REVIEW: The 2020 Nissan Kicks is a stylish crossover with an enticing $19,000 price — but start shelling out for the upgrades and you'll be disappointed
Nissan
The 2020 Nissan Kicks is Nissan's entry-level crossover for buyers who want a bigger car without a bigger price tag. It's your barebones "first car" style of vehicle, just with bigger bones.
The Kicks starts at $18,870 and has three trims, with the highest starting at $21,120. But don't let the small gap between base model and top trim fool you, because the Kicks can be optioned toward the $30,000 mark.
All Kicks trims are powered by a four-cylinder engine that makes 122 horsepower and 114 pound-feet of torque.
The Kicks, overall, is a worthy bare-bones crossover that does its job and looks nice from the outside. But start optioning the Kicks out to make it more upscale, and you'll regret it — because, at the end of the day, squeezing a $27,000 vehicle into a $21,000 shell just doesn't work for this little crossover.
The 2020 Nissan Kicks is trying to be a lot of things. With a starting price of less than $19,000 and thousands in optional features tacked on, it's not simply trying to be an inviting, bare-bones crossover. It's also trying to be something slightly more upscale.
But sometimes, those two goals just don't mix as well as they should. The Kicks is one of those times.
The 2020 Nissan Kicks: An entry-level crossover for the everyday buyer
Nissan
The Nissan Kicks is the new Nissan Juke — you know, that thing you might have found so ugly it was kind of cute for the nearly 10 years it spent on the market? The Kicks replaced the Juke for the 2018 model year, bringing more reserved styling to Nissan's entry-level compact crossover.
That made Nissan's base crossover more of a mainstream vehicle and less of a quirky choice for a quirky buyer, which is important as the crossover-SUV market dominates US sales. In addition to those changes, the Kicks got a longer wheelbase and overall length.
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Nissan also dropped the price for the Kicks in comparison to the Juke, with the 2020 Kicks starting at $18,870 compared to the 2017 Juke's $20,250 starting price.
A slightly updated look is ahead for the 2021 Kicks, as shown by some recent photos out of Thailand. But other than a deeper, darker front grille and sharpened headlight shapes, it's not a revolutionary change from the outside.
Details and safety ratings: A low base price with a high range of options, but not all of them are worthwhile
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The 2020 Nissan Kicks starts at just under $19,000, while its top trim can be had for as low as $21,120. But those numbers don't tell the full story about the Kicks' pricing, because if you really want to, you can just keep adding things on.
The top-trim loaner vehicle for this review, for example, came out to be $26,430 including $1,095 in destination charges. That's a lot higher than the base price of the top-line trim.
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Some of the things adding to that total included: $865 in exterior options, including a two-tone paint job and roof crossbars; a $575 interior-lighting package with ambient lighting and 20 colors to choose from; and a "Premium" package with an eight-speaker Bose sound system and heated front seats.
A center armrest is also an optional feature, costing buyers $320. Without it, you'll leave your arms hanging.
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Three trims are available on the Kicks: the S, SV, and SR. All come with a continuously variable transmission and a 1.6-liter, four-cylinder engine that makes 122 horsepower, along with disc brakes in the front and drum brakes in the rear.
The front-disc and rear-drum setup is one that became popular in the 1970s, and drum brakes are now used in the rear on occasion to save production costs on a car. They're generally fine for a low-powered crossover, but there are many rundowns of the pros and cons between disc and drum if you're curious.
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Even on the cheapest version of the Kicks, the $18,870 S trim, a small safety suite of driver-assistance features is available.
The suite includes basic things like blind-spot warning, lane-departure warning, and high-beam assist, while upgrading to the SV trim will add a driver-alertness warning. The SR trim adds a couple more minor features, like Nissan's intelligent engine braking.
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As of this publishing, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has only rated the 2020 Kicks in its rollover crash test, in which it got four out of five stars. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has done a full rundown, though, giving the Kicks its highest rating of "good" in every crash category.
