Review: Nissan March K13

When I booked my rental car in Japan, the company that I reserved with the first time, Times Car Rental, was unable to book a one-way rental. I could've booked the car to be returned to Narita, but the train fare and time to return the car and come back were just not worth it. Therefore, I had to look into other alternatives. The cheapest one was Nissan Rent-a-car, which rents, you guessed it, Nissans.

I must have had the only Narita-based license plates in the entire city.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Nissan was unable to secure me a kei car. A quick background for my American friends: kei cars are small economy cars with engines restricted to 660 cc and 64 hp. They get very high fuel economy ratings and are perfect for the tight-knit roads that most areas in Japan have to offer. They will also never come to America because their economy comes at the cost of safety, which is something that the USDOT will refuse to consider. To get the cars up to American standards, certain crash protections have to be built in. But that increases the weight of the car, so to prevent it from being super slow and overtaxing on the engine, a larger engine is equipped, which eats into fuel economy. It's a nasty slippery slope, and it unfortunately defeats the purpose of owning one back in the states.

Anyways, back to the car. Nissan hooked me up with a K13 March five-door hatchback. It has a 1.2L three-cylinder engine that only makes about 79 HP. It retails at about $10k USD new. The March occupies the tier between the kei car and the Nissa Versa (Tiida in Japan), the latter of which is the cheapest car currently being sold in the US for $12,825. Domestic reviews for the car have been tepid, with a forgettable driving experience and cheap build quality making the car a relatively unattractive choice.

The March shares the above drawbacks with the Versa, but brings additional ones to the table. The Versa sedan at least has decent interior cargo space. The March allows you to choose between four passengers or two passengers with some stuff in the backseat. You can have one or the other, but not both. I have done both while I have had this car, and the car is usually full in some capacity by the time I return to my dorm.

A rather Spartan interior

This afternoon, I took the last chance I had before returning the car to take it through the actual city on an "adventure". Even though this car is pretty small, the roads were definitely smaller. I was frequently pulling off to the side and/or stopping for other cars to pass by. There were blind corners, uncovered street gutters, and plenty of pedestrians. Not surprisingly enough, the kei cars had the perfect short width to fit on the roads without having to move or stop.

In addition, this car must be a baseline version, because there is no engine cutoff at the traffic lights. All the controls were manual knobs. The dash consisted of a speedometer and a digital gauge for the time, kilometers, and fuel, and that's it. You could make a decent knocking sound if you knocked on the plastics, of which there are plenty in this car, and not of the good kind. The seat does not go back far, so by the time I arrived in Aizuwakamatsu after driving non-stop from Narita, my legs were absolutely sore. And the ride and handling are absolutely, unquestionably boring. Like waiting-at-the-DMV boring. Like trying-to-sleep-at-0300-hrs-but-you-can't-for-some-damn-reason boring. Like I'm-going-to-die-someday-and-I'm-wasting-my-time-in-this-car boring.

Now here's the kicker: crash testing aside, this car would probably sell well in America. Why? Because it is, for all intents and purposes, a simple, cheap car. I know people who are always talking about cars back in the eighties and nineties, and how they were awesome and cheap and could last forever. Unfortunately, the era of the cheap car is coming to an end. Oil prices are starting to creep back up. Mandatory rear-view camera systems will be mandatory by the USDOT in two years, and advanced emergency braking in another five. The market is being flooded with the "crossovers", the type of car that takes the lack of cargo space and offroad capabilities of an SUV and reduced fuel economy compared to an economy car and throws them both together. These cars require a lot of work under the skin in order for these things to happen, so the simplicity and cheapness of the economy car, or whatever's left of it, will be gone.

And as much as I've just ripped on the March, I'm not inclined to say that I hated it. It got me from point A to B, with enough room for three suitcases with the back seats down. I was able to fit four people in the car, even behind me, for a short drive back to campus. The pillars are very thin, and visibility out of the car is good. The hollow plastic setup gives the car plenty of rattle with the audio, which is actually great considering that I put on entire albums by The Roots in between destinations. Would I want to own one of these? God, no. But it did its job and served its purpose well enough to justify the $600 (!) price tag for the week I rented it. (I return it tomorrow, and then it's no car for me until I find that NA Roadster/Atenza wagon/AZ-Wagon kei car, which I will probably have to go further south for.)

So with that information in mind, the March serves as a "throwback" to how cars, and purchasing them, were viewed in the past. If it was 1995 and you were looking for a car, and the only things that you cared about in said car were power windows and fuel economy, then you probably would have bought this car. Unfortunately, that throwback status comes at a price. A well-equipped kei car today prices at about the same as this base model March, so most buyers looking for a new car will want the one that can fit on the roads and is part of a more favorable tax bracket.

But still, it was a decent throwback worth posting about.

-wp