Holden Acadia vs Nissan X-TRAIL

What's the difference?

The Holden Acadia is a proper seven-seater SUV in that it will fit adults in the third row without turning your friends into enemies. It’s also practical and well fitted out with storage places and utilities such as USB ports.

I was particularly impressed with the advanced safety equipment on-board even at this entry LT level. Yes, it’s a V6 petrol and it’s not the most fuel-efficient SUV, but our time with it showed that with cylinder deactivation and the stop-start system it might not be as thirsty as you’d think.

The Nissan X-Trail ST-L 7 Seat is easy to drive, has some great features and fit my family of three just fine. The on-road handling is solid and there’s enough power under the bonnet for longer road trips. On a car this size, I’m not sure those extra two seats are worth losing the boot space but if you occasionally need to ferry your kid's friend to a game or something, it will be worthwhile. There are a few little things that aren’t quite up to a standard I like to see but overall, we like this one and it gets a 7.5/10 from us.

To fully understand the look of the Acadia, take a peek at the GMC website - but make sure you shield your eyes in the same way you would during a solar eclipse, or when welding, or in an atomic blast.

You’ll understand when you get there but suffice it to say contained within the site are some pretty confronting trucks and SUVs. Once you’ve recovered, you’ll realise the Acadia is the supermodel of the GMC family.

Yep, it has a big, blocky, truck-like look but it’s a refreshingly tough styling alternative to more elegant looking SUVs such as the Mazda CX-9.

The Acadia is also one of the smallest members of the GMC family, yet its dimensions position it as a large SUV in Australia. Even then it’s not huge compared to other large SUVs here, so you won’t have an issue piloting it in Aussie car parks or fitting into spaces.

The Acadia measures 4979mm end-to-end, 2139mm across (with the mirrors out) and 1762mm tall.

Along with the Mazda CX-9 the Acadia would also consider the Kia Sorento and Nissan Pathfinder to be among its rivals.

Inside, the Acadia is a modern and stylish looking place, although it’s a bit unrefined. Still, as one YouTube commenter reminded me parents will like the wipe clean surfaces.

Well her comment wasn’t written that politely but being a parent, I concur that the hard plastics have that advantage.

The interior is not all unrefined. The seats, even in the entry grade LT we tested, while cloth (and only available in Jet Black) are sculptured with bolsters and finished with a textured pattern that looks and feels great.

There was something robustly charming about the previous X-Trail shape and while the overall size has been maintained, most of the squared edges have been softened in the new model.

It makes it appear far more modern and it should maintain its kerbside appeal for years to come.

There’s quite a lot of chrome on the grille, making it look enormous. However, the black plastic moulding that wraps the car at its base helps it look sportier than it has the right to look. As does the dark privacy glass at the rear.

The interior hosts soft touchpoints, synthetic leather trims and wood-like grey panelling to create an upmarket finish.

I'm not a massive fan of the brown/black two-toned trim on the dashboard and doors; it just doesn't land with me.

But it does create a bit of interest for the cabin space.

The Acadia’s practicality game is strong. It boasts seven seats with third row positions actually able to fit adults, five USB ports sprinkled through the cabin, and a cargo capacity of 1042 litres with the third-row seats folded flat and 292 litres with them in place. If you have three kids, even teenagers, the Acadia could be the perfect family personnel carrier for you.

All three rows are spacious and even at 191cm tall I had good shoulder and elbow room up front, and in the second and third rows I had enough legroom to sit in each seat behind my seating position without feeling cramped.

Feeling a bit down because you might not be able to stretch the budget to get the LTZ-V? Well, cheer up – the LT has more headroom and that’s because it doesn’t get the sunroof which eats into the ceiling height.

Cabin storage is excellent. There’s a wide and deep centre console bin, a hidey hole in front of the shifter, a tray for second row passengers, six cup holders (two in each row) and decent-sized door pockets.

Directional air vents for everybody on board, three-zone climate control, two 12-volt power outlets, privacy glass and proximity unlocking complete a great practicality package.

For my little family’s needs this week, I found it to be fairly practical most of the time. The front and middle rows have loads of space and even taller passengers will find comfort with the legroom and headroom in both!

