Let’s face it, there’s no truly ‘bad’ cars anymore. In the past it’s been all too easy to have a swipe at certain marques and models, having a dig about their rubbish reliability, lack-lustre engines or for just being plain horrible to drive. Well that no longer applies because the benchmarks have been raised, and through a Darwinian process of survival of the fittest, for the most part the duds have been filtered out and the playing fields levelled.
This narrowing of margins between the ‘best’ and ‘almost as good’ has created an extremely competitive marketplace with manufacturers eager to fine tune their products in order to attract buyers. This is perhaps best demonstrated in the potentially lucrative, large SUV sector which is why Nissan knew it had its work cut out when it launched its third-generation X-Trail in 2013.
Codenamed the T32, its immediate rivals were numerous and already well liked and included everything from the Kia Sorento, to the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Volkswagen’s posh Tiguan.
Of course,
