The Drive Report: Nissan Magnite AMT has more pros than cons

Nissan Magnite eZShift

The Nissan Magnite has a lot going for it. It’s a fairly spacious, well-proportioned car made available for the price of smaller hatchbacks. It’s frugal and… that’s about it. OK, so it makes a fairly straightforward proposition in a market that’s moving from being budget-conscious to feature-conscious. And in order to strike a balance between the two, Nissan has now introduced a five-speed AMT to every variant of the Magnite that’s powered by the 1.0-litre, naturally aspirated, thereby democratising the automatic driving experience in a way that the top-end, turbo-petrol CVT version of the Magnite couldn’t. Should you prefer it to the manual version?

The answer depends entirely on how tiresome you find the act of operating a manual gearbox through start-stop traffic. Because, while the AMT option provides more variety and allows the consumer to make a more informed decision, it does come with a bit of a trade-off, which becomes palpable whenever the road allows the car to stretch its legs.

Nissan Magnite EZShift

The three-cylinder, 1.0-litre naturally aspirated motor continues to produce 72hp and 96 Nm of torque. It’s not an eager motor by any standards and is rife with the vibrations inherent to a three-cylinder set-up. The appeal of the Magnite lies in its looks and its proportions; in what it projects to the world, rather than what it offers to the driver in terms of an engaging driving experience.

What’s nice is that the top-end NA version does come with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, just when you’re starting to find its interiors particularly bare-bones. But it continues to lack other features like central locking. The quality of plastics remains satisfactory, as does the upright driving position and overall seat comfort. It’s also big on storage space with large cup-holders and sizeable binnacles in every door pocket.

That would be a resounding no. There are Steinways that are more suited to high speeds than the naturally-aspirated Magnite. And the respite the “EZ-Shift” version offers your left foot comes at the cost of a sluggish-to-the-point-of-seeming-inebriated AMT gearbox. Boy, does this thing hate being rushed. At all. Overtaking on city roads is a slightly scary prospect as the AMT emits a loud, geriatric groan while working through the cogs. Feather the throttle and eventually you will get up to speed. Keep the revs between two-three thousand RPM, which is the sweet spot. Thankfully, the most flamboyant aspect of the interior is the bright digital rev gauge. This is a car best suited to driving through heavy traffic, where its lacklustre throttle response is camouflaged by slow average speeds. With a very steady and light throttle, revs strictly between 2,000-3,000 rpm, the AMT works its way to fifth gear with less in terms of a protest. For a more engaging driving experience, you must slot the gear lever into manual mode, which allows you greater control, especially on open roads where you will need every bit of performance that this three-pot motor can offer.

Nissan Magnite EZShift

The Magnite’s other attributes remain intact. It’s spacious at the back, offers a great view of the road ahead and remains very easy to manoeuvre through dense traffic. Suspension also remains very softly sprung to the point that undulations should not be driven over with haste, lest you enjoy the bone-crunching thud sound of a light hatchback on stilts.

With the AMT option costing only Rs 50,000 over each variant’s ex-showroom price, the convenience of automatic driving has never come this cheap. And given the fact that you can have this convenience with a variant costing as little as Rs 6.5 lakh you get a vehicle that’s larger and taller than its rivals like the Punch AMT and the Exter AMT which cost over a lakh more. Being AMTs none of them offer a scintillating driving experience and so the Magnite comes out as the more practical, and, dare-I-say, the better looking option although the AMT is decidedly sluggish, even by AMT standards.

If your driving route takes you through intense gridlocks on a daily basis, if linear speed is something you’re likely to encounter less frequently than a Pegasus sighting, then the Magnite AMT is the car for you, as it offers more practicality and space than its rivals. If, however, you’re the sort to seek out a few bursts of speed any chance you can get, pay a bit more money and go for the turbocharged version.