With a punchy diesel engine, four-wheel drive and such a high towball limit, you’d expect the Qashqai to make short work of an 85% match. Unfortunately, a low maximum towing weight restricts it to towing 5kg less than 85%.
That’s a shame, because otherwise the Qashqai gives a good account of itself. It tackled the hill start without a hitch, although the lane-change exercise was more of a struggle, the Nissan requiring a lot of steering input to get the outfit straight on the third and fastest run.
Being a small 4×4 doesn’t help with boot space. Still, the wide boot opening and the ease with which towing mirrors could be fitted helped the Qashqai to a respectable practicality score.