Nissan X-TRAIL ST 2024 Review

The 2024 Nissan X-TRAIL range starts from $37,750 before on-road costs with the base ST grade tested here and tops out with the flagship all-wheel drive X-TRAIL Ti-L e-POWER (from $58,990 plus ORCs).

With five trim levels on offer, Nissan’s fourth-generation mid-size SUV is available as a petrol or e-POWER hybrid, with five seats in two-wheel drive form, or up to seven seats with four-wheel drive. There’s no shortage of choice in the X-TRAIL line-up.

There’s also plenty of alternatives in the medium SUV category, so if you’re not tied to the Nissan brand, it’s worth looking at rivals like the segment’s top-seller, the Toyota RAV4, as well as the Kia Sportage, Mazda CX-5, and even the X-TRAIL’s twin-under-the-skin, the Mitsubishi Outlander.

Nissan’s no-frills approach has afforded it loads of popularity over the years and while the current X-TRAIL brings a modern-looking and rather inoffensive design on the outside, the interior has come a long way.

Standard equipment includes 17-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, silver roof rails, black exterior accents, cloth upholstery, and heated, power-folding side mirrors.

Inside, an 8.0-inch touch-screen is on the smaller side but offers a digital radio, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, while a 7.0-inch digital instrument cluster sits between old-school analogue gauge clusters.

A comprehensive suite of safety and driver aids includes autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian and cyclist detection, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, lane-keep assist, traffic sign recognition, and rear cross-traffic alert.

Under the bonnet of the petrol variants is a 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol mated to a continuously variable transmission, producing modest outputs of 135kW and 244Nm.

Every X-TRAIL is covered by a five-year/unlimited-kilometre, with services due every 12 months or 10,000km adding up to just under $400 per visit in the first three years.

One thing the 2024 Nissan X-TRAIL ST does well is simple, fuss-free motoring.

Key controls and dials are within easy reach and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to find your way around the X-TRAIL’s simply laid-out cabin. The array of physical buttons is a tactile delight in an age when car designers are embedding everything in touch-screens.

For an entry-level, budget-focussed variant, the X-TRAIL ST comes with an interior that feels quite the opposite of budget-focussed. The cloth-upholstered seats are supple but we didn’t spend long enough behind the wheel to see how they go over longer stints. The cloth material is so soft; it's a beautiful departure from the usual scratchy cloth upholstery you find in many entry-level cars.

Touch-points such as the door trims and lidded centre armrest are covered in a soft leather-like material and the fact there are no piano black surfaces around the centre console is a major positive, the matte-black finish won’t show smudges like a shiny surface would.

The only thing that would make the interior feel a little nicer is Nissan replacing the base-model’s hard, plastic steering wheel with a faux-leather wheel rim.

In terms of a driving position, there’s plenty of adjustability to suit humans of all varieties. That adjustability includes tilt and reach for the steering wheel, and loads of height adjustment for the driver’s seat – all manually adjusted, of course.

Second-row comfort is just as good, with decent legroom and headroom, and you could easily fit a pair of larger adults or a child seat flanked by two average-sized adults. It’s quite cavernous and the rear doors open to a generous angle of 90 degrees (or pretty close to), making it much easier to load kids or pets.

There are also plenty of amenities: air vents, cup holders in each door, a centre armrest, two USB ports, and a flat-folding 60/40-split rear seat. The backrest in the rear bench seat can also be reclined ever so slightly.

A whopping 585-litre boot is another positive, beating most of its rivals for cargo space (including the RAV4), and a space-saver spare is hidden beneath the boot floor.

For the most part, the driving experience is positive and while there’s a full suite of safety and driver aids on hand, they don’t intrude and take away from the driving experience like they do in other cars. It’s nice to have that safety stuff working in the background and only making noise when it actually needs to do so.

But although the petrol-powered X-TRAIL is a comfortable family hauler with more than enough power to get around town and keep up with traffic on motorways, a few things let it down.

And that brings us to the sore points of the 2024 Nissan X-TRAIL ST.

One of the first things you notice in the X-TRAIL ST is the overly sensitive accelerator pedal; even tiny amounts of throttle input can cause the X-TRAIL to lurch forward, meaning you need to be a smooth operator if you (and your passengers) want a smooth ride.

It’s also very easy to break front-end traction, particularly in wet weather, so if you plant your foot, you’ll be battling a bit of wheel spin before you actually move forward.

Minor hints of body roll appear when you push it hard around corners and while it’s clearly not the most athletic medium SUV, the X-TRAIL feels compliant and tied down in most scenarios, with decent cabin insulation that effectively drowning out road noise.

But one thing it can’t drown out is the noise from its CVT (continuously variable transmission). Under heavy acceleration the CVT is gruff and droney, oft producing more noise than your speed might indicate.

We also struggled to match Nissan’s combined fuel consumption claim of 7.4L per 100km. Instead, our short time with the X-TRAIL – admittedly, mostly spent city driving with a little highway driving – saw us achieve a best of 10.7L/100km.

While the X-TRAIL isn’t the most tech-savvy SUV in its class, anyone jumping out of an older vehicle probably won’t take issue with what’s on offer here.

That said, anyone switching into this from something more modern (no doubt with an abundance of technology and screens), might find the tech offering in the 2024 Nissan X-TRAIL ST a little uninspiring.

But that’s a given with most entry-level cars, and although the ST gets the smaller of two touch-screen sizes in the X-TRAIL family and only a partially digital dash, it all works just fine.

You don’t need offspring to see the 2024 Nissan X-TRAIL ST’s propensity as a budget-friendly hauler.

Look past its shortcomings and you’ll find a spacious and stylish mid-size SUV that’s brimming with safety gear and enough tech to get you by. It’s also very easy to live with.

While it’s not perfect, and it’s certainly not the smartest or sexiest mid-size SUV on the market, the five-seat X-TRAIL ST makes a lot of sense for families on a budget.

2024 Nissan X-TRAIL ST at a glance:

Price: $37,750 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol
Output: 135kW/244Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed continuously variable automatic
Fuel: 7.4L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 174g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Five-star (ANCAP 2021)

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