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Nissan Pixo: Test Drive Review
Date: 17 July 2009 | Author: Tristan Young
Nissan Pixo interior
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While numbers are small for city cars in fleet, there's a significant growth in this sector thanks to three things, the lowest 10% benefit-in-kind tax band for petrol models, the 100% capital allowance write-down and the increase in salary sacrifice schemes.
City cars are small enough to have CO2 outputs, even in conventional petrol engine form, low enough to hit these tax breaks. And the Nissan Pixo is one of a growing number capitalising on this.
The Pixo is powered by a 1.0-litre three cylinder engine that produces just 103g/km. And at a P11D price of just £6905 for the entry level Visia model that's £11 tax a month for a 20% company car tax payer. Though that car is pretty sparsely-equipped. But even the higher-spec £8555 Tekna driven here only increases the tax bill by £3 to £14 per month. For that you get air conditioning, curtain airbags and even ESP. The interior does feel a little on the cheap though, betraying the Nissan's roots as a version of Suzuki's Alto.
In the past low-powered, low-cost city cars have also been low on appeal because they've been noisy, slow, poorly built and generally not fun.
The only point where Nissan Pixo still hits any of these negatives is that it is slow, though to be fair it doesn't feel completely out of its depth on the motorway.
In fact, the only real negative from a fleet point of view is that the service intervals are every 9000 miles, but then city cars don't normally cover high annual mileage.
The cost per mile is a reasonable 24.1p over three years and 60,000 miles, which is more than the car's likely to cover. There are though rivals that come in lower. Aside from this you've got a fun to drive, well built and easy to use city car.
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VerdictA great city car, low cost, high value |
7/10 |
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