I was meticulous with the break-in for my Micra, erring on the side of caution. After that, it was time to test it out. In my 5 speed, I found that first gear offers tons of get-up-and-go, and allows the Micra to easily lose traction and keep up with more powerful cars, but it ends rather quickly. Fortunately, second gear starts in the power band where first leaves off in redline and still delivers plenty of pull; unfortunately, it also reels the car to redline just when things are getting fun. Third gear is my favourite on-ramp gear, offering plenty of power to pull out of those 30km/h corners the Micra can easily handle at twice that speed all the way up to around 120 km/h real speed. After that, the shift into 4th feels flat and rather disappointing, though in reality the car is still pulling pretty good; it's just that it doesn't have the feel of 3rd gear. The shift to 5th is a real let-down; I expected the overdrive gear to bring my engine RPM's down to a modest level, but in reality, it seems to put me in a better place in the power band than 4th. I almost feel as though 5th could be 4th, and we could use a better overdrive gear.
In our culture obsessed with absurd excess, the Nissan Micra is my counterculture car of choice.
Be sure to visit my blog at
mymicra.com!
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View my fuel log 2015 Micra SV manual: 6.4 L/100 km ... 44.3 mpg (Imp) ... 15.7 km/L ... 36.9 mpg (US) ...