Episode 428: 2026 Nissan Kicks

Hello and welcome to the Undamed Automotive Podcast.

My name is Sammy Hage-Assad, and with me as always is my good friend and fellow automotive journalist, Benjamin Hunting.

Say hi to the people, Ben.

Greetings, human listeners.

Greetings to everyone.

If this is the first time you're listening to our podcast, thank you for trying something new.

I will reiterate, Ben and I are a pair of automotive journalists, but more than that, we're very good friends, right, Ben?

Yes.

That was quite the delay.

Are you...

Sorry, I'm on the moon.

It takes 39 milliseconds to bounce the signal through the troposphere.

Well, whenever I'm delayed and answering you, it's because I'm writing you a Christmas card, which you're...

I'm not going to send it to you.

I wish you would stop sending me out-of-season Christmas cards.

But there's so much cheaper than I would like.

I know you get a really good bargain on them, but I have so many now.

And it feels wrong to throw them away because they're also earnest.

Yeah, I mean, I really do handwrite most of them.

Other ones, I have a stamp.

The stamp is like a little...

When I open the mailbox and I see it's one with a stamp, that's when I know I need to call you and see what's up in your life.

Ben, you can find his work all over the internet and in some other places too.

Right, Ben?

Yeah, don't look too hard, though.

Where can they find your latest work?

You can find my work at Hagerty at driving.ca and at Motor Trend.

And you can find my work at driving.ca as well.

I'm usually on their YouTube channel, driving.ca.

I think it's the name of their YouTube channel.

Yeah, they have you on there 24 hours now, right? That's rough.

I'm glad they let you off for an hour a week to record the podcast.

It's a little bit less than an hour, but yeah.

And it's usually my bathroom break for the whole week.

It's killing your home life.

Your wife hasn't seen you in six days.

I don't know what my son looks like.

They're trying to set some kind of dubious record.

It's going to be a huge one.

I think people will care.

In addition to driving.ca, you can find my work at AutoTrader.ca.

What do you think of that, Ben?

I think that's a lot of dots and a lot of CAs.

And I think we should move on.

Ben, we've got the same car this week.

It's fine.

I mean, it's not the same car.

Oops, all kicks.

Double kick.

I was so good at double kicks when I was training regularly.

So when you double kick, do you do like the Van Damme double kick

where you stand and then double kick to the head?

Or do you do like the Jackie Chan slash Bruce Lee double kick

where you run through the air, you run, you jump through the air

and then you double kick in the air on the chest?

No, I don't do the old bicycle kick there or whatever you want to call it.

No, no, I don't even mean like bicycle kick.

I mean side double kick like you're in Street Fighter.

I would love to be in.

Well, actually Street Fighter seems like it's a hard life.

Again, you don't see your family.

You spend all your time.

Yeah, at one point, I think it's a Lexus or an Acura or something.

It's a Lexus.

That's rough on the old joints.

No, I used to do the double kick high

and then when I got older, I started doing it low high

and then I started faking the low

and just going for the high.

It was great.

What about faking the right and doing the left high?

It's very difficult to do with kicks because then both of your feet

are in the air.

Yeah, you need some kind of tripod.

It's like it's like a half helicopter.

It's like a capoeira move at that point.

For those who don't know, Sammy is a distinguished karate instructor.

I'm not even making that up.

I know it sounds like I'm blowing smoke, but it really is.

I had been doing it for 30 years.

I've been not teaching doing martial arts for 30 years.

I competed at the national level.

I have a whole a whole bunch of trophies and medals that I'm sure

my son will melt down for, I don't know, healthcare money

at some point.

They've made five movies about you now so far.

Three originals and then a remake and then.

Well, yeah, but one is adult rated and I don't want people

searching it.

Well, that's a movie you've started, not a movie about you.

That's a little bit different.

It's a question.

Yes.

I saw named the kicks after a karate move or a martial arts

move, or do you think it's like kicks, like get your kicks?

I think it's get your kicks on with 66.

I think that's exactly what it is.

Did you do that event?

No, I didn't.

They did this whole event.

I think with the Canadian media and everyone who's been on it

said it was like some sort of life changing event.

Was it Nissan that did it?

Yeah.

I did not even make that connection.

I was just talking about it in general, but that is

interesting and they didn't do it in the kicks, did they?

No, I don't think the kicks was out.

That's a huge missed opportunity.

I think they did it mostly in the rogue.

Mostly in the rogue.

Yeah.

And the Ultima.

And if you remember, the old rogue was not the one to do

stuff in.

Also, RIP Ultima apparently.

This is the final model year from what I understand.

Are you really calling it rest in peace or is this

just a thing again?

We're like...

It's gonna be brought back as an SUV two years from now?

Yeah, for sure.

I don't know.

And also, I just saw this in Pasig, so I don't have

any information.

Whether it's 2026 or 2025, I think it's 2025, but the

Ultima's finally gone.

I mean, first they took the coupe from us and now the

sedan has gone as well.

Yeah.

Look at how many people really were sad about the

coupe going.

The coupe was not bad.

I mean...

Clearly it was if people weren't buying it.

No, but there's a weird way to think about the

coupe, right?

You could get a VQ V6 in that coupe and you could

get a manual transmission or you could get the

2.5 liter four cylinder with a CVT.

So the performance potential was there, but I think

what some people realized was they could buy a

brand new Ultima coupe or they could buy a two

year old G35 at the price was like the same.

Exactly.

