Top Euro Award For Dualis Quality

Nissan's popular crossover challenges the establishment in quality survey

VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA – February 11, 2011: More reliable than a BMW, more popular than a Mercedes... the Nissan DUALIS has become one of Germany's favourite cars.

A comprehensive study by the German Automobile Association (ADAC) has led to the Nissan DUALIS joining the Porsche 911 and the Audi A5 on the popularity podium at the same time as becoming that country's preferred imported car.

As well as studying the statistics of more than two million breakdowns, the ADAC's annual ‘Gelber Engel' (Yellow Angel) Award asks owners to rate how satisfied they are with both their car and the level of service.

The results saw Nissan DUALIS finishing higher in the rankings than cars like the BMW 3-Series, Porsche Boxster and Mercedes-Benz SLK. It received outstanding scores in both the reliability and the customer satisfaction elements of the survey to secure third place overall. It was the only non-German car in the top eight.

Nissan DUALIS was designed and engineered largely in Europe by teams at Nissan Design Europe (NDE) and Nissan Technical Centre Europe (NTCE). It is built in the UK by Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK (NMUK). Nissan Australia sources its DUALIS product from NMUK.

"This important award shows why DUALIS has become such a sales success across Europe," said Simon Thomas, Senior Vice President, Nissan Europe. "It recognizes the success of the design and acknowledges the exceptional build quality that is engineered into all cars built at the plant in Sunderland, UK.

"The Gelber Engel award is the quality benchmark for new and nearly new cars and we are delighted DUALIS has been recognized in this way."

The ADAC survey is restricted to vehicles aged three years old or younger, to exclude breakdowns caused by poor maintenance rather than inherent faults, and embraces only vehicles with significant sales to ensure a realistic picture is achieved. For the 2011 award, some 150 models were investigated.

The results are published in the Association's magazine ADAC Motorwelt, which has a readership of more than 19 million. ADAC is the second largest automobile club in the world with 17.5 million members.

Nissan DUALIS was launched in Australia in 2008 as an innovative and attractive alternative to the mainstream hatchbacks that dominate the C segment. The combination of SUV features and the qualities of a compact family car created a crossover which has appealed to buyers the world over. More than half a million examples have been sold to date with over 209,000 examples built at the Sunderland plant in 2010 alone. A major facelift in the spring of last year further enhanced the vehicle's quality and refinement.