2025 Nissan Kicks Review: SR Premium Gets The Toys, But Is It Best For Your Budget?

Among the car enthusiast crowd, compact SUVs like the Nissan Kicks get a bad reputation. People call them soulless, uninspired, and the automotive equivalent of elevator music. I think that's an unfair characterization of not only crossovers, a segment that has very wide appeal over many demographics, but specifically a budget-oriented car like the Kicks. That's not to say that this little Nissan is entirely flawless, nor a perfect union of engineering and soul. It's not. But if you buy cars for that purpose, the Kicks is decidedly not for you, and that's perfectly fine.

Like its sedan brother Sentra, the Kicks does exactly its stated purpose and not an iota more. I drove a first generation Nissan Kicks for all of 25 seconds when I was interning for MotorWeek, and I fondly recall it as the most hateful car I had ever driven. So, when I received word that A 2025 Kicks SR was due to arrive on my driveway, I was ready to let the hate flow through me like some sort of Sith Lord. Fortunately for my blood pressure, Nissan, and my ability to write satire, the little crossover did not elicit those feelings. 

The Nissan Kicks, in the year of our Lord 2025, fits at the bottom of Nissan's ever growing SUV repertoire, both in size and price. Although I haven't seen it out in the wild, I'm fairly confident a Nissan Armada or an Infiniti QX80 could eat a Kicks like a whale swallowing krill. The Kicks is bordering on adorable in its proportions.

Under the completely redesigned Kicks' admittedly pretty good looking exterior is a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter four banger that puts out 141 horsepower and 140 pound-feet of torque. It transfers powers to all four wheels through a CVT. Those specifications could be described as "enough." The engine is quite literally a means of conveyance. It's the equivalent of getting points for attendance. 

It's clear that the main "point" of the Kicks is not speed or any semblance of performance, though that's par for the segment. A competing budget-oriented compact SUV like the Kia Seltos has 146 horsepower. The Toyota Corolla Cross has 169. It's not a category that's populated by speed demons. At the risk of writing out a cliche, it's the inside that counts for the Kicks.

The interior and amount of options you can cram into the sheet metal is the main draw to the Kicks and that's evident by the leatherette seats and giant infotainment screen. The Kicks is by no means a luxury car, but it's doing a reasonable impression of one. There are charging ports everywhere, cameras that assist in parking, a panoramic sunroof, a huge infotainment screen, Bose speakers, an a heated steering wheel. To borrow the parlance from my haunted used car salesman days, it's "loaded."

Driving the Kicks for a week cemented the assumption that I was not the target demographic, and I completely accept that. I didn't find the fuel economy of 30 combined miles per gallon all that impressive. The interior, while comfortable, didn't elicit any real fondness from me, and the actual practice of driving the Kicks was about as exciting as shopping for AA batteries. But I have to filter all that through the lens of a jaded car reviewer and automotive enthusiast like myself. The Kicks is not for me. "But who is the Kicks for?" you may be yelling at your phone. It's not for you either.

The Kicks is for people who just want to buy a grocery getter with halfway decent fuel economy and a three-year/36,000 mile warranty, with a price tag that doesn't make you openly weep. There's nothing even remotely complicated about the little Nissan, and that could absolutely be construed as a selling point. 

The interior volume is measured at 23.9 cubic feet, making it leaps and bounds better than a sedan (a Nissan Sentra only has 14.3 cubic feet of cargo space). Unlike everyone on Reddit, not everyone wants to deal with a partially disassembled BMW E36 with 300,000 miles on the clock and no rear seat. It's literally just a car with some nice options and the Kicks seems happy with that assertion of itself: the SUV-equivalent of an appliance. And, I should reiterate, that's not a bad thing.

It ate highway miles with no problem. It's not overly noisy on the inside. The Bose sound system is great. The infotainment system kept me informed and entertained without having to take a course in software engineering. A normal person wouldn't bemoan the lack of "steering feel" or comment on the CVT. Does a CVT hinder the ability to get to work on time? No it does not.

If I had any real complaints about the Kicks, I would say that the suspension is downright bad. Granted, I live in southern Pennsylvania where the roads could be described as "existing," but the Kicks bumped and bumbled around without any real care for the occupants. In an effort to impart the barest whiff of "sportiness," Nissan likely made the suspension a little stiffer than it should be. I felt every ripple, pothole, and rock in the road and it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. 

Now here's the main selling point of the Kicks, the price. At its absolute least expensive, the Nissan Kicks starts at a scant $21,830. For a car with four wheels, seating for five, and Apple CarPlay, that's a total bargain. Even the staunchest Porsche 911 purist who only wears Alcantara clothing and loudly insists on pronouncing it as "Porsh-uh" can't argue that the base model Kicks is a good deal.

The Kicks I drove was in the SR trim and equipped with all-wheel drive, bringing the starting price to a still-very-reasonable (at least by 2025 standards) $27,680. The Premium package, which added the Bose sound system, heated mirrors, rain sensing wipers, the panoramic sunroof, and remote start costs $1,950. Splash guards added $250. Carpet floor mats tack on another $190. Lastly, $605 19-inch wheels and a $1,390 destination charge bring this particular Kicks to $32,065.

Forgoing all-wheel-drive saves you a little bit of cargo room (and cash), bumping it up to 30 cubic feet. If you don't care about all the extra goodies like a sunroof and heated steering wheel, it might be worth it to uncheck a few option boxes. The bones are going to be the same across all trim levels. If it were my money, I'd keep all-wheel drive for the extra capability, and tone down the interior amenities for something a little simpler and less expensive.

The 2025 Nissan Kicks SR AWD isn't fast. There is no hybrid model available allowing for better fuel economy. The ride isn't particularly comfortable. And, like I found with the Altima and a lot of Nissan's lineup, Nissan hasn't done anything apart from an occasional redesign to elevate the car above the competition. But all of those arguments most fall flat when you look at the price tag. The Kicks isn't trying to impress you. It's trying to impress your wallet.