I mean, we're gonna be talking about Nissan all

episode long, which is a tough thing to do

because nobody apparently is really buying

Nissan's here or in the road, I think.

Yeah.

And I mean, I was looking at the sales figures of

Kix in particular in North America, they sell

about 100,000 of them, well over 100,000 of them

combined Mexico, Canadian and US sales, which is

pretty good, I think.

And we also need to be upfront about the fact

that this is a podcast that is a huge fan of the

other Kix.

The previous generation Kix.

It was one of the best compact anything's out

there because it was super lightweight.

It weighed like 2,700 pounds and I know that

doesn't sound super lightweight, but that

is like what, 200 pounds more than a Miata?

Yeah.

I mean, relatively speaking, that is a lightweight car.

And I mean, of course, we're talking about a car

that is a sub-compact.

Four doors with a hatchback.

That's useful and it had like no horsepower.

I think it had something like 120 horsepower,

I want to say.

And yet it was still 122.

And it was still fun.

I had fun with it.

It had a CVT.

It was buzzy.

It wasn't quick.

Well, good news.

You can still get one.

Yeah.

I'm just saying it was engaging.

It was a car that is the kind of car where you show up

and you don't expect anything good about it.

Exactly.

You expect it to be the kind of vehicle that does its job,

is really cheap and gets out of the way

and you never think about it.

But the Kix actually managed to be something

that I wanted to drive in the same way

that the Juke was before it.

With the dramatic difference of the Juke was,

first of all, intended to be a performance vehicle

and also had looks that were super polarizing.

Okay.

Whereas the Kix didn't have that.

You're doing a really good job of setting up.

This feels like the conversation we had

when it came to Honda and the HRV

because I set that up by saying that Honda

is actually really capable of delivering

good, entertaining, and like practical vehicles.

And I think the Kix, in the previous generation,

it hit the benchmark of being an affordable car

that had personality.

And those two parts rarely go together nowadays.

Although we do have exceptions right now

with the Buick and Vista and the Chevy Trax,

which I think are spiritual successors to the Kix

in the sense that they are still very cheap.

I mean, they're under $25,000.

The Kix was just under $20,000 in the U.S.

And I believe...

Well, not just maybe a little bit more than that.

In Canada, it was similar, wasn't it?

The Kix...

The previous generation Kix left the market in the States.

It was $20,600.

Now, I think an Invista...

Or not an Invista story,

because that's a luxury version of the Trax.

The Trax is like 22 or 23, I want to say.

So there's still vehicles in that class that are good,

but not the same kind of personality.

It doesn't have that lightweight feel.

It's still a good drive,

but it's not as engaging.

But you're right in that there are few and far between.

There's not a lot of cheap cars that are appealing.

And it's important to point out as well

that for the next, I'm assuming, month or so,

you can still buy a last generation Kix.

They're still selling it.

It's called the 2025 Kix Play.

It comes in one trim level.

Why is it called the Kix Play?

Why not the Kix Classic?

It was right there.

Click Kix Rewind.

OG Kix.

Double Kix.

Anyways, this one is only available in one trim level.

It's the lowest one.

So basically it's just this bargain basement car,

which is fine.

Again, I've had no issues with that mentality for the Kix.

How much is it?

In the U.S., just about $23,000 including destination.

Wait a minute.

So the old Kix is the same price as the new Kix?

Because that's including destination.

The new one is about $1,000 more.

Okay.

Because the new one's $22,430 plus $1,500 destination.

Yeah.

Okay.

So and we should get into this because the new one is a,

like it's a totally different car.

It has totally different looks.

It has different engine.

It clearly has a different mission than the original one,

which I think was intended to be affordable transportation.

I'm not so sure the mission is different.

I think I'm going to disagree with you there.

But there's another thing we should talk about in the sense

that you said it's destined to be affordable transportation.

In the U.S., I think that's still true

because it's only about 10% more expensive than it used to be.

Yeah.

In Canada.

Is that by what metric are you using?

By used to be?

Like last year?

So the last year, the previous generation Kix

is about 10% cheaper to start out with than the current one.

Okay.

In Canada, you discovered that that's not the case.

I went by 5 years.

I went by 5 years ago to 2020 Kix.

You can have in Canada for around $20,000.

What was it in 2024?

In 2024.

That's what I think is more relevant.

It was 22,000.

Okay.

And now it is...

Around 24,000.

Wait, which one is it?

Because I don't know if you want me to add the freight API.

No, don't add anything.

Don't add anything.

So 22,000.

Okay.

And what is it now?

And today, if you get into a 2026,

which is what I drove,

you're going to be spending at least $27,000.

Okay.

So it's $5,000.

$5,000.

Which is 20% roughly.

Yeah.

If not a little bit more.

Yeah.

About rough.

So not quite as cheap anymore.

Not quite as cheap.

I mean, I was going by 5 years ago.

I was looking at...

I'd like to look at that.

Yeah, but 5 years ago is a bit of an aberration

because at that point you're in COVID.

You're in COVID.

I don't want to be in COVID.

I don't want to be in that again.

Crisis went crazy.

So like we can't...

I mean, 5 years ago,

the Maverick was like $9,000 cheaper than it is now.

That's what I'm saying.

Cars were cheap and we didn't take advantage of it.

Oh, we did.

And I still am.

But anyway,

so I think it is still destined to be a cheap car.

But I think the definition of a cheap car has changed.

Okay.

I think that customer expectations have potentially

changed as well.