Headlights are a different story, which is the case for plenty of modern cars — both economy and expensive.
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While the LED headlights on the top SR trim got the IIHS' second-highest rating, "average," the halogens on the lower S and SV trim got its lowest rating of "poor" for inadequate visibility in all low-beam tests.
Given the price difference between the base S trim and the top SR trim, $2,250, it's worth the upgrade for the additional safety.
What stands out: A cheap way to nab a crossover, with styling elements that'll make you feel spunky
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The Kicks might have replaced one of the most unconventionally styled modern crossovers out there (the Nissan Juke), but that doesn't mean it missed its place to shine. It's an adorable little thing, whether "adorable" is what you're going for or not.
From this particular model's orange roof — a $250 option — to its orange accent stitching, the Kicks feels like a kind of "first car" that would be fun to show off to friends. Sure, they won't think it's fancy, but they will think it's cute. That added splash of orange is nice, too.
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Inside, the Kicks has several features that make it feel like a bigger, perhaps more expensive vehicle than its MRSPs list it as. It has a giant steering wheel, and it rides decently high up — giving off a safe, commanding vantage point as a driver.
That feeling is aided by a big front windshield and a lot of window space. It's airy like a bus, which is great for the kind of person who worries about being the small, forgotten car on the highway that someone could easily overlook and swipe during a lane change.
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The Kicks has a quiet engine start, and the little car graphics on its digital dash add a fancier touch to its nondigital speedometer. There's auto screen dimming for when it gets dark outside, so you aren't faced with the terrible dilemma of dimming it yourself or staring into your own personal version of a midnight sun.
When you cut off the car, a quick "eco drive report" summary pops up to show how you did on fuel economy during the drive.
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The average-rated LED low-beam headlights on the SR trim of the Kicks are a bright white, and they light up the road well. But their brightness will produce some glare for other drivers, as the IIHS warns.
In addition to driving-related safety features in the Kicks, a message will also come across the screen to warn you to check for children or other things in the backseat before getting out of the car.
What falls short: Cheaper features that carry over into more expensive models, leading to a mishmash of style
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The reality is that a lot of things fall short in the nearly $27,000 version of the Kicks, because for nearly $27,000, you should at least get the sense of congruence across the car's features. The Kicks has great-looking elements, but those elements don't flow.
The optioned-out Kicks, overall, feels like a base-model crossover with disjointed add-ons to reach $26,430. Its soft, light-gray headliner feels cheap, as do the lights embedded in it. The door panels are painfully simple.
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There are no power seats, even in the $27,000 model. There are no backseat vents, but blasting the air hard enough will reach the people back there. The backseat also doesn't have a center armrest with a set of cup holders, and back passengers each only get one small cup holder in the door.
Awkwardly large sun visors line the ceiling in the front of the Kicks, but the good thing is that they come with a strap to hold papers. Front seat heaters exist but they're not strong, making them more like seat warmers than anything else.
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When driving, the Kicks' 122 horsepower feels about like 122 horsepower would: not much, and certainly not enough to make a tight left turn anywhere.
Its steering wheel is dead — not numb or limp. It feels like it isn't there.
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The road does feel like it's there, though, and road noise is loud even in the more expensive Kicks models. That's because it's an economy car at heart, and economy cars generally don't have much cabin insulation from the outside world.
The good thing is that at 65 mph with the radio on, the road noise is ignorable.
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The Kicks has a backup camera with a top-down view in reverse, as the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has required all new cars to have one since May 2018. And since a backup camera goes hand-in-hand with a touchscreen infotainment system, the Kicks also has one of those.
The touchscreen part of that system is slow to respond and therefore difficult to use while driving, but the physical controls are good enough. The system also seems to lack a "main" menu, making it hard to know how to get back to the beginning of whatever you were doing.
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The Kicks also has a push-to-start system with the button near the gear shifter. But if you accidentally move to start the car as if putting a key in a traditional ignition, you might notice that the mold for the ignition is still there — the key slot has just been plugged.