The third row should be considered as ’sometimes’ seats for kids because the legroom is very tight. Besides two cupholders, there are also no amenities back there. Adults will curse you if they get stuck back there for long.

The front row enjoys the most storage options with a deep middle console, a phone/utility tray and glove box. There are also large storage bins in each door and two deep cupholders. The sunglasses holder in the roof is a bonus, too!

The middle row gets a couple of map pockets, drink bottle holders in each door and a couple of cupholders in the fold-down middle seat, which doubles as an armrest. The practical, easy-to-clean trim on the back of the front seats is great, too.

The charging options are good for the first two rows, with each one getting an USB-A and USB-C port, while the front also gets a 12-volt socket.

It is easy enough to connect to the wired Apple CarPlay and the 8.0-inch touchscreen multimedia system is responsive.

I found the digital radio cuts in and out every few seconds, which makes that feature a bit useless. There’s no satellite navigation but with your smart phone attached, it’s easily forgotten.

My six-year old had no trouble getting in and out of the car and really enjoyed the tall seating position. He also liked having directional air vents and a reading light on our little road trip this week.

The boot is 465L and that puts it on the smaller side compared to its rivals, with only the CX-5 being smaller. I like the level load space and retractable cargo blind, but after my big grocery shop the boot was full.

You’d have to get strategic with gear loading on a full-scale road trip.

This has a temporary spare tyre but to access it, you have to remove the third row (after sliding the second row forward) and that would be an pain to access if you had a full car load of gear and child seats.

Being a lower grade this doesn’t have a powered tailgate and I did miss it this week because the boot is heavy to close.  

Our model is the part-time four-wheel drive ST-L with seven seats and it is $46,290, before on-road costs.

That makes it more expensive compared to its key rivals with the Mazda CX-5 AWD Touring costing $43,700 and Kia Sportage SX+ Petrol DCT AWD at $43,850. Only the Toyota RAV4 Edge tops it with a $53,020 price tag.

However, for a model that sits second from the bottom in its own line-up, it’s well-specified.

There are eight paintwork colours to choose from and none of them cost extra. This grade also enjoys an upmarket interior with two-toned synthetic leather trims, heated front seats, dual-zone climate control, wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto plus those two extra seats.

The driver also enjoys four-way electric lumbar support and electric seat adjustments. The exterior isn’t forgotten with 18-inch alloy wheels, full LED lights, electric folding side mirrors and an auto dimming rear view mirror.

All Acadias come with a 3.6-litre V6 petrol engine which makes big dollops of power and torque or 231kW (at 6600rpm) and 367Nm (at 5000rpm).

A nine-speed automatic swaps gears, and in the case of our two-wheel drive LT test car the drive went to the front wheels only.

The V6 gets the thumbs up for its stop-start fuel saving system and cylinder deactivation, plus good acceleration and the smooth power delivery you’d associate with a naturally aspirated engine, but a thumbs down for needing to rev hard to make that mumbo.

Excluding the ePower hybrid, the X-Trail shares the same 2.5-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine across its models. It has max outputs of 135kW and 244Nm, which means it’s not super powerful but it doesn’t really whine at you, either.

I’m not a massive fan of continuously variable transmissions and this one can get a little jerky when you put your foot down. It's smooth otherwise.

The part-time 4WD drivetrain is an interesting feature for this size SUV but I didn’t test its capabilities this week. You can choose between five modes - 'Auto', 'Eco', 'Sport', 'Snow' and 'Off-Road' but I kept it in Auto.

We were surprised by the Acadia’s fuel efficiency. After filling up the tank I drove for 136.9km on a combination of hilly country roads and peak hour evening city traffic and then filled up again – only 13.98 litres were used. That’s a mileage of 10.2L/100km. The official combined consumption figure is 8.9L/100km.

So, while the engine is big and not particularly new (it’s an evolution of the V6 built by Holden in Australia for the Commodore) it does have fuel-saving tech like cylinder deactivation and a stop-start system – which you can’t switch off.

Still, not the most fuel-efficient seven-seater – those with turbos and smaller capacity engines such as Mazda CX-9 are truly amazing in the way they can deliver grunt without getting thirsty.

The official combined cycle fuel figure is 7.8L/100km and real-world testing saw my average at 8.1L. That’s pretty good for an SUV of this size and it was after a lot of open road and urban driving (think school and grocery runs).

