Nissan X-TRAIL vs Ssangyong Tivoli

What's the difference?

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.

I was asked the critical question while I had the Tivoli ELX on test – “Do you think people will buy this car?” After some time in thought, my answer was – “Not many… yet.”

Those who can look past the brand perceptions are getting an SUV which is damn near as good as anything on the market – and likely cheaper to run.

To that, you can say a lot of things: If only it cost slightly less. If only its rear was better looking. If only it had a five-star safety rating.

But here it is – the fact that the Tivoli can even hold a candle to its slick, finely tuned competition says a lot. The Double Dragon is back, and if it can afford to stick around for a while, perhaps it will stand a chance of putting the big players on notice.

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.

SsangYong is hardly a brand known for its consistent or good-looking design. In the past, the brand has floundered between the squared-off lines of the Musso and the unresolved bulbous curves of the last-gen Korando.

The brand’s re-launch has finally brought it up to speed, with every car across its range featuring a consistent design language. It’s improved out of sight, but still isn’t without its flaws.

Up front, there’s an angry-looking, squared-off horizontally slotted grille, with angles galore wrapping around the small SUV’s sides.

The angles continue up the A-pillar and across the roof for a squared-off, European-influenced roofline.

Then, around the back things get… strange. A pronounced curvy ridge makes its way over the rear wheels and into a rounded-out boot. It seems at odds with the angular rear glass and lower garnish.

There’s just way too much going on around the back; it’s overly styled. The chintzy chrome finish around the lower reflectors doesn’t help, nor do the big round SsangYong badge and bold ‘T I V O L I’ typeface.

The 16-inch alloys on the EX and ELX grade are a simple 10-spoke matte-silver. They’re nothing special, but at least they're easy to clean.

Inside, things are also mixed. There’s plenty of good and bad. The seats are clad in a robust cloth with plenty of sponge for comfort, and there are sensibly placed soft surfaces in the doors and on the centre console for your elbows.

The dash has an aesthetically pleasing symmetrical theme to it and is finished mostly in decent plastics. The 7.0-inch media screen is pretty good, too, but the rest of the centre stack is a bit nasty and old fashioned.

There’s the mix of gloss plastic and silver surfaces, a giant climate control dial and the so-so buttons that litter its surface. It reminds me of Korean car designs past, like the Holden (Daewoo) Captiva and generations-old Hyundais. Credit where credit is due, though - it all feels much better built.

I’m actually a big fan of the Tivoli’s steering wheel, it has a ridged, chunky shape and is finished in a pleasing artificial-leather material. The function stalks behind it are solid, with rotary dials on them to control lights and wipers. As the primary touch-points for the driver it’s neat that they have a unique, SsangYong personality to them.

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.  

The Tivoli might be a small SUV but it has a cavernous cabin. It’s seriously impressive and rivals some of the best players in this segment, like the Honda HR-V.

The front seat offers huge amounts of headroom, leagues of legroom, great space for your arms on either side and a fully telescopically adjustable steering wheel.

Storage is comprised of a shallow trench under the climate-control stack, decently sized cupholders in the centre console and doors, as well as a deep console box and a glovebox, which seems to disappear forever into the dash.

There’s also a rather odd trench cut out of the dash above the console box. It’s ridged and has a rubbery surface but seems useless for storing things, which will simply topple out when you accelerate.

As previously mentioned, there are comfortable surfaces for resting your elbows on for front occupants.

Room for back-seat dwellers is also excellent, with awesome legroom for the segment and leagues of airspace even for taller folk. There are the same padded elbow-rests in the doors and deep cupholders, but no air-conditioning vents or USB ports.

There are also weird elastic ropes on the back of the front seats for storing things (with mixed success) and a pull-down armrest.

The boot is rated at 423-litres (VDA), which is deceptively large (size-wise not far off the HR-V’s 437-litre space). The problem here is the shape of the boot itself. It’s deep from the floor to the retractable screen, and SsangYong says it will hold three golf bags, but it’s the narrow width and length which limit  its potential.

I found it awkward to move some odd-shaped objects, like a heater and some boxes, and the high entry-point to the bootlid makes things a little difficult when moving heavier items.

Our ELX has significantly more room thanks to a space-saver spare under the boot floor. The Ultimate, which sits above has a full-size spare, further limiting boot space.

There are the same odd elastic ropes in the edges of the boot wall for smaller loose objects or cables.

If SsangYong wants to roar back onto the market and challenge people’s perceptions of the brand, it’ll first need to get them in the door. After all, this low-ball strategy worked for Hyundai and Kia, who infiltrated Australia with models like the Excel and Rio, which offered all the features of more established brands at a cut price.

The challenge is not tarnishing your brand while you’re at it. Has SsangYong pulled it off with the Tivoli?

Our ELX is the mid-spec car, sitting above the entry-level EX and below the all-wheel-drive and diesel-only Ultimate.

The $29,990 ticket price for our front-wheel-drive diesel would be about right if the Tivoli was from any mainstream brand. For roughly the same money you can get a top-spec Mitsubishi ASX Exceed ($30,990), Honda HR-V RS ($31,990), fellow Korean Hyundai Kona Elite ($29,500), or a diesel-powered Mazda CX-3 Maxx Sport ($29,990).

