major_clanger | Five Days with a Juke

darth_hamster and I don't own a car and unless Sian finds a perfect job that isn't commutable by train we will probably keep it that way for the time being, hiring a car or van as and when necessary. I arranged to rent a car over the holiday so that we could do family visiting and make such bulky-purchase shopping trips as needed to finish fitting out our new flat. There's a small Budget depot nearby that I've used a few times before and as it's convenient and the staff have always been helpful I booked through there again. The example car for medium compact was a Ford Focus; that sounded big enough for what we needed so that's what I got.

Come the morning of Christmas Eve and we went to pick up... a Nissan Juke.

This caused much hilarity as I'd been commenting on the Juke's ugliness only a couple of days earlier. But now we had one for a week and a bit, so here are my impressions so far, based on a 300-mile return trip to Surrey and an expedition to Ikea.

Size: It's not large inside, although not as small as you might imagine. I was able to get plenty of legroom and didn't feel squashed despite my height. It is a bit deceptive; inside it feels a bit like a Mini, but the Juke is considerably larger than a standard Mini on the outside.

Driving Comfort: The steering wheel is rather small but the road feel is good. The main issue I have is with visibility - the doors come up quite high as do the bug-eye headlight units, and between them the driver's view of the nearside is rather poor. It's not a problem on a straight road but I found myself very careful manoeuvring around car parks as I kept on feeling I was going to cut a left corner too tight. However, reversing is aided by a feature in the next category...

Equipment: Very good. There is a reversing camera (which helps compensate for the poor visibility), climate control and full AV/satnav with USB input, although as we didn't pay for satnav our car didn't have the requisite map card installed. The controls are clear and sensibly-located.

Storage: Not bad for the Juke's size. The hatchback boot isn't huge, but the floor lifts out to reveal a further trunk area. Apparently this is for the optional spare wheel, the default option being a reinflation and sealing kit. The rental office advised me to call their assistance number if I had a puncture! Other than that there is the usual array of storage spaces and (decent-size) cup holders. The Juke managed one large trolley-load of Ikea purchases but I wouldn't have tried to get any large packages home in it.

Overall it's not a bad car at all, but if we were buying I would probably prefer something that used its volume a bit better rather than trying to be an SUV. I like the equipment spec though.

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Apparently this is for the optional spare wheel, the default option being a reinflation and sealing kit.

Which has always been the default for motorbikes, if the rider actually carries anything for punctures other than an AA card or similar. Especially since the introduction of tubeless tyres, a reinflation and sealing kit should be able to handle most punctures, and possibly rather more easily than changing the wheel.

Unless one really needs a car on a nearly daily basis, the renting option seems very sensible. Living in central(ish) Tokyo I don't really miss a car. I've yet to hire one here, though there are occasions I think that I should at least have considered it in the past. We went on holiday to a bit of an out of the way place (a major tourist attraction for centuries, but still out of the way: Ise) and the local trains there were, particularly on a Sunday, quite infrequent. In Tokyo itself I find the trains to mostly have enough stations to be convenient and the timetable to be frequent enough. On my local overground line they run every three to five minutes until very late at night (and then every six or seven minutes) and the underground line is every three minutes during peak hours and every six to seven minutes at other times. Compared to what the traffic is like on the times others have driven me or when I take a taxi, I suspect the trains are at least as quick. When visiting some places in the outskirts or when being out very late there've been times a car might have been easier, but I've got used to relying on (and being able to rely on) the trains here. I should, however, be more willing to think about a hire car when travelling around.

In the last eighteen months I've only had one legal brief that sent me somewhere I couldn't get to easily by train (a mediation about a building dispute held on-site at a house in rural Rutland). About half the time I'm in Birmingham and the other half I'm in courts that by and large are accessible by rail. Some need a taxi trip (Stoke on Trent and Shrewsbury) whereas some are only a couple of minutes' walk from the station (Stafford, Leicester, Worcester).

My two least favourite courts to get to are Welshpool and Dudley. Welshpool is a nice town but there is only one train every two hours there and back, whilst Dudley is surprisingly awkward to get to by public transport for a suburb of Birmingham and once you're there the town, sad to say, has very little to offer.

When I was at St Andrews they had a really nice deal with their insurers where every University employee was covered by them for all car hire in the UK. It seemed to be really good value, reducing tyhe hire cost by around 50%. We could even use it for personal hires. Personally or whichever fund was paying for the trip only got charged GBP 2 per rental. Unfortunately, I suspect your chambers are too small to get such a goo deal, but it might be worth enquiring with your colleagues about a group account, which can get substantial discounts over individual hires.

At least there is the option of a spare tyre - most new cars now come with just the reinflation kit. As I discovered only the other day, when my car was serviced and I was informed that the kit was out-of-date. Until that point, I hadn't actually noticed that we didn't have a spare tyre. We've only had the car 7 years... (I think I thought it was under the boot carpet...) In my defence, I have changed a tyre, by myself, so I'm not entirely incapable or anything. Just unobservant :)

Mind you, the way wheels are attached nowadays it's virtually impossible to get the bolts loose with just a tyre iron so the kit makes sense from that point of view. And it does save space (and, more importantly for the manufacturers, money).

We inherited a Honda Jazz. Remarkable for how good it is as a small car, whilst having a surprising ability to shift large boxes or the odd fridge.

Five Days with a Juke

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