Not everywhere because we still have cars like the Versa

that's out there,

which is although I think Versa is another RIP pretty soon.

There's still the chance that you can get a bargain basement type

stripped out car like the Versa,

which we talked about recently.

I want to say within the last three months or so on the show,

the kicks is intended.

It's not intended to be like the SUV alternative to the Versa.

I think it's intended to be the alternative entry level period.

Okay.

Can you see what I'm saying?

I can kind of see it.

You're still not spending like compact SUV money.

It's still a subcompact.

It still has a cheaper base price,

but the expectations for features and capability are now higher.

So like let's say with the Versa,

you can buy the, you know, the one with the no power options

and whatnot,

basically what you would get with a rental fleet, right?

Yeah.

You can't really add a lot to it.

There's not much that you can add like a full down rear seat.

And I think heated seats and stuff.

My goodness.

The folding capability of this feature is optional.

It's optional.

It's just like a hinge and a latch.

You know, it's going to be a cost thing somewhere,

but the one I had was a base model

and I couldn't fold the rear seat.

You have to pay like a package to get that.

But when you get to the kicks level,

you can suddenly add all wheel drive.

You can add a panoramic sunroof, you know,

like you can get these kinds of features

that you would see on class above vehicles

that weren't available with the Versa.

So that's what I mean when I say

it's an alternative to the alternative.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I get that.

And I think the new car is capable of being

much more than that.

Do you know what I mean?

Like it is also the top.

So what trim level did you drive?

I drove the SV.

I also drove the SV,

which is the mid trim between the S and the SR.

Yeah.

Mine was also all wheel drive.

I was also all wheel drive.

We probably drove the same vehicle.

Was yours a nice color at least?

No, it was gray with a red roof.

Okay.

Mine was two tone as well,

but blue and blue and black.

That's kind of cool.

Yeah.

I mean, this is a car that actually still looks pretty sharp

even as an entry level car.

Although what's funny is I was picking my wife up

from a business trip and I was like,

I'm in the gray car with the red roof

and she walked right by it.

She did not see the red roof

because the roof itself like seen from the side

is a sliver.

It's maybe like two inches tall above the glass.

You have to be looking at it from above to really see it.

Yeah.

And I mean, even worse with a black roof, right?

Like because there's a black,

I think there's a blacked out element

at the C pillar or D pillar.

And yeah, if it's black,

it just doesn't really resonate.

But like I have to say,

I think it's a pretty decent looking vehicle.

Yeah.

I mean, in terms of subcompact crossovers,

I think it's way up there with,

in terms of design,

I think they did a really good job with this really.

What I originally thought was an over styled front end.

There's so much like, like horizontal lines happening

on the front bumper and the grille.

That's the new thing.

Have you not seen the Telleride,

which is essentially.

Yeah.

Horizontal lines everywhere.

Yeah.

We're being forced into this future where

as much plastic as possible is being jammed

under the front end of a vehicle

and that plastic has to be horizontal for some reason.

But at least on the kicks,

you get this,

it fades into the lighting elements on the side.

So it's horizontal across the grille,

but then it curves into the fenders.

And at the very leading edge of the fender,

it's met by like three lines of light.

And I think that that's a cool motif.

Yeah.

And I think there was something about it.

I can't remember if it's like the welcome lighting

or like the lock and unlock lighting.

That was actually also fairly like,

it had charm to it.

I think it's the best way to put it.

And I also noticed that the lower bumper,

there's like a body cladding on the lower bumper.

It has like a pattern on it as well.

It juts out too.

I think it's intended to look rugged.

Yeah.

It's almost like a tire tread pattern.

Kind of, yes.

Diamond pattern, I guess.

And they've got it on the side sills as well.

Yeah.

So that's enough to say about the exterior.

I don't usually talk about the exterior of cars all that much,

but I will say there was something about the interior

that kind of like captured me.

I really enjoyed the interior of this car.

One, I found the rear seats to be spacious enough to handle

a rear-facing car seat without ruining

a front seat passengers leg room.

But that being said, it's not an amazing amount of room.

Oh no, it's not massive.

But like for me, that's my measurement for a small car.

Like especially I can stick my kid in their car seat,

a rear-facing car seat is not really the most compact thing

to throw in there.

And usually I have to throw the front passenger seat

all the way up to the dash.

Now, how did it rate on your son's shoe-throwing scale?

Was he able to reach the front seat?

Oh yeah, easily.

In fact, it's not much of a reach for me to pat him

on the head and tell him to throw and give him his shoe back.

All right.

Why do you return the ammunition?

Because he needs more practice, clearly.

I guess so.

Honestly, throwing is one of his, is a one skill

that he's underdeveloped right now.

Because I see his cousins halfway around the world

who are just, they're like Steph Curry out there.

Yeah, but they're living in a throwing culture.

It's different.

It's not Apple store just here.

I want to see.

The other thing, no no, the other thing about this interior,

hold on one minute.

There's a material, this cloth material that covers the seats

and is also found on the dashboard.

Yes.

I liked this thing.

I liked it too.

I found myself touching the dash unnecessarily.

That's a real material on the dash.

And there's also leather on the dash.

It's like two-tone, right?

Mine was.

So I had a leather top and then I had that fabric

underneath the infotainment screen.

Okay.

And then it went around to the doors.

Is that what yours was like?

Yes.

I was fixated on the harder plastic underneath the cloth.

That was super hard.

It was bad, bad, bad for my arm on the door.

This is the worst armrest I have encountered

in a very long time.

