2006 Nissan X-Trail XE from North America - Comments

Interior scratches and marks very easily.

Road feedback through the steering wheel at highway speeds is excessive and very annoying.

Great power from the 2.5.

Great fuel economy for a small SUV.

Best small SUV 4WD system on the market.

Exactly what I would write in the review. Also to add that there is excessive vibration during idling.

I don't like it at all. It seemed like I drove a totally different car when I test drove an X Trail before buying it. Vibrations during idle is quite annoying when in gear. There are more squeaks and rattles in it than a mice and rattle snake farm combined. The interior scratches very easily to the extent that if an ant walk across it you would be able to see where it went. Cannot get proper off road tyres for it. Sun roof leaks only after 12 months and doesn't give a proper seal. I just gave up taking it back to Nissan and just sold it. THANK HEAVENS !!!

I have drove a brand new x-trail bonna vista 2006 model for three months and I love this small suv very much, road handling is good, visibility very good, I am 6 feet tall, the quality of the driver seat is comfortable with lumber support, has a lot of power climbing up sloppy hill roads. when idling the engine give out noise, I guess the nissan engineer design it purposely, but I get used to it now. Fuel consumption is good better than my toyota rav4 v6 2007, may be I always switch to 2 wheel drive instead of auto 4 wheel drive/ lock 4 wheel drive. The power glass pana roof is extra large, so far no leaking. The leather wrap steering wheel is good, the sporty suspension is just what I like. However I do like the pick up speed of x trail when merging to highway, the pick up speed is far too slow from 60 kmh to 100 kmh, may be the suv is still in run in period, I had tried different grade of fuel, it doesn, t help. I also try to turn off the over drive button still the same, anybody can suggest anything to improve this.

I posted on the X-Trail back in July 2006. It has been almost two years now and I have had some additional experiences with this vehicle.

Overall, the car is just OK. It's too bad that Nissan didn't take the interior seriously because that is the most annoying aspect of an otherwise good vehicle. The interior is quite simply sub standard on all fronts. It scratches far to easily and wears terribly. The dash was completely removed due to creaks and a known manufacturing defect was fixed. They replace / add some foam tape that wasn't done properly at the factory on the alignment posts where the dash assembly meets the firewall. This fixed the problem for awhile, but it seems to have returned. I guess it will go in for a second dash rebuild.

I am also experiencing some seat fabric issues with the drivers side front seat. the cover keeps loosening and bunching up making the seat look about 10 years old. Nissan did warranty repair this once, but the dealer says they won't do it agian even though the replaced seat is exhibiting the same issue. The customer treatment here is not acceptable and will most definitley cause me to look away from Nissan in future purchases.

Last week, the entire transmission came out under warranty for replacement of some parts that were defective from new. Funny thing is that I took it into the Nissan dealership where I initially purchased the car in 2006 for this problem and they claim all was normal. It then took a different Nissan technician about 3 minutes to discover that there was something wrong with second gear. In my experience, the dealership experience leaves room for improvement as there seems to be little consistency from one to the next. To be fair, at least they are friendly when telling you that you are crazy.

To recap my initial likes of the vehicle, the gas mileage is simply excellent as is the power of the 2.5 L engine. The 4WD system is quite good as well.

That remains the only good thing I can say about the X-Trail. I have owned a few Nissan's and have noticed in recent years that the experience at the dealership level seems to be slipping. They appear to be moving away from the desire to create a satisfactory service for the customer and in my experience have addopted a "you are lucky that we are fixing this at all" sort of attitude.

I will be looking at other brands in the future.