Vauxhall Crossland Review

How much does it cost?

The Vauxhall Crossland was discontinued in 2024. Its modern-day equivalent is the Vauxhall Frontera, which revives a name which used to be applied to a boxy off-roader for a more road-focused vehicle which starts from £23,995. However, there’s plenty of variety on the used market if you are looking to get behind the wheel of a Crossland. You can find a top-spec Ultimate-grade car with just over 1,000 miles on the clock for £19,799 if you take a look at AA Cars today, while a 2024-plate car showing just under 10,000 miles represents great value for money at £17,000. It’s worth noting that if you are interested in a Crossland, it used to wear the ‘Crossland X’ badging prior to the car’s redesign in 2020.

Engine and performance

Overview

The latest Crossland’s engine range has been pretty slim, with just a 1.2-litre turbocharged petrol being available. This three-cylinder unit comes with either 108bhp in six-speed manual versions or 128bhp in six-speed automatic versions. Though quite a small engine overall, it’s punchy enough to get the Crossland up to speed in good time. Vauxhall quotes a 0-60mph sprint of 10.3 seconds for the lower-powered version, or 9.7 seconds for the higher-powered variant. Unlike key rivals in the segment, the Crossland does without any form of hybrid assistance. That said, this should help this Vauxhall to remain cheaper and simpler to repair.

Out on the road

While it might be small, the 1.2-litre engine in the Crossland feels perfectly suited to the job in hand. It’s a little loud when you’re accelerating hard, but keep things within the car’s limits and it’s not too bad. In fact, the Crossland’s engine feels at its strongest when you need that roll-on performance - such as when you’re speeding up to join a motorway or conducting an overtake. The six-speed manual isn’t the most pleasant to use, but it’s light and easy to operate. The same goes for the clutch, too. The automatic isn’t bad in comparison, either, and definitely makes the Crossland more suited to longer journeys.

Ride and handling

Though aimed at around-town drivers, the Crossland can feel a little firm when you’re travelling at slower speeds. It certainly isn’t overwhelming, but the Crossland does struggle with those larger imperfections when you’re pootling about. However, it remains stable and confidence-inspiring when you’re going more quickly - adjustments made to the steering when the car was revised in 2020 had a big hand in this.

When you’re on the motorway, wind and tyre noise are both quite pronounced in the Crossland, but it’s not too bad overall. Drive-wise, the Crossland can’t match the Ford Puma for outright fun for whoever is behind the wheel, but it manages well enough. There’s some body roll when you’re going around quicker bends, while the slightly light steering doesn’t inspire as much confidence as you get from the Puma.

Interior and features

Interiors

The Crossland feels as though it has been built to cope with the hustle and bustle of family life. The interior isn’t what you might call exciting, but everything inside is made to last. That does mean that certain areas are finished in rather scratchy plastics, but at least these will be difficult to mark and will be easy to clean, too. There are some silver elements to help brighten things up, but it’s a rather drab affair overall.

However, the front seats are nicely padded, and it’s easy to reach key functions when you’re sitting behind the wheel. A well-sized rotary knob for the main volume is intuitively placed, while controllers for the heating and ventilation are nice and easy to access. As you might expect from a crossover, you get a more elevated seating position than you might with your standard hatchback or MPV, so those up front get a nice clear view of the road ahead. .

Boot space and practicality

The interior of the Crossland is all about space. With its boxy proportions, there’s plenty of headroom inside, while plenty of glass helps to make the cabin feel more airy than you might expect. There’s plenty of space for both occupants sitting up front, while at the back, there’s acres of space to utilise. Look out for Ultimate-grade cars if you want some added flexibility, too, as these models get a sliding rear seat setup which means you can tailor things depending on your need; slide the rear seats forward to boot luggage space, or push them back to increase legroom. At 410 litres, the boot in the Crossland is a decent size and you can, of course, make this area larger by lowering the rear seats flat. As mentioned earlier, the sliding rear seat could be a great option for drivers after more flexibility from their car interior.

Features

The latest generation of Crossland came with a good amount of standard equipment. All cars, for instance, have a central touchscreen which is where you’ll find all key media functions, while later models have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone mirroring systems. Prior to being discontinued, the Crossland was only available in one grade - Ultimate. It’s the one to look out for if you’re buying used and it’s the specification that you’ll see nearly all recent Crossland models finished in. The good news is that it brings loads of equipment, including LED headlights, 17-inch alloy wheels and keyless entry. There’s also dual-zone climate control, Alcantara seat trims and rain-sensitive wipers. In short, there’s very little that you’re left wanting on the Ultimate trim.

Trim and colour options

As mentioned, by the time the Crossland was taken off sale in 2024, it was only available with a single high-specification trim level, Ultimate. However, with its eight-inch colour touchscreen, 3.5-inch driver’s display and steering wheel-mounted controls, it’s definitely not one which is lacking in features. While the Crossland’s infotainment system might be smaller than the one fitted to a lot of more recent cars, it’s still usable, though the graphics do feel a little outdated.

You still get lots of handy features to make day-to-day driving easier, mind you, with front and rear parking sensors included alongside a panoramic rear-view camera coming on this model. The number of available exterior colours was shaved down for the latest Crossland, too, with only four colourways available - Arctic White, Crystal Silver, Carbon Black and Crimson Red.

Safety and reliability

There’s plenty of safety kit aboard the Crossland. In its most recent form, this Vauxhall came with a full suite of airbags, including full-size curtain airbags, as well as hill-start assist and ISOFIX child seat mounting points on the two outer rear chairs. There’s also a deactivation switch for the front passenger’s air bag in case you need to fit a child seat there. Vauxhall also equipped the Crossland with a decent array of assistance systems, including forward collision alert, side blind spot alert and even a driver drowsiness detection system which can spot signs of fatigue in the person behind the wheel.

Lane departure warning and a speed sign recognition system add to the Crossland’s impressive list of safety tech. Vauxhall’s Connect service also brings an Emergency Call function which automatically dials the emergency services if the car detects a collision or incident. However, this feature does need to be activated by a dedicated Vauxhall app and subscription, so it’s worth checking to see if the car you’re considering the purchase has it fitted. Reliability-wise, the Crossland is shaping up to be something of a mixed bag; some electrical gremlins have been reported which affect the stop-start system and keyless entry, though the 1.2-litre engine is reliable over its period in use.

MPG, emissions and tax

With just a single engine option, there’s not too much choice in terms of MPG and emissions. However, the Crossland doesn’t do too badly, and you should still see around 48mpg on the most efficient version - the manual-gearbox model. However, the automatic is hardly thirsty in comparison, and should still bring 44.1mpg combined. Emissions are relatively high for this size of car, however, at between 131 and 144g/km CO2. Annual road tax will be £195 for all versions and since no variant of the Crossland costs over £40,000 when new, it won’t incur the Expensive Car Supplement. In all, the Crossland shouldn’t prove too expensive to run or repair when needed.