And that's unfortunate because I had to do,

as I mentioned, an airport run in this vehicle.

And I also did some other longer trips.

And by the end of the trips,

my left elbow was just begging for mercy.

And that's very rare.

Also, I have a 40-year-old car in my garage

that's also built by Nissan that has a better armrest than this.

And I was shocked by that.

But I will agree with Sammy that it looks good.

Something though.

And that material, that material,

where they put that material was super cool with me.

I'm like, hey, this is nice.

And there's a little pattern on the seats as well.

Yeah, they tried harder than they had to.

Yeah, it's exactly what I wanted to say.

They did something they didn't have to do

that is not a common move for Nissan.

You know what I mean?

Or for this class of car.

Where they didn't try hard was the gauge cluster

in the infotainment.

So once again, we have this rectangular slab of plastic

that does everything.

It's divided into two pieces.

And on one side, the right side,

you have a full-color infotainment screen

where you have Android Auto and all that stuff.

And then for the gauge cluster,

you have what is...

What I'm going to describe as...

Can you quote the press?

No, hold on.

The material say that this is a 12.3-inch screen.

It's not.

No, it's divided.

And the gauge cluster has a section on the left

that is a display that will show you tire pressures

and all that stuff, odometer and whatnot.

And then directly in front of the driver,

there is what I would describe as

your high school alarm clock LED

that counts off speedometer and odometer.

And it's deliberately chosen to look old-school

and it's just weird.

Like, it's neither good nor bad,

but it's glaringly different from everything that's around it.

And it's surrounded by a lot of black space

that's not being used.

And I had another issue with it.

So I often take photos for Canada and U.S.

when I'm photographing vehicles

because I'm writing for different publications.

So that means I need to change the units of the dashboard.

And that's often very easy to do.

You just go into the infotainment screen,

you choose MPG instead of liters per 100 kilometers

and you choose Fahrenheit instead of Celsius.

Well, when I did that for the Nissan Kix,

it did not change the gauge cluster.

In fact, it showed a...

Mine shows a tiny little mile per hour underneath.

Yeah, it always has a little mile per hour thing.

The cluster remains in kilometers.

And the main speedometer remains in kilometers.

The only thing that changes on the dashboard

is the temperature readout.

And then if you go into the submenus,

it changes your trip computer to miles per gallon and miles.

This is bizarre.

If you have a button that changes units,

it should change units everywhere,

not just where you've randomly selected to change.

When I photographed this car,

I positioned the camera so that the steering wheel

blocked out the units that did not properly translate

to the market I was photographing in.

Again, it's not a huge problem.

But for me, I was able to work around it.

You still see the dashboard.

It's not a big deal.

But it's, come on, what are we doing here?

It is one of the moment I got in

and I saw that there was that big panel of screen.

I was like, oh, wow.

Did they really put a full gauge cluster in there?

And then the moment the sun hits that plastic,

you can actually see the two separate screens

making up the different sizes.

And I twilight when the light comes on,

the interior lights change,

but it's still bright enough outside

that you can see the difference between them.

Yeah, I noticed that as well.

And I was like, oh, no.

It's all that effort they put into the fabric.

And then they fired that person

and hired someone else to design the infotainment set up.

It's even funnier to be like,

you've got all of this black space that could be a screen.

You're not allowed to touch it.

No, we need that there.

Don't use it.

The other thing I'll point out about the interior,

you mentioned discomfort with the armrest.

Yes.

These might be, and I don't know if this is across the line,

but these might be the least comfortable seats

that I've been in.

I was okay with the seats.

I had to do...

I have a padded bottom though.

You personally?

No further questions.

What it really needed was lumbar support.

And this blew my mind because Nissan is the company

with the zero gravity, super supportive,

great for long road trip kind of seats.

And I could have used those at here.

I don't know what happened to me in this car,

but it did not go well.

One more thing I want to talk about with that dashboard

is when you put it in drive or you turn it on,

there's obviously the little thing in the center of the dash

that tells you what gear you're in, right?

And underneath that, there's the word standard.

Yeah, that's the drive mode, no?

Sammy, there are no drive modes in this vehicle.

Might have drive modes.

Where?

It's impossible to see because the gear stick

blocks your view of it.

Where were your drive modes?

They're on the center console next to the gear stick,

north of the gear stick.

I'm looking at photos that I took right now

because I searched for them.

It's a little nub to the right of the gear stick.

A nub?

Yeah, a nub toggle.

I'm going to send you my picture.

Yeah.

You're going to love this.

I really hope I sent you a big,

high resolution enough screen.

How did I not notice that?

They don't do anything.

Actually, they do.

We'll talk about that right now because the drive mode

is a great place to segue into the driving characteristic

of this car.

It's got a two-liter four-cylinder engine

with 100 and,

ooh, I don't have the number off the top of my head,

140-something horsepower.

Yes.

Do you know how much it has?

Yeah, it's 141, I think.

141 on the dot?

Yeah, 141 and then 140 pound-feet of torque.

Okay.

And it's okay.

I think that that powertrain was perfectly adequate.

I can't believe I missed these drive modes.

I specifically looked for them and I could not find them.

I think I had my phone on top of that button

the entire time I was on the phone.

I'm not very good at my job, am I?

Occasionally.

Maybe it's time to retire.

No, no.

Not for the podcast sake.

I hope you don't.

Anyways, this engine is paired with a CVT.

The one thing I will say is that the CVT is not that awful

in my experience.

