Nissan introduced the second generation of the Almera in 2000 under different names, depending on the market, and improved it with a mid-life cycle refresh after just two years.
It was a new era for the Japanese carmaker who formed a close relationship with the French carmaker Renault. The newly created Renault-Nissan Alliance brought together technologies and platforms shared between the two big brands. The Almera was built on Nissan’s MS platform, also used for its larger brother, the Primera.

The facelifted version brought improvements on the exterior with a clear-lens over the headlights and a redesigned bumper, which sported round fog lights. In the back, Nissan changed the taillights’ design and adopted circular patterns for the brake and reversing lamps instead of rectangular ones installed on the non-facelifted version.

Inside, the change continued with a completely redesigned dashboard that sported a new instrument cluster with the speedometer and tachometer placed in the middle and flanked by the fuel-gauge on the left and coolant temperature on the right. Depending on the trim level and options, the 2002 Almera featured an integrated navigation system installed on top of the redesigned center stack.

Under the hood, Nissan received a 1.5-liter turbo-diesel engine carried over from the Renault parts bin. The top-of-the-range 2.2-liter turbo-diesel engine was paired to a six-speed manual gearbox.