The Nissan Tida. It's not exactly aimed at blokes, is it? Among the small cars in the market, it's only just inside the top ten. To find out why, we're joined in the studio by Car Advice road tester Paul Maric. Paul, did you enjoy your drive in the Tiida?
To be honest, John, I really didn't. It totally lacks any safety features, which is really critical for a car in this price bracket.
So it's not specifically the fact that it's aimed at women. You can get over that and evaluate it, okay? And its quite a futuristic looking car so is it that much of a disappointment or are you being too hard?
Well on that same token, well I think a little bit too futuristic looking because I don't like the design either, its just a car that really doesn't fit into this segment properly. But it could if Nissan just changed a few small key things.
Safety appears to be your main concern with the Tida Specifically what does it lack?
Let's start with the most obvious, and it's only got a lap seat belt in the back seat, which is unheard of these days. It's got no control. It's got no traction control. It only comes with AVS and it's got no rear disc brakes, which is unheard of in this day and age. I'd have to say had a guess, the other 9 cars in the small car segment that outsell Tiida would not commit any of those sins, would they?
Exactly right. And I can't understand for the life of me why Nissan would would do this to the Australian public instead of really investing a bit of money and just putting the features on the car, which are available overseas anyway. Yeah, that's the funny thing because the Tiida that's on sale in Europe Europe does have many of those features.
And it's got to just be a price point thing. Because the pricing's pretty sharp. Seventeen and a bit up to mid twenties for a Tiida. It doesn't enjoy that sort of product range that you get in a Mazda 3 where you can have one for 21 and one for 42, what would be the problem with just upping the ante on price at least in the top spec models?
well, nothing in my opinion, and people would be happy to pay just that little bit extra. You can't even get it as an option. So people aren't even given the choice to, you know, to drive around safely in comparison to what a few instances. Okay, you're in the market. Let's say you're in the market for a Tiida?
You take your advice, not safe enough. Where do you go from here? You really have a Fill of options to run to. You can go to master three, you can go to full focus Mitsubishi lantern. All of these cars now have stability control standard and it's a life saving technology that should be... across all cars everywhere.
Okay, so we're not going to put a tick in the safety box, but what's a Tiida like to drive? It's not bad, actually. If you put the safety features aside, the TI model that I drove, which is the top of the tree, it's filled with features. You get leather seats. You get a nice-looking interior. It's fun to drive and it's a lightweight car.
So the point eight liter engine actually feels quite sporty and it handles nicely as well. So not all hope is lost. Well, Nissan was on a roll with the Pulsar. It was one of the most popular cars in the Australian Nine Sky years and years and years they lost that nine they pick up the traitor they use sex and city to market it to women.
What kind of Came a stack number i was marking at just to women if they had gone for a more univeral marketing approach it could have gone to men as well, look im not sure what they can do from here, i do Yeah but they really need something to improve the car and pretty quick smart, because it's slowly fading away being almost at the bottom of the sales list in this segment.
Okay, so we're in the small cars segment. There's plenty of choice the top three Paul Meric picks in the small car segment, not the Tiida. We don't issue don't buy ratings very often. This appears to be one. What are you definitely in the market for, Mazda 3, Mitsubishi Lancer and look if you want to be a bit conservative Toyota Corolla.
Well it's not very often we issue a don't buy rating looking for a car advice. If you like to read the tiida review download the specification add your comments and will get the cloth from Nissan dealer just follow the links on this page.