It can get very loud, but only when you punch it,

when you try to get moving in a hurry.

So I did not find it loud at any point.

Even at full throttle, I thought it sounded pretty fine.

It's not thrashy or anything.

And I thought that that was unusual.

I found it to be, like I said,

I think it was a little bit more refined.

The only way I heard it was when I was trying to make a pass

and I was using the toll road.

I do want to talk about passing

because this is one of the few cars I've had

where I could not pass people.

On the back roads, there's only back roads.

Two lane highways, there's only so much passing lane, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And you need to have speed for sure.

I did not have the confidence or the capability.

At one point, I pulled out and then hit it

and then pulled back in.

That's like, I didn't have to hit the brakes

in that sequence.

That's how little acceleration there was

in that situation where I just realized

I wasn't going to make it and this was a bad move

and then I just let off the throttle

and back in the right side of the lane.

I haven't had that happen in a long time.

Tell me about these drive modes.

I believe there was eco, snow, sport,

and probably normal.

And I used the eco and sport modes.

The sport mode just puts the,

basically the base RPM kind of a little bit higher,

like maybe north of 2000 RPM.

That's weird.

So that it's a little bit more responsive

when you do hit the throttle.

Again, you're not going to be,

it's still not going to be capable of making

those pass that you're looking for.

But I used the eco one as well.

I did not enjoy that.

I also don't know why exactly we needed eco mode.

Yeah, it should be in eco mode all eco mode.

This is like we talk about like why do sports cars

have a sport mode.

This car should just be in eco mode all the time.

Well, I think if it was,

you would have even less confidence in it,

in its passing capability.

In terms of noise,

I found the tire noise to be pretty high.

It's hard for me to be upset about that though

because my car was outfitted with all season tires

and we had a blizzard and it was very cold

and all season tires are going to be loud

and frozen in those situations.

Mine had winters on it.

So I immediately like discredited it

because I'm like, I know that.

And there's, if you,

getting to the all wheel drive system.

So I had the chance to use that all the time

because I'm not using appropriate rubber, right?

And I'm in snow.

I had no problems with traction.

The only problems I had were braking.

Yeah.

Because obviously that's tire related primarily.

So I had to get a little bit of extra space to stop.

But the all wheel drive system,

it's one of those, it's primarily a front wheel drive vehicle

except when say you're pulling off the line

below a certain speed.

If you hammer the throttle,

it sends power automatically to the rear,

even if you have not lost traction.

And the reason you can tell is because it has a little gauge

that you can watch on that far left corner of the screen

that will show you where torque is being distributed.

So it's very hard to break traction in this vehicle.

I did it a couple of times in the snow,

but for the most part it was happy to

dole out it's 141 horsepower in a way

that was undisturbing to me or anyone around me.

You do notice, however,

the fact that this vehicle is between

three and 500 pounds heavier than the old kicks.

And I think that this is where Sammy,

the personality of the vehicle dramatically changes.

Having that all wheel drive, which is extra weight

and just having the extra weight in general.

Yeah, mine was also had a ton of equipment, right?

Like mine had heated seats, heated steering.

We had the same trim.

Seat, heated steering wheel, wireless phone charger.

Not that that's like a super heavy item,

but like all of the doodads in terms of safety equipment

as well, which I'm not sure that the last kicks

I drove had any of that.

And we're still not at the top trim level.

You can still pay more.

You can get that panoramic sunroof in one night.

Yeah.

So you're totally right.

There's a lot of equipment here

and that changes the personality of the car

to going from something that was kind of like,

I don't want to call it silly.

It was like the mini Cooper of the Nissan lineup.

It had like a care, a carefree-ness to it.

That was like, it was fun to drive.

It was fine to drive.

You didn't feel, you felt okay driving it.

You didn't feel like you were in a penalty box

because it was kind of silly.

And it was capable despite being affordable

and kind of bare bones.

But this is like a vehicle.

This is punching above its weight.

This kind of reminds me of the vehicle

that I've never driven

that we talked about last week.

The Hyundai Venue.

Yes.

Where it's supposed to be,

it's supposed to make you,

it's evoking a higher class of vehicle.

And I don't think that's a bad thing.

One thing we didn't talk about for interior,

sorry to get on a tangent.

Cargo space is decent.

I was able to put a full size carry-on

and a smaller carry-on wheeled suitcases

and a box in the back of the vehicle

with no problems

without having to put the seats down.

It looks pretty small when you pop the hatch.

But it's actually okay.

I had no concerns with it.

I used it for everything I needed to use it with.

My major concern with it was trying to compare it to another.

I told you last week we drove the Kona

and we've driven the Kona plenty of times.

The Kona has a bigger cargo area.

Like clearly, without a doubt,

is much more practical.

And you can get it at around the same price.

Yeah, it can be a little bit more expensive,

especially when you start going

into the turbocharged engines of the Kona.

But if you stay out of that turbocharged engine space,

then the Kona feels like the better car.

Because what you said, the kicks is now punching above its weight.

Now it's kind of competing with...

When it was super affordable,

it was competing in this class of ultra affordable cars.

And now when it has all this equipment

and raises the price and all wheel drive,

it now feels like it has to compete

with all of these other vehicles

that are already established in this segment.

Sure.

And you mentioned...

And prioritize other elements, right?

Other things.

You mentioned before we recorded

that you felt like this vehicle should have a turbo.

It should have like a 1.6 turbo.

And that would make it better.

Yeah.

And I was thinking just now about what you were saying.

