No glamorous 2,000-mile jaunts to Geneva here – I’ll leave that to our esteemed colleague Gary “Globetrotter” Axon. Instead, I’ll regale my general impressions of the car complete with, what I suspect, will be praise that my colleagues don’t necessarily agree with.
It’s a big old brute, isn’t it? The side-road situation of my coastline digs means I usually try to reverse down to the end and parallel park. It was tight in the Passat, my Monaro, not so bad in the Clio – but the niggly little beginning and conclusion to my daily commute is most laborious when in the X-Trail.
It’s the nature of the beast, unfortunately – it’s a proper bulky SUV in that respect. The reversing camera and featherweight steering aid to an extent but if you’re urban-based, expect to sharpen your spatial awareness and parking skills if you get an X-Trail. Yet as a fan of a proper SUV, the bulk of the X-Trail appeals (more on that shortly…). It delivers that sense of dominance on the road even if it’s not quite an Autobiography Range Rover.
The beasts from the east with which we’ve been battling ever since Christmas have made me more thankful still for the X-Trail appearing to be a proper SUV. The clever all-wheel-drive system made short work of waterlogged fields and slushy roads alike.