Vauxhall Grandland 2026 review | Average family motoring

What is the Vauxhall Grandland?

The Grandland is Vauxhall’s entry into what is one of the automotive market’s fiercest battlegrounds: the mid-size SUV sector. This is the British brand’s riposte to popular cars such as the Seat Ateca, Skoda Karoq, Toyota C-HR, Honda CR-V, Mazda CX-5, Hyundai Tucson, Volkswagen Tiguan, Ford Kuga, Cupra Terramar and many others.

Notice that it’s not called the Vauxhall Grandland X any more. That last part of Vauxhall’s naming convention was dropped a while ago, and the firm’s SUV line-up has seen even more change since then. Not only has the old Grandland stepped aside for a new one, the smaller Crossland SUV has been replaced by a new Frontera.

With Vauxhall sitting alongside other members of the Stellantis automotive colossus (including Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat, DS, Jeep and others), it’s no surprise the latest Grandland shares a lot – including its ‘STLA’ platform – with the latest version of the Peugeot 3008. The Vauxhall distinguishes itself with the same ‘Vizor’ front-end styling that was first introduced on the Vauxhall Mokka crossover, then rolled out to other models such as the Astra hatchback. This time, however, the theme gets a new twist, with a bold new lighting signature.

There’s one fully electric and one mild hybrid version of the Grandland available, and the EV is available with either front- or all-wheel drive. The range is likely to expand over time, though, with bigger-battery electric versions and perhaps a plug-in hybrid.

How practical is it?

Practicality is probably the Grandland’s strongest suit. There’s plenty of space up front, and those in the back also enjoy enough headroom and legroom for passengers taller than six feet to stretch out and get comfortable. The cabin is a little narrow to comfortably fit three people across the rear bench, but you can all squeeze in if you are prepared to get cosy. The wide middle seat and flat rear footwell also make life more comfortable than it might otherwise be. The rear bench doesn’t slide fore and aft like in some rival SUVs, though.

Boot space is very useful indeed, at 550 litres whether you go for the front-wheel-drive EV or the petrol mild hybrid. The all-wheel-drive EV’s boot space is compromised by an additional electric motor between the rear wheels, so instead of 550 litres you’ll find 485 litres. The good news is that there’s a level load lip at the opening of the boot, and the rear seats fold in a versatile 40:20:40 split. Less positively, the seat backrests lie at a slight angle, creating a slope in the extended load bay. With the rear seats down in the EV and hybrid, there is up to 1,645 litres of luggage capacity.

Quality inside the cabin is a bit of a mixed bag. Lots of fabric inserts feature on the dashboard and inner doors, all of which use recycled materials. This adds a variety of textures, but all the plastics have a hard finish – you’ll not find a single cushioned surface anywhere – and those lower down in the footwells and on the bottom of the doors are very cheap and functional. Put it this way: you won’t sit inside a Grandland and think you’ve climbed into an Audi by mistake.

As you might imagine, the petrol-powered hybrid Grandland is the lightest car in the range, at 1,675kg. But it also has the lowest towing capacity of 1,100kg. By comparison, the front- and all-wheel-drive EVs weigh a hefty 2,207kg and 2,325kg respectively, but their maximum towing weights are higher – at 1,200kg and 1,350kg.

For increased practicality, there’s a range of additional accessories available from Vauxhall. For the boot, you’ll discover storage nets, rubber mats and fold-out covers to protect the rear bumper from scratches if you have a pet jumping in and out regularly. There are also rubber interior mats, snow chains, boot-mounted bicycle racks, roof boxes, a pet safety belt (it’s really cute, trust us) and more. There’s even a Phillips air purifier available, which runs off the 12V plug in the cabin and is stored under the passenger seat. It’s a curious offering, given how many car manufacturers have made an effort to upgrade their ventilation systems with advanced air purifiers.

If you’re keen to turn your interior yellow and massively devalue your car, there’s also an ash tray that fits into the cupholder. Or if caffeine is your drug of choice, there’s a portable electric coffee maker. Having said that, it’s nothing compared to the in-car set-up delivered by the incredible Vauxhall Mokka Coffe-e concept, created a couple of years ago as a one-off. That car had a fully functioning espresso machine in the boot, as well as subtle coffee-related exterior badging.