And...

It took you like an hour to...

No, no.

What you just said now

about how it's competing against the tracks,

which I believe is a turbo three cylinder

and it's competing against the turbo four in the Kia

or say the Hyundai, excuse me.

And the Celtos.

And the Celtos and the venue.

I think...

I mean, the Corolla Cross doesn't have a turbo,

but you can get a hybrid version of it.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's not really where I'm going with this.

What I mean is the original kicks

was up against the original tracks,

which did not have like nearly...

I don't think that was...

It was a judge.

Yeah.

And as a result,

the fact that it had this naturally aspirated engine,

even though it wasn't powerful,

it felt like it had some personality.

Like we were saying,

it was fun to toss around and whatnot.

It had character that other vehicles in its class didn't.

But now that it's pushing towards what other vehicles

in its class have moved towards themselves,

it becomes more homogenous.

And we noticed the fact that it doesn't have a turbo now,

but not for the same reasons.

You know?

Yeah.

It's standing apart because it's a half measure

in the sense that it hasn't gone fully into the idea

that this is an upscale subcompact

because I don't think Nissan can afford to play in that space.

I don't think that's where their customers are.

But at the same time,

other people are going to be cross shopping

the vehicles that do make that claim.

Yeah.

This is where the part of the kicks,

like a Nissan strategy in general,

feels so different because you did this little run down

of all these other cars that they had that were kind of,

they had the kicks.

And then if you wanted a more powerful kicks,

you basically got the juke.

Two cars that were that,

that like shied away from what the market typically,

what the mass market typically wants,

which is lots of space, lots of equipment.

The juke's, the juke was a car that had

very limited kind of creature comforts

and had a ginormous plastic panel

for your, like between the front seats

that was kind of like a,

I don't know what you would call it,

like a motorcycle body.

Like that's what it looked like and felt like.

And it had this turbocharged engine.

Eventually there was a Nismo model with over 200 horsepower.

And it was a silly little car.

It was so much fun.

And you could get a manual.

The front wheel drive one.

And there was a Nismo model with a,

with like the most bolstered seats I've ever seen.

And I remember these things so vividly.

You know what I mean?

I remember this so much.

It was like what would happen if a,

if a gaming PC company made a car

and they're like,

check out this interior,

check out these seats,

check out these headlights, you know,

like it would be like that.

And so when they,

they basically called the kicks the replacement for the juke.

And we all kind of went, oh, that's,

that's a, that's a bit of a loss

because it doesn't have that turbocharged engine.

But I can understand why they're doing that.

And in addition to, to its, you know,

more mainstreamness, it was really affordable.

And now we've got a car

that's gone a little bit more upscale.

It's a little bit more refined

than what we remember the kicks.

Parts of it are.

Yeah.

And,

and now it just loses that,

that charm that that's what I'm trying to say.

We, we have fond memories of the kicks

because of what it was capable of doing.

And these aren't like,

I don't think these are rose colored glasses

of like five years ago.

Maybe we just miss who we were five years ago, Sammy.

I don't know about that.

But we had,

I think we immediately recognized what we were driving

and went, hey,

for the price is actually kind of fun.

This is kind of interesting.

And now when I get in this,

I go, hey, it's pretty good,

but for this much money,

I can get a bigger vehicle.

I can get a car that has more,

like more space, more,

you know, better seats,

less harsh plastics,

a real digital gauge cluster,

a better all wheel drive system,

all sorts of other little things are in there.

Better than the actual.

Yeah.

Yes.

So I'm looking at that and saying,

Nissan lost it.

Like they lost the plot.

They lost this game by playing

the competitors game, right?

Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

That's a good way to put it.

And all this to say,

I don't think the kicks,

the current kicks is a bad vehicle.

No, no, it's not bad at all.

I would recommend people check it out.

But if you're on a strict budget,

absolutely.

It's fundamentally different.

And I think that that's important to keep in mind

because we've been such kicks boosters in the past.

Two other things I want to mention about the vehicle.

One is something I didn't like.

There was just straight up weird.

The thing I didn't like is the adaptive cruise control

does not work and stop and go traffic.

Yeah.

It beeps at you and then starts creeping towards.

It starts creeping forward.

If you stop for like more than a second and a half.

Yeah.

So that's not great.

That's super annoying.

The whole reason that adaptive cruise control exists

is so I don't have to pay attention

when I'm crawling through traffic at a snail space.

I did not appreciate that.

And I know that a friend of the show, Bradley Iger,

he hates any adaptive cruise control system that does not have

true stop and go capability.

It's one of his pet peeves.

So he would hate the kicks.

The other weird thing though, the thing that I didn't dislike

but is strange.

If you look at the kicks as shifter,

you can shift it into drive obviously.

But instead of having a low setting,

it has something that says B.

Yeah.

Which is to me typically related to a hybrid vehicle.

Yeah.

Where it allows you to automatically or better

more aggressively recharge the battery.

That's almost exclusively what this feature means.

Yeah.

Nissan has put it in a vehicle that has no hybrid model,

no battery whatsoever other than the 12-volt under the hood.

And it still says B.

And if you look at the manual,

the manual says that B is for going down steep grades

or for when you need to.

It's engine braking.

Yeah.

If you need to add higher revs from the engine,

it's essentially functionally exactly the same as low.

But they put B on it.

This is strange, confusing, weird.

No one needed this.

No one was asking for this.

Is it like Nissan trying to, again, play a different,

play their competitors' games of the ones

that do have a hybrid model?

