Alfa Romeo Stelvio Review

There’s loads of head and legroom in the Alfa Romeo Stelvio’s front seats so it’s easy to get comfortable if you’re more than six-feet tall. Mid-range Speciale models come with electrically adjustable front seats with lumbar support as standard, which will help reduce back ache on long journeys.

Space in the back is okay for tall adults, although headroom and legroom are a little tighter than in the Audi Q5. Try to carry three abreast and things get a lot cosier. There’s a large lump in the rear floor that cuts into the available foot space and the centre seat is both smaller and harder than the outer two – if you regularly carry three people abreast then a Mercedes GLC is a roomier choice.

The Stelvio’s rear doors open fairly wide to help make fitting a child seat reasonably easy. The Isofix anchor points are clearly marked too, and are covered with flip-up covers rather than easy-to-lose removable caps.

There’s enough room in each of the Alfa Romeo Stelvio’s door bins to hold a couple of bottles of water, and the cubby under the front centre armrest is fairly roomy too. You can’t quite hide away as many items in the glovebox as you can in a Mercedes GLC, however, and the Stelvio’s front cupholders are concealed under a folding storage tray in front of the gear lever.

The rear door bins are reasonably large and you get a pair of cupholders in the folding central armrest. There are also a couple of handy USB ports behind the front seats to keep your passengers’ phones charged.

You can squeeze 525 litres of luggage in the Alfa Romeo Stelvio’s boot with all its seats in place. That’s a fairly insignificant 25 litres less than the Q5, GLC and X3 but a considerable 125 litres less than the commodious Jaguar F-Pace. All models come with an electrically powered boot lid as standard, though.

The boot’s large, square shape and wide opening makes it a breeze to load plenty of suitcases or boxes and there’s no boot lip to lift heavy items over. There’s a set of tether points to tie down luggage and some handy shopping hooks to hold your groceries securely in place.

The rear seats fold down via a boot mounted lever – they need a push to help them on their way – in a useful three-way (40:20:40) split, which means you can carry long sports equipment poking through from the boot and two rear passengers at once. With all the Stelvio’s back seats flipped down there’s plenty of space to carry a bike with its wheels attached but nowhere to store the load cover – unlike in a Mercedes GLC. It might not be quite as practical as more boxy German SUVs, but the Stelvio’s by far the most practical Alfa Romeo on sale.

You can get the Alfa Romeo Stelvio with three petrol and two diesel engines and with either two or four-wheel drive.

Pick the 200hp 2.0-litre petrol model if you spend most time in town. It’s smoother than the larger 180hp 2.2-litre diesel and quieter at slow speeds, too. Alfa Romeo claims it’ll return 40.4mpg but expect to see around 30mpg in normal driving.

The 280hp petrol manages to return almost identical fuel economy to the smaller 200hp version yet can sprint from 0-62mph in a little over seven seconds. That’s hot-hatch quick from a high-riding practical SUV, but still some way off the range-topping petrol Stelvio Quadrifoglio’s 505hp 2.9-litre V6 3.9-second figure.

One of the 2.2-litre diesel models will be a better bet if you cover lots of motorway miles. The 180hp version is quick enough for overtaking slower traffic, and the 210hp model is downright fast when you put your foot down. Both versions will return around 50mpg in the real world compared to Alfa Romeo’s claimed 58.9mpg.

All models come with an eight-speed automatic gearbox to help make long journeys and heavy traffic as stress-free as possible. You can also get four-wheel drive across the range that’ll be handy if you live somewhere prone to snowy winters, but don’t expect it to take you far off road.

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio’s raised seating position gives you a decent view out over the road ahead, but the thick pillars – where the doors meet the roof – produce some large blindspots at junctions. The small rear windscreen makes reverse parking difficult too, but you do get rear parking sensors as standard across the range. Top-spec versions come with a reversing camera too.

The Stelvio’s firm suspension means it isn’t nearly as comfortable as an Audi Q5 or Mercedes GLC but it beats the Jaguar F-Pace for outright driving fun and may even be better to drive than the Porsche Macan. The Alfa will carve through tight corners with confidence and feels more like a saloon than a tall off-roader.

Models with large alloy wheels fidget slightly over rough roads – especially at slow speeds – but they soon settle down into a fairly comfortable cruise on the motorway. High-spec Stelvios come with the option of adaptive suspension that’ll let you choose between relaxing or sporty handling. It’s better than the standard setup but still not as comfy as the Audi Q5’s system.

Unfortunately, the Stelvio isn’t as quiet as the German SUVs either. You’ll hear plenty of wind noise coming from the door mirrors and its four-cylinder engines make a higher-pitched noise than the smooth-sounding six-cylinder units offered by Audi and BMW.

You don’t get any particularly fancy off-road driving modes like you get in a Land Rover Discovery Sport either. Instead, you’ll have to rely on its standard hill-descent control and raised ground clearance to keep you out of trouble if you wander off the beaten track, but you’re best off keeping your Stelvio on the road.

The Stelvio scored an impressive five-star safety rating in the strict 2017 Euro NCAP crash tests making it one of the safest SUVs currently on sale. All models come with automatic emergency braking, which will stop the car for you if it detects an obstacle in the road ahead – perfect for a little extra peace of mind.