What’s it like to drive?

At launch, you had one big choice to make: front-wheel-drive electric power or front-wheel-drive mild hybrid petrol power. In 2025, a third option was introduced: electric power combined with all-wheel drive. It's hardly an expansive range, but it is better than previously. We can only hope there will be a long-range Grandland EV with a bigger battery coming sometime soon.

The electric Grandland has a 73kWh battery (usable capacity) that is connected to a front-mounted electric motor driving the front wheels through a single-speed transmission. Maximum power output is 210bhp, but for that you need to select Sport mode. In Eco mode you only get 158bhp, while in Normal mode the maximum is 178bhp. Regardless of the drive mode, acceleration feels eager yet measured from a standstill, with the motor torque being unfurled gradually rather than all at once. And while on-the-move acceleration is more modest, the Grandland never feels out of its depth. You will, however, detect a rather lazy throttle response. Push the pedal and there’s a gap of about half a second before the powertrain responds. Zero to 62mph is dispatched in a respectable 9.0 seconds and top speed is 106mph. Vauxhall claims 323 miles of range on the combined test cycle.

The all-wheel-drive electric Grandland, meanwhile, uses the same 73kWh battery and 210bhp electric motor to power the front wheels. But at the rear, a second electric motor serves up an additional 110bhp. As a result, 0-62mph takes a swifter 6.1 seconds and top speed is 112mph. The car’s range is understandably lower, at up to 307 miles, partly thanks to the extra weight of its rear-axle motor.

The alternative mild-hybrid setup marries a three-cylinder turbocharged 1.2-litre petrol engine with an electric starter-generator, delivering 134bhp to the front wheels via a six-speed dual-clutch gearbox. Vauxhall reckons you can run around on electric power only for more than 50 percent of the time, yet it doesn’t take too much provocation for the petrol engine to cut in and help out. Performance is pretty modest whatever you do with the throttle pedal (0-62mph takes 10.2 seconds, top speed is 126mph, and Vauxhall claims 50.4-51.4mpg), not least because the transmission favours a high gear whenever possible. Still, you don’t have to be too beastly with the throttle pedal before the automatic gearbox kicks down, causing the petrol engine to rev loudly and sending vibrations through the pedals and floor.

The electric version is obviously much quieter, although you do hear a small amount of whine from the motor. Wind and road noise are about average for the class, so motorway refinement is par for the course.

The Grandland is not the quietest car of its type, then, and neither is it the most comfortable. The electric version has more sophisticated rear suspension than the mild hybrid (a multi-link setup rather than a torsion beam), but both create an underlying patter that never quite settles down, no matter your speed or the road surface you are driving on. That fidgety feel is not really what you want in a family car.

The suspension’s firmness might be easier to forgive if it resulted in sharp handling, but it doesn’t. The body lolls about as you change direction, combined with steering that is super-light and pretty much devoid of feel. You sense the car is going to run wide even at moderate speeds, and quite a bit earlier than it actually does. Selecting Sport mode adds a bit more weight to the wheel to boost your confidence, but the difference is marginal.

Technology, equipment & infotainment

Like pretty much all Vauxhalls these days, the Grandland is offered in three trim levels: Design, GS and Ultimate. The entry-level Design comes with standard kit such as alloy wheels, LED headlights and tail lights, power-folding door mirrors, powered front and rear windows, automatic lights and wipers, front and rear parking sensors, dual-zone climate control, adaptive cruise control and an illuminated Vauxhall nameplate at the rear.

The GS adds extra illumination at the front of the car, plus a black roof, darkened rear windows and more sophisticated Intelli-Lux HD headlamps. It also comes with a reversing camera, heated steering wheel, heated front seats and ambient interior lighting.

Ultimate trim tops things off with a head-up display, panoramic roof, heated windscreen, powered tailgate and 360-degree parking cameras.