I don't get it.

It's not a deal breaker by any means,

but it is odd.

Why B?

Why not any other letter?

Yeah.

Or just some numbers.

Or like 10 numbers.

And they have to add,

right over to that, the drive mode selector.

I can't believe I did.

I really feel like I'm losing it.

The drive mode selector?

Yes.

I'm more embarrassed that you were about to say

that there's no drive modes.

This is, I did say it.

Oh, you did say it.

I did say it.

Yeah.

And the thing is, this is not like the first time

where like I have missed a feature in a car.

It hasn't happened in a long time.

And you've had to correct me.

And at one point you were getting worried

and telling me like,

hey, maybe you need to like step back

for something.

I don't think I said it that way.

A young priest and an old priest.

A fully loaded this car,

I don't think has the value play in mind

to compete with the rest of this thing.

So you just got to love its design

and its interior to go,

yeah, I'll spend like 30 grand on this car.

Yeah, don't do it.

I don't think it's worth it.

And even at the mid trim,

I think mid trim is fine.

But I truly believe that you're on a strict budget.

This is the car to get.

And this is one of the cars to really take a look at.

Can you tell me?

I can tell you that Americans don't get

the heated steering wheel in the mid trim.

That's wild.

I mean, I know we're treated to all of these features.

Did you turn on the heated steering wheel?

All the time.

And you turn on the heated seats?

Of course.

I noticed that every time I pressed one of those two buttons,

I heard a very distinct click

coming from like the passenger side of the car.

I don't worry about it.

And every time I touched those buttons.

I noticed that if I use the remote start,

it pumped up the temperature to 25 degrees Celsius,

which is like 78 or something.

Yeah.

Even though I hadn't set to 19 or 21 normally.

So you get in the car and it's at a totally different temperature.

And then other times when I wasn't using the remote start,

it would do the same thing.

I emailed Nissan and they didn't know why I was doing that.

It sounds like it has like a Nissan connect thing

and they have somebody.

That was my thought too.

And I tried to look and see if there was a profile

that had like a remote setting.

Mine had a profile.

But like there's no profile information.

It's like very bare bones.

Infotainment system is kind of bare bones.

There's no like real apps or anything.

I just use Android Auto.

That's fine.

I don't need apps.

I don't need a single app.

I just use Android Auto all the time.

All the time.

I don't want your apps.

And what else was there going on in this car?

That's it.

I talked about everything.

Yeah.

I think that's it.

I was going to ask you what you think about this class in general

because there's a, there is a widespread of vehicles now

to choose from.

There's like a low end where you'd find the kicks,

this first generation kicks, kicks play for like a month

and a half or so.

I mean, there's a wide range of SUVs at this price.

Yeah.

Not even subcompact.

You're saying?

No.

What I'm saying is like subcompacts are pretty much just SUVs

now.

I think what's the car?

There's no car.

There's just the Versa.

Is there anything else?

There's the Mini, which is priced out of this area.

Our Mirage?

Is the Mirage dead?

I think the Mirage is still out there, but let's not talk

about the Mirage.

I want to get into the, the, what's the SUV version of

the Mirage called?

It has two different names.

Outlander Sport or RVR.

That's not the SUV version of the Mirage.

I'm sorry.

Or the RVR.

I want to try that out.

But yeah, there's Celtos.

There's CX30.

There's the Trax.

There's the Taus.

There's the Invista, which is like four grand more.

And the Trax and the Kick.

And the, what's the other one called?

That's what I said.

Trailblazer, I guess, but I feel like the Trax has

really put the trailblazer in its place kind of thing.

But the trailblazer, I think you can get with all

the drive.

There's the Nero.

The Soul, which is I think dead after this year.

Yeah.

I think Soul is done.

There's the HRV, which we're not going to talk

about.

And there's the Crosstrek, which feels like it's

kind of in a different class.

Yeah.

It's one of those cars that, again, I mentioned

there's like a mainstreamification of this

class.

And I think the Crosstrek just hits the points

of being really spacious and offering all-wheel

drive for the lowest amount of money possible.

And it's priced like that too.

It's like six or seven grand more in the U.S.

than what you would pay.

There's also the Buick Encore GX, a vehicle

I never think about.

Yeah.

Because again, Invista exists.

And it's like, there's a good, like at

least 15 choices here.

To me, the top three are Crosstrek, Kona

and CX-30, depending on your needs.

I think that covers the spread.

I like the tracks a lot.

I think for the money.

Oh, yeah.

And the tracks is the really like the budget option.

I mean, the money, the tracks is like five grand

less than that CX-30.

Yeah.

And that's a pretty big gap.

The CX-30 is gorgeous though.

And you can get it with a wicked powertrain.

Yeah.

Gorgeous is I think stretching it for any

vehicle in this segment.

Well, maybe it's getting, it's getting maybe

better with it.

It's a crazy class.

You're right.

There's 15 cars.

I would say that there's maybe like, and

about half of them are actually worth

taking a look at, which has to be one of

the better hit rates in the automotive

industry, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, for sure.

With the exception of like...

Full-size pickups.

Yeah.

The compact car segment or mid-size

car segment.

I guess in full-size pickups, there's

only three that you need to look at.

How dare you disrespect the Titan

that way.

Is the Titan still on sale?

I'm at the Nissan website.

It is not.

What happened?

What happened is no one bought it

and it went away.

Oh.

Yeah.

Oh, Nissan.

Do you think, do you think they're

going to pull it off?