Oh, and despite it looking quite large in the pictures, the Tivoli is most definitely a small SUV, being narrower than a Hyundai Kona and not as long as a CX-3.

Feature-wise, our ELX gets 16-inch alloy wheels, a 7-inch multimedia touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support, front & rear parking sensors with reversing camera, auto-dimming rear-view mirror, leather trim on the steering wheel, standard faire cloth seats (which weirdly remind me of Hyundai’s seats from about a generation ago), roof-rails, luggage screen in the boot, dual-zone climate control, privacy glass and halogen headlamps with LED DRLs.

Not bad. The safety offering is not only good but available across the range, so check the Safety section of this review out for more on that.

Missing at this price are leather trim (available on the Kona Elite and ASX), active cruise, LED front lighting and powered front seats. It’s not crazy value, but it’s also not bad at $29,990.

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.

Our Tivoli is powered by a 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbo diesel engine producing 84kW and 300Nm of torque.

That seems a little low on the power front compared to petrol competitors, but the strong torque figure available from an almost instantaneous 1500rpm gives this engine a solid amount of get up and go.

If you aren’t opposed to diesel, I would strongly suggest this engine over its underpowered 1.6-litre petrol equivalent, as it has almost twice the available torque.

It might seem risky for SsangYong to be offering diesel in a segment where the fuel type is unpopular, but it makes sense from a global supply point of view, as diesel is largely the fuel of choice in the Tivoli’s home country of South Korea.

The ELX is front-wheel drive and can only be had with a six-speed torque converter auto transmission manufactured by Aisin.

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.

Over my week of mainly urban driving I scored a fuel-consumption figure of 7.8L/100km against a claimed urban figure of 7.4L/100km which is not too bad, but also not stellar.

The official claimed/combined usage figure is at a bold-sounding 5.5L/100km.

The Tivoli has a 47-litre fuel tank.

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. 

We never recommend that you drive blindfolded, but if you could and you drove the Tivoli, I honestly believe you’d have trouble telling it apart from any other small SUV on sale today. 

The diesel engine feels strong from the get-go and pushes the 1390kg SUV along with a reasonable urgency. It’s no performance drivetrain, but it's as good as, if not better than, most of the petrol competitors.

The six-speed torque converter auto is mostly great around town but is old-school in that you can definitely feel each ratio. It also had the unfortunate habit of occasionally grabbing the wrong gear.

I once caught it out altogether under heavy acceleration and it spent a whole second fishing for the ratio it wanted. It’s still better than a continuously variable transmission (CVT) for driver engagement, though.

Steering is on the light side but is direct and offers decent feedback. The ELX offers three steering modes - 'Comfort', 'Normal', and 'Sport', which artificially alter the weight behind the steering. 'Normal' is by far the best.

The suspension was also notably impressive. Fellow Korean brands, Hyundai and Kia, have harked on for a long time about local tuning efforts, but I found the Tivoli’s suspension tune almost as good. It’s a slightly more spongey, comfort-focused tune, but I was impressed at how composed it felt in the corners.

The ELX has a cheap torsion-bar rear suspension setup, which could only really be noticed over rough road conditions.

Behind the wheel, the Tivoli was also surprisingly quiet at lower speeds. This makes for a nice, quiet drive around town, despite the diesel engine, but at speeds above 80km/h and engine rpms above 3000 the noise became significantly worse.

I’d say the Tivoli drives just as well as most Hyundais and Kias from just a few years ago. There’s room for improvement in the little details, but for the brand’s first effort since its international re-boot, it does a darned good job.

The Tivoli comes with a reasonably comprehensive safety offering, but there’s room to improve here, too.

On the active-safety front our ELX has auto emergency braking (AEB – works up to 180km/h), lane-departure warning (LDW), lane-keep assist (LKAS) and high-beam assist.

There’s no active cruise, blind-spot monitoring (BSM), traffic-sign recognition (TSR), or driver-attention alert (DAA) available on even the top-spec Ultimate.

The Tivoli has seven airbags, two ISOFIX child-seat mounting points on the rear outboard seats and top-tether anchorages across the second row, as well as the expected brake and stability controls (but no torque vectoring).

The Tivoli has received a four-star ANCAP safety rating as of 2016, however this is based on a EuroNCAP score and now-available lane-assist technologies were not factored into this test.

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.

The SsangYong Tivoli now leads the small SUV segment with a seven-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, which is miles ahead of the acceptable industry standard of five years/unlimited kilometres offered by most competitors.

Service pricing comes in at a completely fixed and impressive-for-a-diesel $322 per yearly 15,000km service for the life of the warranty.

Extra service items are tidily laid out in a chart breaking down parts cost, labour, and total price, with the most notably expensive item being transmission fluid ($577), which, at worst, is recommended to be changed at 100,000km.

From this we can tell SsangYong intends to target Kia’s audience and use this part of the business to categorically beat its competition.