[ Background music ] >> If you're a city kid looking for a lot of attention the Nissan Cube Krom Edition, and believe me I am not a fan of that spelling, is the car for you but you might also find that it's the car for you if you haul a lot of groceries, or you just want a unique looking little box car that gets great mileage and has some quirky extras, plus it's actually got decent tech inside. ^M00:00:21 [ music ] ^M00:00:26 Let's start with the cabin tech. There actually is some in this car and it's pretty decent for a vehicle of this price. Now our Nissan is equipped with the Krom package which adds an upgraded speaker system. It's a 6 speaker Rockford Fosgate sound system and I have to say it sounds pretty good. We've also got you know CD player, AMFM radio, MP3 playback on the CD, an aux jack way up here and a USB port way down here for plugging in your iPod. The Krom package also adds this little 4.3 inch LCD and you can see that Nissan's managed to shoehorn in a little back up camera which is actually pretty clear. It doesn't have an alarm but you know it lets you see if you're gonna hit something. There is no navigation even as an option on this vehicle but I think they're assuming somebody as tech savvy as a Cube driver has it on the phone. Another extra in the Krom package is the intelligent key and I was interested to see that on this vehicle that you don't even have a slot to insert the key, just a little cubby here and then a push button for starting and stopping the engine. Another available Krom feature: Interior lights. You push this little button here and you have lighting inside the car, 20 different colors. You know it gives the car kind of a fun little raver vehicle feel. Actually when I first saw this dial here and it said push power I was hoping it was some sort of sport mode but instead it's just regular lights. Two things that stand out tech wise on this car. One is that it has a dedicated iPod menu which I don't think I've seen before. Also the Bluetooth integration is great. Once you pair your phone, it immediately downloads your contacts into the system and then you can dial by voice. One little touch I really did like when you plug in an aux cable or plug in your iPod to the USB port here, it automatically selects the support mode, so it selects aux or it selects the iPod menu. I just found that really handy. There are also nice steering wheel controls in this car. You've got obviously volume and calling buttons but you have a dedicated source button so you can switch between radio, iPod, aux jack right here on the steering wheel. Now obviously the Cube is all about styling not just outside but inside the car too, for example the Krom package includes this interior carpet. I don't know what this is for I actually tried putting my phone on it to keep it from falling off but that doesn't seem to be it. Also its Velcroed down so it's removable in case you need to use it for like a fan. And of course it has cutesy Cube touches like the ripple effect on the ceiling here and then really here's your comedy for the day. Check out the visor. I feel like there ought to be a TV on here because that's how big it is. Our shifter here is pretty standard. No manual mode or anything. No sport mode either. There is an overdrive button here. It's made it to a 1.8 liter 4 cylinder engine. It only makes 122 horsepower and let me tell ya you can tell. Now I know the Cube comes off as like half rave mobile, half museum of modern art piece but it turns out it's a really great grocery getter. The main reason is that it has this side swinging rear door here. It opens really wide and then you can load so much stuff in here. I took it on a very serious Target and grocery run and I can tell ya this could be my new mom box. The thing is the Cube is a pretty practical car once you get inside. It's got a lot of space, good leg room, it gets great mileage. It's actually rated at 27/31 and we averaged about 28 in mixed driving. The styling is meant to be edgy and very urban. You either love it or you hate it. It definitely gets a lot of looks on the road mainly from children and sometimes from Scion drivers plus there's miles of headroom so it's a great comfortable car for tall drivers. It is good handling though and it's really great for city driving plus it's deceptively small. It's almost the exact same width as a Mini Cooper and it's only about 10 inches longer than a Mini so even though it seems big because of the height it's a great car for city parking. It fits into compact spaces and it zips in and out of traffic, well slowly. Did I mention that this car is slow? Overall, I have to say the Cube is a matter of personal taste. I came down on the side of loving it. It's gas efficient. It's kind of fun to drive even though it's gutless and the looks grow on you after awhile. Now a base model Cube will run you 20,840 after destination taxes and the Krom package on this car which gave us these fancy wheels, the chrome grill, the upgraded speaker system and some of the other tech extras will run you 2,990 dollars.
