I promise I'll say nice things about the turbo diesel Almera shortly, but I have to get this off my chest first: how, in these times of intricate design and fine build quality, can Nissan possibly have made this car so unbelievably noisy?It is simply astonishing. Ten years ago you could just about have got away with such a decibel-delivering diesel, but surely not now. A van that sounded so crude might be understandable, if you don't care much about the well-being of the van driver's eardrums, but a family hatchback?Unless everyone in the development team was stone deaf (which they may well be by now, but I mean before the first prototype was built), Nissan simply must have known about the problem. It's not exactly difficult to spot. So the fact that the car has gone into production in this form must mean that they didn't care, or didn't know what to do about it, or wouldn't spend the money to fix it. Whatever the true reason, it's just not acceptable.Having spent a couple of days wincing at the high NVH (Noise, Vibration, Harshness) levels on short trips, I dreaded the prospect of having to drive the car for 700 miles in less than two days. As it turned out, the Almera is more bearable at motorway speeds, since the road and wind noise muffle the ugly growl of the engine. But you are always aware of the constant banging and crashing going on under the bonnet.It's a shame, because in many other respects the Almera is a pretty good car. On a long journey it's very comfortable, and the suspension team has done a fine job of disguising the clearly awesome weight of the engine. There is quite a lot of front-end movement but it's always well controlled, so the car rides well even on dubious surfaces and can be hustled in a moderately sporty fashion on challenging A-roads.The engine performs well, too, which partly compensates for the tremendous racket it makes while doing so. The hearty blast of torque means you can make good progress when the need arises, though if you happen to let the turbo fall below boost-producing speeds there can be a delay of at least a second from the time you floor the throttle again to the time any significant acceleration takes place.The Almera is by no means the most economical diesel around, but it still took me nearly 500 miles - many of them tackled in press-on fashion - to make the fuel warning light flash. So that's another few brownie points in the matter of long-distance cruising.In fact, if all I ever had to do in a car was make epic journeys on motorways and other major roads, the Almera might just do the trick. But if I had to drive round town a lot, and make cold starts in built-up areas at the risk of attracting dark looks from pedestrians with their fingers in their ears, I would have to choose something else.Nissan has to make the Almera turbo diesel a lot quieter than it is now, and it has to do this as quickly as possible. Engine 2184cc, 4 cylinders Power 107bhp Transmission 6-speed manual Fuel 49.6mpg Acceleration 0-62mph: 12.3 seconds Top speed 115mph Price £14,700 Details correct at publication date
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