Category: Superminis 
Price Range: £8,995 to £10,845
Compact but roomy, smooth engines, tidy handling, lively diesel.
Ride can get fidgety, cabin trim devoid of padding, meagre boot, indicator bleeper might drive you mad.
This is a proper supermini-sized supermini, and good value for what you get.
Any Splash will be cheap to run, although not quite as cheap as it could be. The 1.0 - which may not come to the UK - has an official combined average mpg figure of 54.3 and CO2 of 126g/km, so it doesn't quite make the cut for the proposed sub-120g/km exemption from London's congestion charge. Nor does the diesel, for which provisional figures suggest around 57mpg and just under 130g/km. The 1.2 scores 50.4mpg and 136g/km, but opting for an automatic could be expensive as CO2 output and fuel thirst rise to 149g/km and 45.6mpg.
Insurance groups aren't decided yet but are bound to be low. Servicing for the Swift is every 9,000 miles and the Splash will likely follow suit. Its new petrol engines should require little maintenance, because while they lack expensive hydraulic tappets which adjust themselves, the engines are assembled so accurately that the tappet clearances are correct without the need for adjustment. In fact adjustment isn't even possible.