The X-Trail has a 55L fuel tank and based on the official combined figure, you should be able to get around 705km of driving range. Perfectly respectable for the odd road trip or family vacay.

Nissan recommends a minimum of 91 RON petrol and adds that it is E10 suitable.

I drove the Holden Acadia back-to-back with the Nissan Pathfinder – you can watch the model comparison in the video above, but the upshot of that experience was important.

See, while I wasn’t a major fan of the Acadia driving experience when I first met the SUV at its Australian launch in 2018, when I drove it straight after the Pathfinder the difference was like night and day.

The Acadia is comfortable, from the big seats to the smooth ride. If you’re covering a stack of territory the Acadia makes a great highways cruiser and will chomp up big distances  effortlessly.

That V6 does need to rev hard, but it’s powerful and acceleration is swift, while the nine-speed automatic shifts pretty seamlessly. Noise cancelling tech keeps the cabin fairly serene, too.

Look, it’s not the most dynamic of SUVs and there was a bit of tyre chirp in the corners when pushed, but this isn’t a performance car and nor is it trying to be.

Small windows mean a cooler, tough look, but the downside is a dark cabin and occasionally visibility is limited by the A-pillars or out the rear windows.

A 2000kg braked towing capacity will rule the Acadia out for many thinking of pulling a large caravan or big boat. The Pathfinder’s 2700kg braked towing capacity is a strength of that SUV.

Do you need all-wheel drive? Nope, but it’s handy for dirt and gravel roads. Still the 198mm ground clearance with only front-wheel drive should see you get down bumpy roads that regular sedans couldn’t handle.

The X-Trail ST-L delivered a solid performance in all the situations I put it in this week.

I was just as happy tackling the open-road as I was in stop-start traffic in the city.

It has enough power to get up to speed quickly and keep you there but you don’t feel like you have heaps left in reserve. The engine can sook a little when you get too aggressive with the accelerator but otherwise works without complaint.

The ride comfort is great! I took my dad on a road trip this week and he was singing its praises as a passenger. As a driver, I like how cushioned the suspension feels but it’s not at all floaty on the road.

The cabin space is very quiet, even at higher speeds. However, I wasn’t super impressed with the sound system and reckon it could be better.

Despite, looking like a big car, it doesn’t park like one. It’s actually stupidly easy to park and that’s a winning feature for me. Especially with the crisp 360-degree view camera, too. 

The X-Trail has been fitted with a good list of safety features, with the following being standard: LED daytime running lights, lane departure alert, lane keeping aid, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, 360-degree view reversing camera, dynamic parking guidelines, front and rear parking sensors, rear occupant alert, intelligent seatbelt monitoring and a driver fatigue monitoring system.

It also features adaptive cruise control with lane keeping assist; meaning, so long as you have your hands on the wheel, the car essentially steers itself. It's great to minimise fatigue on longer journeys.

It has AEB and forward collision warning with car, pedestrian and cyclist detection which is operational from 10-80km/h (5.0-130km/h for car detection). It is usual to see it operational from 5.0km/h, though. 

The X-Trail was awarded a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating in 2021 but it is based on its stablemate, the Qashqai. I think it’s worth mentioning that ANCAP’s individual assessment scores were all fairly high (hitting the 90 per cent range for all but one) which is great to see on a family car.

It only has seven airbags but that includes a front centre airbag and curtain airbags covering all three rows. 

There are ISOFIX child seat mounts on the outboard seats in the middle row, along with three top-tethers. You could get lucky in fitting three seats side by side but two will fit best. There's just enough room when a 0-4 rearward facing child seat is installed.

The Acadia is covered by Holden’s five year/unlimited kilometre warranty.

Servicing is recommended every 12 months or 12,000km. Expect to pay $259 for the first service, $299 for the second, $259 for the third, $359 for the fourth and $359 again for the fifth.

The X-Trail comes with the market standard five-year/unlimited km warranty term and you can pre-purchase three-, four- or five-year capped-price servicing plans. 

On the five-year pre-paid plan, services average $425 annually which is great for this class.

Servicing intervals are every 12 months or 10,000km, which could get a little annoying if you put a lot of kays on your car every year.