Do you think that people are going to

start buying their cars or what?

I don't know, man.

I mean, I hope so.

That stresses me out.

I hope so.

They're certainly not going to be

buying Ultimus.

They're not buying Ultimus.

They're not going to buy the last

gen kicks for a while.

It stresses me out because, as I

mentioned, they're now trying to play

the competitions game, at least here

in North America, and that didn't go

well, that hasn't gone well for them in

the past.

Here's something else that's going to

stress you out.

The Z is going to become order,

special order only.

Yeah, that's insane.

I read this report from Joel Fetter

at the Drive where they said

basically they ended up.

Nissan basically said no one's

buying them.

We can't sell the Z at the

current price.

Yeah.

So we don't want dealers ordering

them and having them sit in

showrooms.

They have to incentivize it.

And Sami, and I regularly send

Sami the ads I've showed on

Instagram where they're still

selling brand new 2024

Nissan Zs for

like $20,000 off,

you know?

And it's like, it's never been

titled.

It's been sitting in the showroom

for two years, if not three

at this point.

$20,000 off.

Yeah, like huge, huge price

discounts.

And it's just sitting there,

right?

And the Nissan's like, well,

we don't want this to happen.

So if you want one, you're

going to have to order one

and we don't want dealers

carrying inventory.

But when you make an

announcement like that, it's

never perceived in a positive

way.

It just really sees.

$20,000 is still not a deal.

Have you seen the cost of

these cars?

In Canada.

I'm looking at it in Canada.

It starts at $53,000.

Yeah.

So like in the U.S., I

believe it starts at 40.

And I think that it competes

positively with the four-cylinder

version of the Supra.

Yeah.

But in Canada.

Yeah, that's true.

In Canada, the prices are out

of the world.

Yeah.

They need to be 20 grand cheaper

to even consider them.

That's insane.

It's like when the ELR came out.

And it was just uncompetitive

immediately because of the price.

It was like an $80,000

Volt.

And it was like a really good

car.

Yeah.

But not for 80 grand.

No.

It was not conceptually

feasible.

Sammy, anything else

you want to say about this

vehicle?

No.

Like I said, I'm scared for

Nissan's sake.

I don't know what they're

doing.

Like a read on them and every

business decision seems to be

a struggle.

If anyone else out there is

scared for Nissan.

Did you mention that other one

about the Pathfinder when they

just negged every Pathfinder

owner that they have?

Yeah, they said the Pathfinder

should not be used for school

pickups.

Carpooling, as they said.

Yeah.

It's not designed.

It shouldn't be designed for

that.

I don't know what they think.

Carpooling.

They said, quote, carpooling.

So the moment you get two

people in the car, it should

just tip over and just shake

everyone out.

That wasn't the impression I

got.

It wasn't that it wasn't safe for

that.

It was the idea that, like, as

a concept, the Pathfinder

shouldn't be used for carpooling

or school pickup.

Here's the thing.

Isn't this a three-row SUV?

Yeah, exactly.

Isn't that the definition of,

like...

Well, they're saying it wants

to be more like the model you

own.

Oh, yeah.

OK.

They've moved this vehicle

from unibody to full frame

and back again.

And back again.

And they're going to do it

again.

Four times in my lifetime.

That's the Pathfinder way.

Changing your...

It's like, maybe this will fix

me.

You know?

Maybe these...

Maybe I'll get bangs.

Maybe bangs will fix the

Pathfinder this time.

You know?

I will say.

Does it ever work?

It's never worked.

But this time, I think

there's a chance.

Yeah.

That's like me shaving off

my beard and mustache.

Every few months, I'm

like this time.

And then your son is like,

who is this stranger?

Who is this freak?

Yeah.

I'm going to throw my shoe

at him.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway.

If anyone out there is also

afraid for Nissan and he

want to talk to us about it,

how would they do that,

Sammy?

They should head on over to

our website,

unnamedautomotivepodcast.com.

There's a contact form

there.

You fill it out.

That lands in our inbox.

We'll chat.

I love it.

Or you can reach out to us

on social media.

We prefer Instagram

of all of these

platforms.

So hit up Ben

at

Hunting Benjamin.

Or you can find me

at

Sammy underscore

ha like you're laughing.

Or you can email us

the old fashioned way.

It's Benjamin

at benjaminhunting.com.

What are you going to be

talking about next week,

Sammy?

A minivan.

Pacifica.

That's what I've got.

Pacifica.

The plug-in

or the normal one?

I don't think

it's the plug-in.

Wait.

Okay.

I mean,

there's a way to know,

but okay.

I do not think

it has a plug.

I am going to be talking

about the Ford

F-150 hybrid,

which I think is called

the power boost.

Power boost.

Yeah.

So I've never

This is why Nissan

can't succeed.

They don't have names

like that.

Yeah.

I should have been the Titan

power boost.

This is my first time

driving the hybrid.

It's been around forever.

Yeah.

And I've just never had

the chance.

And you know what I'm

going to do right now?

Yeah.

You told me.

I'm going to go out

into the night,

into the darkness.

I have a Christmas tree

sitting in the back

of the bed.

And I'm going to plug

a power saw into the bed

generator.

What's going to happen?

You'll find it next week.

Okay.

Hopefully all of your

digits are intact.

Fingers crossed.

See you later everybody.

Bye.

Episode 428: 2026 Nissan Kicks

About this episode

Nissan G35

Honda That Honda

Kix Play

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Unnamed Automotive Podcast