Vauxhall Grandland review

The Grandland might share its engineering with the Peugeot 3008, but it does not share the same interior designer. What it lacks in Gallic flair it makes up for in a sort of elegant solidity. On the top of the dash there’s a carbon fibre effect to the plastic and the novel use of some grey textiles around the rest of the cabin.

How’s the tech?

The 10-inch widescreen digital instrument panel display comes as standard and is clean and easy to read, with three different display modes. If we have a quibble with the setup it’s that it’s not very customisable. Sometimes you just want to pick and choose what bits of information are on display while you’re driving.

We can’t quite decide whether Vauxhall’s ‘Pure Mode’ is a gimmick or not – you can set the car to go into it at night and it’ll pare down the information on display so as to avoid distraction. It’s not quite the old Saab night mode, which turned everything off in the cabin except the speedo.

What’s the infotainment like? 

Entry models get a 10-inch central touchscreen, while mid- and upper-spec trims get a widescreen 16-inch display. We’ve tried the latter and it’s sharp, responsive and (unlike the instrument panel) customisable enough. If you want to use the full width for your satnav then you’ll want to stick to Vauxhall’s native effort, because the low rent Apple and Android displays are restricted to the middle portion of the screen.

Perhaps we needed some time with the handbook, but we've had issues with the Grandland's software: the GS spec car we drove arrived needing a half-hour over-the-air-update (which didn't appear to change anything) and came up with the same set of irritating reminders every time we switched the car on.

Not only that, but like the Electric model we drove, the heated seat graphics were set up the wrong way round, with the right front seat activated by pressing the left seat on the display and vice versa. Oh dear. For its part, Vauxhall says it's fixed these niggles and that customers won't face the same teething problems.

At least the aircon buttons in here are analogue. Can't go wrong with a physical switch, can you?

What’s the space like?

There’s plenty of space front and back, with room for three adults abreast in the second row. Not too much space under the front seats if you like sticking your feet in there, mind. This second generation of Grandland is certainly more roomy than its predecessor and the Peugeot 3008, although the floor feels oddly high.

The Grandland has a 550-litre boot (hybrid or electric) which rises to 1,645 litres with the seats knocked down. That bench splits 40/20/40, and there's a removable boot floor that makes the load space nice and flat. Potentially useful for trips to Currys.