We bought the Nissan Almera around the same time, mine was slightly newer at about 1 year 2 months old. The main attraction that strongly influenced my decision to purchase this car after considering and test-driving other alternatives (which include Toyota Corolla and Corolla Cross), is the new glacier grey colour. To me, it looks splendid in this colour. If it's the other usual colours I would not have bought the car. To each his own I guess.

The vibrations are acceptable in this vehicle and so far after slightly more than a year of ownership, no excessive vibration which suggests that the engine mountings are still holding up fine. I have no problems replacing the engine mountings more frequently than other cars as I don't expect the cost to be high. It's a wear a tear item anyway. Hopefully it will last for at least 3 years if not more.

My main gripe about this car is the level of NVH. Perhaps it is unfair since my benchmark is high comparing the Almera with costlier C-segment vehicles. Although the Almera is a fairly quiet vehicle, the NVH still could not match my previous car the Nissan Sylphy 2.0. When traveling on good roads at city speeds, it's a nice comfortable drive with low noise. However, at highway speeds and going over poor surface roads, the noise from the suspension and road is fairly high, and there is some rattling sound too. The Sylphy is much quieter even though it goes over bad quality roads with minimal or zero rattling sound from the suspension or the interior of the cabin. Comfort-wise the Almera is good but when compared to the Sylphy, it loses quite a bit of points. Nevertheless, as an overall package at below RM95k there are no complaints. You gain some in the overall more elegant and fresh design but lose some in NVH and refinement.

Monarch Orange is nice too but I prefer less striking colours. Also, I suspect the Glacier Grey Kuro Edition may not be launched yet when you bought your car. I think the Kuro edition was introduced in January 2024 or maybe one month earlier and it was during this time I bought the car. Also, the large discount for the Kuro add-ons where the stuff was almost like given free, also helped in the decision. Perhaps a marketing gimmick, about RM7k worth of Kuro add-ons if I'm not mistaken, basically thrown in for free.

NVH of the Almera is OK, it's just that when you start comparing with vehicles with superior NVH then only it's worse. The Continental UC6 tyres, I've lodged an official complaint to Nissan and Continental actually as there was humming sound from the tyres at low to moderate speeds especially when traveling on old or poor surface roads. The humming sound was prevalent with the test-drive car at Nissan Tan Chong too when I tested it together with a technician to address my complaint. We then took the car to the Continental tyre shop, organised by Tan Chong to have the UC6 tyres checked and after they dismantled all tyres, did some checks and troubleshooting, swapped or rotated the tyres from front to rear, rear to front, the humming sound was still there. Finally, the Continental guys who did the troubleshooting and test-driving acknowledged on the existence of the humming sound of the UC6 tyres. The conclusion? The sound of the tyres is said to be normal as they found no defects in the tyres. An official report of the UC6 tyres was provided by Continental Malaysia after the tyres were tested at the Continental outlet. Although the tyres were reported to be normal by Continental, the humming sound does not sound normal to me especially when the tyres are still new. Anyway, after living with the car for a considerable period of time the humming sound has somewhat become normal. When it's time to change tyres I'll likely get a different brand, not Continental anymore. According to Continental, tyres with some "handling' characteristics like the UC6 will usually be noisier. We'll see if that's true after I change to a different tyre brand in due time, maybe Michelin Primacy or something else.

Before the UC6 tyres were sent for checks, the wheel bearings on the car were checked for defects and the service centre reported that there is no issue with the wheel bearings.

This post has been edited by SportyHandling: Apr 11 2025, 04:59 PM