2025 NISSAN KICKS FIRST DRIVE REVIEW: KICKING IT UP A NOTCH

We had a great time driving the outgoing Nissan Kicks a while back: It makes for a great little town car that's pleasant to drive, and surprisingly fun to push around on a back road. But now the new 2025 Nissan Kicks is starting to land in dealerships, and it's bigger, with a strong new design, a larger - yet still efficient - engine, and offering all-wheel-drive as an option for the first time. Nissan has been listening to customers and reviewers, and this new generation of the Kicks is aimed squarely at the American market.

On top of the tech upgrades and style refresh, Nissan promised that the Kicks would also be fun to drive. So, with all that in mind, we snapped up the opportunity to drive the new Kicks on the winding roads and freeways around Santa Barbara in California for the first time. Here's what we thought.

A Whole New Look

With the second generation of the Nissan Kicks, someone made the connection that the word kicks is also a slang word for sneakers in the US - and they ran with it. They also ran with the idea of a football helmet being a protective shell on the outside yet remaining cushioned and comfortable on the inside.

For marketing, these are great ideas that should work well for younger demographics. The new exterior aesthetic of the Kicks also works well for that market, with its wider stance and more defined muscular presence. There are three available trims, S, SV and SR; the one we tested was the top SR trim with the trim-specific Premium Package that adds heated seats, a moonroof, a Bose Personal Plus 10-speaker audio system, and an additional airbag. Our tester still comes in under $30k (excluding $1,390 destination). Here's what you get for that money:

Climbing Inside

The first thing to note is that the Kicks now features Nissan's Zero Gravity seat technology, which is pretty much a guarantee of comfort. The Kicks feels clearly bigger inside, with more shoulder room and rear legroom than ever before. Comparing the specs, shows it's trimmed down in some areas, but the clever packaging leaves the cabin feeling more spacious. We climbed in the back with memories of knees touching the back of the seat with a tall driver in front, and found it to be fine for a six-footer in the back.

The change is cargo figures here warrants an explanation. 2025 Kicks models with AWD lose out on cargo space - 23.9 cubic feet in comparison to the 30 cubes on FWD models, behind the second row. Folding that down opens up just over 50 cubes on AWD models, and 58.5 - 60 cubes on FWD models (higher trims have slightly less space).

Materials, Interior Trim, and Features

The SR has a more premium feel to it, mainly due to some smart design and details like the carbon-fiber effect material all around the cabin being a soft touch material.

Nissan tells us that the entry-level S trim isn't a bare-bones trim, but you do need to go up to the SV to get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and a 12.3-inch touchscreen. Given that the Kicks is aimed at a younger crowd, we feel that Nissan should have found a way to get it into the base model. It should be standard at this point. The good news is that, if you step up to the SV or SR trim, both are standard with wireless CarPlay and Auto and a wireless charger.

Our SR tester came with dual 12.3-inch displays, with the second one doing duty as the driver's display. We liked the dual display with its clarity and responsiveness, but found it a little odd that there was a lot of empty space for icons, but we had to drill down to find basic settings. Hopefully, it's something Nissan will address with an update - the GUI just needs a bit of a rearranging, in my opinion.

Peeking Under the Hood

The 1.6-liter engine in the outgoing model is gone, and replaced throughout the range with a 2.0-liter unit. It makes a shrug-worthy 141 horsepower and 140 pound-feet of torque over the older models' meager 122 horsepower and 114 pound feet. The bottom line here is that the car is bigger and heavier, so the upgrade isn't a big bump in the real world, but it's fine for the price point and par for the cost-effective compact crossover segment. The line following the bottom line of this paragraph is that the lack of power is a disconnect from the new squatter and more muscular stance. It feels like a car that should have a smaller but turbocharged engine or a hybrid with a small electric motor filling the torque to give it more pep.

Attached to the new engine is a new continuously variable transmission (CVT). According to Nissan, it provides better acceleration while maintaining fuel efficiency with a "greater ratio coverage," and quicker shifting. As it's a CVT and doesn't have mechanically shifting gears, the shifts are programmed, and it feels like a traditional transmission. It's a nice, smooth transmission that works well with the engine, and the overall combination delivers satisfying EPA estimates:

On The Road: Still Good Fun

Don't get us wrong, the previous generation lacked power, but was still fun to drive. The good news is that, despite its new heft, the 2025 Nissan Kicks is also fun. It may not be quite as nimble, but that's the trade-off at this more affordable price point when the vehicle grows in size. Something we didn't expect from seeing the 2025 Kicks at the reveal is the driving position and view. Not only is the driving position a blend between feeling like you're in a sedan and an SUV (proper crossover style) but the view out front with the hood reminds us of an older sports car - as in, you can see it and the way the hood bulges at the sides. It is a little hard to judge how much room you have when space is tight for parking but, when using the 360-degree cameras, we always had a few more inches than we thought.

The ride quality is just as pleasant as the outgoing Kicks, if not a bit better. There's a nice lack of road noise in the cabin, so you can enjoy the Bose sound system with the extra speakers in the headrest. This writer bashes Bose a lot, but in this case, there's some praise to share: the speakers in the headrests are not a gimmick. They seem to smooth out the treble in the Kicks and add some mids, which are usually lacking in a Bose system. So if you don't mind - or actively want - somewhat boomy bass, then it's a nice upgrade if you play with the equalizer settings.

Conclusion: Feels Like A Different Crossover

It has been a while since we drove the 2024 Nissan Kicks, but we walked away from the 2025's first drive feeling like this is a new car altogether. Perhaps without the trick all-wheel-drive system it will feel more like the outgoing model, but we doubt it will be the same. It's heftier, roomier, a nicer place to be on the inside, and has useful cargo space. It's still nimble and easy to fit in a parking space, but will be a much better vehicle to live with and comes with things like blind-spot monitoring as standard. It also has the optional and unobtrusive ProPILOT Assist on the SR trim.

Pricing looks as follows (MSRP excluding destination):

• Kicks S FWD: $21,830
• Kicks S AWD: $23,330
• Kicks SV FWD: $23,680
• Kicks SV AWD: $25,330
• Kicks SR FWD: $26,180
• Kicks SR AWD: $27, 680

This pricing compares well to rivals like the Mazda CX-30 that start at nearly $25k and surpass $37k in the highest trim. The near-$25,000 starting price also applies to the 2025 Kia Seltos, which makes the Nissan Kicks a bargain. As a dollar to value package, we're looking forward to spending a full week with the 2025 Nissan kicks in the near future.

2024-09-14T01:06:19Z dg43tfdfdgfd