Nissan Qashqai gets new turbo petrol engine

Nissan celebrated a landmark with its popular crossover recently, the brand producing its two-millionth Qashqai at its Sunderland plant. Now Nissan has extended the engine range with a faster and more efficient turbo petrol engine in the hope of keeping those strong sales figures ticking over.

Nissan's 1.6-litre DIG-T 163 petrol engine, borrowed from the new Pulsar hatchback, is the most powerful engine in the Qashqai range, sitting above the 113bhp 1.2-litre turbo. The unit develops a healthy 240Nm of torque, which is 50Nm more than the smaller petrol. It is also now fully compliant with Euro 6 emissions regulations.

This sees it achieve the 0-62mph sprint in 9.1 seconds, and go on to a top speed of 124mph, making it the fastest Qashqai in the range. 

With its new engine the Qashqai also manages a fuel economy figure of 48.7mpg, which is less than 2mpg down on the 1.2, and emissions don't suffer unduly at 134g/km, just 5g/km down. In this guise the car is front-wheel drive only and equipped with a six-speed manual gearbox. Nissan hasn't confirmed whether it will get an automatic option.

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The existing 1.2 DIG-T model, on the other hand, now does feature an auto. The Xtronic gearbox, which we tested previously in the 1.6 diesel, is a CVT, meaning no true separate 'gears', although it features stepped changes so it feels more like a traditional multi-ratio gearbox.

A £1,350 option, it should only fractionally increase the manual 1.2's 0-60mph time of 11.3 seconds, as well as minutely affecting fuel economy, at 50.4mpg and 129g/km of CO2 for the manual.

Now find out how our long-term Nissan Qashqai is getting on.