
Fit-and-finish/build quality: 2/5
Cargo/accessibility/layout: 1/5
Value-for-money: 1/5

Overall rating: 1/5