Nissan Primera 2.0 16v Saloon > Reviews (20)

I owned an 1995 Nissan Primera 2.0 SRi for about 18 months.

Magazine opinion is that it is a worthy but extremely dull car. The vox pox would however not seem to agree with this view. Over the ownership period I received many compliments about what a nice car it was, from all sections of the community. I put this down to the fact that it was a light metallic blue, had alloys and front and rear spoilers and side skirts as standard. Dull colours don't do the shape any favours.

Handling

To drive it certainly lived up to expectations. Handling was always very composed and secure, and the car inspired great confidence when pressing on along a twisty road. If provoked on a wet roundabout it was possible to induce lift off oversteer, this was however very progressive and easy to correct.

Performance

The 2 litre 16 valve engine provides 128 bhp which provides adequate performance, although the fuel economy was nothing special; 32 mpg on a motorway run and in the 20s around town. In retrospect the eGT with a 150 bhp engine may be a better bet, as the performance would be better, and I can't see the economy being much worse.

Reliabilty

It was the best car I have owned in this respect. Needed nothing doing to it in the ownership period. I got the feeling that it would handle high mileage well. It had done 110K when I sold it and still felt solid.

Soon after I got the car I noticed a small clunk from the suspension when going over speed bumps, uh oh I thought that sounds potentially expensive. It got no worse over time, and from reading owner's websites I found out that it was probably due to the nature of the multi link suspension.

Ergonomics

I couldn't fault it, all the controls were well laid out and easy to operate. The steering column and seat height are both adjustable, so it is easy to get comforable. The boot is much larger than in my brother's Mondeo.

Niggles ?

A few. The gear change wasn't always silky smooth, and sometimes baulked, and refused to go into into first.

The ABS tended to cut in too early when on slippy roads, and is a complete pain in snow, cutting in all the time, it would be good to have an option to switch it off. It is possible to take out the fuse, but may forget to put it back in.

The radio, a Blaupunkt unit always annoyed me. No matter what station or band it was tuned to the sound would cut out for a second or so, every so often. Very annoying.

In summary highly recommended.