Like the center armrest being an extra feature, the feeling of things simply being smoothed over or tacked on is prevalent in the higher-end Kicks. In the lower-end models, those things simply aren't there.
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But the higher-end version of the Kicks, as its trim prices show, is a $27,000 car painted on a $21,000 canvas. The nicer features, such as its sleek seats and contrast orange stitching, are paired with the cheap built-in accents, and even the fancier features feel like nothing more than scrapbook paper on a bulletin board.
After all, that scrapbook paper might look nice, but it's still tacked onto brown cork.
How the Kicks compares to its competitors: Lower base price, better fuel economy, scattered headlight quality
Nissan, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota
Due to its size and starting price, the Kicks sits in an odd place in the crossover market.
There are smaller vehicles that are closer in price, like the $17,350 Hyundai Venue, but the Kicks has a bigger footprint than that. It's about 10 inches longer than the Venue, despite the Venue offering slightly more rear head room, rear legroom, front hip room, and shoulder room in both the front and rear.
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Thus, its competitors above are the best compromise. Each has a base price hovering around $20,000, similar fuel-economy ratings, and standard front-wheel drive.
All but the Kona exclusively use a continuously variable transmission, while the Kona offers a six-speed automatic and a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Regular automatics are generally preferred to CVTs for people who want a sportier driving experience, while DCTs are preferred to regular automatics.
For those who don't care about any of that, a CVT is fine.
Alanis King
The Kicks is lower on power than any of the competitors above, but it's also lower in price in its most bare form. It's important to remember, though, that the Kicks' numbers can be tricky.
Despite the $18,870 starting price for its lowest trim, the Kicks can theoretically be optioned out past the $30,000 mark. It all just depends on what you want out of the car.
Our impressions: An economy car struggling to be more upscale
Alanis King
The Nissan Kicks is a cute car. It also looks, from the outside, like it could be a nice, polished commuter vehicle for the person who just wants to get from A-to-B safely.
But inside, the Kicks gives a sense of what it really is: on lower trims, a bare-bones car with a bare-bones price tag, and on higher trims, a bare-bones shell with nicer features plastered on.
Alanis King
For the buyer less interested in deep research about their next car and more interested in pulling out of the lot in one that makes them feel refreshed and maybe even a little spunky, more harmony in the Kicks' interior features could act as an easy fix for that. But the current Kicks doesn't have that fix, making it hard to justify all of the discord.
After all, for the nearly $27,000 that a decked-out Kicks will cost you, there are more than a few other options out there.
Scroll down to enjoy more pictures of our Nissan Kicks test car.
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The gist: Low base price in a popular market segment, with inharmonious add-ons up the price ladder
Pros: The Kicks is cute, and has a lot of great appearance features both inside and out to make someone feel like they bought more than just an everyday economy car. Its big steering wheel also makes the car feel bigger and higher end, and its high ride and abundance of window space will make a driver feel like they have a safe view over the road.
Cons: There are a lot of add-ons for the Kicks, but they don't all work in harmony on a car with an $18,870 base price. The nicer touches look disjointed, as if tacked onto a much less expensive car. Plenty of cheaper elements are left on the car even in its higher trims, and the 122 horsepower getting the Kicks up and going will make you think three times before attempting a left turn out of a parking lot.
What to know before you head to the dealership: Like many modern cars, the Kicks doesn't have the best headlights. But while the price differences between its trims are minor, the difference in headlight quality is major. The headlights on the $18,870 S trim and $20,500 SV trim got IIHS' lowest rating, and the low beams were found to have "inadequate visibility" in all of its tests. On the $21,120 SR trim, though, IIHS gave the Kicks' headlights its second highest safety rating. If an extra $2,250 is what it takes to get a massive jump in road visibility, and thus road safety, it's worth the spend.
Read the original article on Business Insider
