The Volkswagen Golf Alltrack might be a little bigger than the Subari XV, but the XV offers permanent all-wheel drive and a greater ride height for tackling lumpier tracks. Which one’s best?
Volkswagen Golf Alltrack
Pros: • Well Crafted • Good looks • Big boot
Cons: • Non-permanent all-wheel drive • Ground clearance
The recently-released Volkswagen Golf Alltrack arrived in September last year to help Volkswagen bridge the gap between its road-based passenger cars and its SUV range. Based on the Golf wagon, the Alltrack offers a 20mm raised ride height, to 175mm and a new 1.8-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine that makes 132kW and 280Nm of torque from 1350-4500rpm.
The Golf Alltrack is available in one specification only and lists from $37,990+ORC. There are two extra cost option packages, the Driver Assistance Package $1300 and the Sports Luxury Package $2500, while metallic/pearl effect paint adds $500.
The Golf Alltrack is pretty well equipped for the money, getting a leather interior, automatic headlights, rain-sensing wipers, reversing camera and parking distance sensors as well as seven airbags and a five star ANCAP rating.
The Altrack stands out from the rest of the range thanks to its more aggressive looking front- and rear-end. Standard fit are model specific 17-inch alloys that look far too pretty to scratch on a gravel road. On the inside, the Golf Alltrack is more or less the same as a Golf wagon, although it does get a few unique touches, including a leather wrapped steering wheel with infotainment and communication controls, ambient lighting in the door trim and LED reading lights, it also offers Apple Car Play and Android Auto connectivity which can then be controlled via the 6.5-inch touch screen unit.
Being based on the Golf wagon means the Alltrack gets 605 litres of bootspace when the rear seats are in place and 1620 litres with the seats folded down (although they don’t go completely flat). The bootspace itself measures 1055mm long by 1003mm wide with the rear seats up, making it plenty big enough for a family of four’s gear.
The front seats look cool, but they aren’t overly comfortable. There’s little under thigh support and the seating position sees you laying back more than you might normally. Over in the back seats there’s plenty of room for two kids or two adults. The transmission tunnel intrudes a lot and so someone sitting in the middle seat would have to share the footwells of the two outboard passengers.
On dirt the Golf Alltrack is competent but it doesn’t feel totally at home with its stiff suspension banging and crashing into lumps and ruts in the road. And because the Alltrack isn’t a permanent all-wheel drive, it behaves like a front driver until it detects slip and then the latest-generation Haldex 5 coupling will engage the rear axle with the ability to send 100% of torque to the back.
Away from the dirt and back on the bitumen, the Golf Alltrack feels more at home. Indeed, it rides and handles very much like any other Golf, meaning its firm but always feels very well planted on the road. There’s almost no body roll and the steering wheel feels meaty in the hands and is both well weighted and direct in its action.
Subaru XV
Pros: • Good looksomfortable interior • Good driving dynamics on-and off-road
Cons: •Smaller than the Golf Alltrack •oesn’t feel as premium inside
The Subaru XV hasn’t fundamentally changed since it was first launched in 2011 and although it’s now due for a major change it’s still a very good compact SUV. Indeed, since launch it has been one of the stand-out sellers in Subaru’s range.
Subaru revised pricing for the XV last year with the range now costing significantly less than it did a couple of years ago. For instance, the entry level 2.0 lists from $26,490+ORC, the mid-spec 2.0i-L lists from $29,990+ORC, and the top-spec 2.0i-S lists from $32,490+ORC.
The Subaru XV stands apart from the Impreza range, like the Golf Alltrack. It runs a different nose, stands taller, and is a smidgen shorter in the wheelbase (2635mm v 2645mm), and really is Subaru’s first ‘proper’ model in the growing sub-compact SUV segment. tyling has never really been a Subaru strong point, and the brand has had plenty of misses, and only the odd hit over the years. But, to me, the Subaru XV is one of its more convincing designs. Obviously it’s been spun off the Impreza, but the XV has been given a sleeker (than the Impreza hatch) profile and a different, more hawk-like face than the Impreza.
On the inside, the dash layout is minimalist but logical, dominated by three large air-con dials and information screens. All of the controls are easy to use on the fly and there’s plenty of storage space.
While the XV is a big step up in improvement over previous Subaru models, some of the interior plastics still feel a little cheap although the centre stack and dashboard plastics are attractive. Despite its improvements, Subaru still has a long way to go to match its European and now Korean rivals. That said, the dash feels solid and should be typically Subaru hard wearing.
Back seat passengers are well catered for with decent headroom and excellent knee and legroom, thanks to the concaved backs of the front seats, and there’s plenty of room in the front, too. The seat frames are straight out of the Liberty which is how Subaru’s achieved the commanding driving position; the seats are both comfortable and grippy with decent lateral support.
The low boot floor makes it easy to load and unload the XV, but the boot size of just 310 litres is less than you get in the back of a Nissan Dualis (410L) and a lot less than you get in the Alltrack but it’s a wagon instead of a hatch, but it’s more than capable of swallowing a full-size pram. Drop the 60/40 split-fold rear seats and boot-space grows to around 1200 litres. There’s a full-size spare wheel under the boot floor, which can be easily accessed.Dimensionally, the XV is an impressive story; it’s just 1615mm high, which is only 200mm taller than a standard Impreza hatch, and exactly the same height as a Mitsubishi ASX. Yet, with a staggering 220mm of ground clearance, the XV betters Mazda’s BT-50 ute (220mm vs 200mm).
The Subaru XV runs a 2.0-litre four-cylinder Boxer engine, producing 110kW at 6200rpm and 196Nm at 4200rpm. This is mated to either a six-speed manual (standard) or a Continuously Variable Transmission (cost optional) with steering wheel-mounted paddle shifts. my pick for using the XV to tackle the daily grind would be the CVT; the gearshifts are smooth and there’s an effortless pouring on of torque from the moment you touch the throttle.
The Subaru XV might offer more ground clearance than a Mazda BT-50, but it’s more enjoyable on a twisting road (either bitumen or dirt) than you might think. Indeed, almost none of the XV’s competitors, with the possible exception of the Skoda Yeti, can match its comfortable ride and nimble handling.
The Subaru XV is an impressive package. Sure, it’s more aimed at the dirt road set (hence the high ground clearance) than those after a school-run SUV, but across all surfaces the XV is well insulated with only a faint whistle of wind noise from around the big wing mirrors, and muted road and suspension noise.
Verdict
The decision as to which one to buy will come down to a horse for courses scenario. Meaning, if you live in a regional area and spend a lot of time on dirt roads, or even poorer quality bitumen then the XV with its permanent all-wheel drive, good ground clearance and excellent driving dynamics will be the pick.
If you put the top-spec XV up against the Golf Alltrack then there’s little given away by the Subaru, although it doesn’t get the EyeSight system available on bigger Subarus which is superior to VW’s own active safety system on the Golf Alltrack. Although, if you only occasionally take a rough road excursion but like the rugged styling of the Alltrack and its excellent build quality (and why wouldn’t you) and need a cavernous boot then it would be the pick of the two.
So, for the sake of choosing a winner, we’ll give the Golf Alltrack the nod and simply for the fact that it looks good, drives well and offers a big boot… But if it was up against the XV’s bigger brother, the Outback, well, the result would be very different.
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