Rent Nissan Kicks 2023 in Dubai

A good share of the Nissan Kicks 2023 bookings we take in Dubai run a month at a time, and they come from people who have just started a job here and need one car to cover everything until their own arrives. The DXB run for a visiting parent, the commute, the Saturday grocery load. We can have it at your door within one to two hours, and you can rent it from 18. It handles that job because the ordinary things are the things it does well. What this page is really about is the trade you make by picking it, because the Kicks sits between a hatchback and a mid-size crossover and gives something up at both ends.

A week of driving on one tank

Nissan quotes 15.4 km/l combined for the 1.6, and that figure survives contact with reality better than most, mainly because there is no turbo tempting you into the throttle. Drive the way Dubai actually gets driven, AC on maximum and stop-start traffic at half five, and you'll settle around 11 to 12 km/l. The tank is the limiting factor rather than the engine. At 41 litres it is small, so the theoretical 630 km comes down to something closer to 450 or 500 in genuine city use.

For a normal week of errands, a school run and one airport trip, that is a single fill. Two if you're driving to Abu Dhabi and back. Petrol is cheap enough here that the dirham saving over a turbocharged rival is modest, so the real benefit is one fewer stop in the week rather than a meaningful cut in your budget.

Worth clearing up before it confuses anyone: Nissan sells a hybrid Kicks called e-POWER in several Asian markets, and it has never been offered in the GCC. The car we hand over is the petrol 1.6 with a CVT.

Specifications

The boot is the reason to take this over a hatchback

432 litres is a lot for a car this size. Most economy hatchbacks we rent give you 250 to 300, which is the difference between fitting your luggage and negotiating with it. Two large hard cases stand upright in the Kicks with space left for soft bags on top, so a family of three or four landing at DXB with check-in luggage gets everything in the back without folding a seat. That is not something you can say about most crossovers renting at this level, and it is the single strongest argument for the car.

The rear bench is honest rather than generous. Two adults sit comfortably, three fit across for a short hop, and legroom behind a tall driver is average for the class. Kids in the back have plenty.

Around town the size works in your favour. At 4,295 mm it is shorter than most sedans, which matters in the tight bays in Marina towers and the older mall basements where the pillars sit too close to the lines. The 178 mm of ground clearance clears the aggressive speed bumps in residential clusters and the steep ramps into some malls without the scrape a low hatch gives you. It is still a front-wheel-drive road car on road tyres, though, so treat the raised ride height as speed-bump insurance and leave soft sand to a proper 4x4.

Two rental rules sit with you rather than us. Salik charges to your account as you cross the gantries, and any RTA fines during the rental period pass to you. Belts are required in every seat, and children under four need a child seat, which we can fit before delivery.

Cooling a parked cabin in July

Any car left in an August car park turns into an oven, and the Kicks is no exception. What helps here is the small cabin volume, which gives the AC less air to work on. On full blast the front vents bring a baked cabin down to bearable in roughly five to seven minutes, and dropping the windows for the first half minute of driving dumps the trapped heat much faster than sitting in it with the doors shut.

The glass area is large for the footprint, which is good for visibility and bad for a parked cabin in high summer. If you're carrying passengers in the back on a hot afternoon, set the system to recirculate and angle the front vents rearward, since that is where most of the cold air is coming from. Nobody in this class gets rear-seat climate luxury, and we'd rather say so than pretend otherwise.

Where it runs short, and who should book something else

The engine. 118 hp and 149 Nm through a CVT is enough for city speeds and perfectly fine getting up to the limit on Sheikh Zayed Road, but overtaking above 100 needs planning rather than a stab of throttle. The CVT holds high revs while it gathers pace, which is noisier than the turbo crossovers renting nearby. A Coolray or a Jolion will feel quicker and more relaxed at highway speed. Neither will carry your luggage as well.

So rent the Kicks 2023 if you want the practicality of a crossover and a genuinely useful boot at economy money, and if most of your week happens below 100 km/h. For new arrivals, small families and anyone doing regular airport runs with real luggage, it is one of the easiest cars we hand over.

Book something else if you spend most of your time on the E11 and want overtaking pace, in which case a turbocharged rival is worth the small step up. Same answer if you need four adults plus a full set of holiday cases, where a mid-size crossover or a sedan makes more sense. For the ordinary Dubai month, the Kicks does more of the useful work than its rate suggests.