The Grandland’s infotainment system differs according to the trim level chosen. All versions feature a 10.0-inch digital driver display behind the steering wheel, but while the Design has a 10.0-inch central touchscreen, both the GS and Ultimate make use of a 16.0-inch screen instead. Either way, you get wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration, a DAB radio and Bluetooth connectivity.

The Design comes with six audio speakers and a single USB-C port. GS trim adds three more USB-Cs, a see-through ‘Pixel Box’ compartment with a wireless phone charger, over-the-air software updates and an integrated navigation system. On top of that, Ultimate adds an upgraded 10-speaker Focal sound system.

So far, we’ve only experienced the larger of the two infotainment screens, and because the cars we drove were pre-production examples, the software they were running wasn’t finished. Sure enough, we experienced a fair few glitches, but you’d hope that these had been ironed out before customer cars arrived.

As with many such systems, the user-interface is rather complicated, with lots of on-screen icons, many of which are ambiguously designed so that it’s not immediately clear what function they perform. There’s also a lot of swiping and scrolling to be done in order to find your way around the menus. Life is made marginally easier by a handful of shortcut buttons, but it’ll still take a bit of time to get used to the system and the finer points of how it works.

Vauxhall Grandland running costs

Prices for the mild hybrid version of the Grandland kick off at £36,600, rising to £38,550 for the GS and around £39,725 for the Ultimate. A Kia Sportage hybrid, for comparison, is cheaper to buy at the entry level, but more expensive further up (i.e. there’s a greater price spread across the model range). Prices for the electric Grandland, meanwhile, start from £35,455 for the single-motor Design model, including the UK Government’s £1,500 Electric Car Grant. This rises to £37,005 for the GS version and £38,495 for the electric Ultimate.

Somewhat confusingly, the dual-motor version is actually cheaper, priced at £35,495 and £36,995 for the GS and Ultimate respectively. Note that you can’t have the base Design trim with the two motors, though. Compared with rivals such as the Nissan Ariya and Peugeot e-3008, it looks like decent value.

The mild hybrid has an official fuel economy figure of 50.4-51.4mpg, which isn’t bad given its size. Although given how regularly the engine is made to work hard, we reckon you’ll struggle to get anywhere near that in the real world.

The electric Grandland’s battery has a usable capacity of 73kWh, which official WLTP tests say makes it good for a range of 324 miles. Vauxhall has said previously that a 97kWh version will be launched at some point, but there’s no sign of it yet. When it does arrive, expect a claimed range of around 435 miles. There’s also a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) in the works, although it’s unclear whether this model will be sold in the UK.

With the current version, a full juice-up of the battery will cost you around £20 when you charge at home using a 7kW wallbox charger. That’s assuming that you pay the UK’s national average rate for your domestic power. Find yourself on an electricity tariff that allows you to charge overnight at a discounted off-peak rate, however, and you could easily halve that cost.

Charging will be a heck of a lot more expensive if you use a public DC rapid charger (think at least double the above figure, maybe even triple). A maximum DC charging speed of 160kW allows you to take on an 80 percent charge in 26 minutes.

Charging will be a heck of a lot more expensive if you use DC rapid chargers, though: think at least double the original figure, maybe even treble. A maximum DC charging speed of 160kW allows you to take on 80% of a full charge in 26 minutes.

Vauxhall Grandland reliability

The new Vauxhall Grandland is built on a fresh-out-of-the-box platform. As such, its mechanicals haven’t yet had a proper chance to prove themselves (or not) from a reliability perspective.

However, Vauxhall finished an impressive fifth out of 30 brands in the 2025 What Car? Reliability Survey for 2025. What’s more, the electric Vauxhall Combo Life Electric (essentially a van, but with seats and space for the family) and the Mokka Electric ranked fifth and 13th respectively out of 27 cars in the electric SUVs category. It all bodes well for this new Grandland.

Vauxhall’s three-year, 60,000-mile warranty is the bare minimum you should expect on a new car, and therefore nothing to write home about. However you can purchase an extended warranty via Vauxhall from Allianz. There are three levels of cover, named Complete, Standard and Essential, and you’ll need a car that has covered less than 100,000 miles and is less than eight years old. Pricing is determined on a car-by-car basis.