Holden Captiva 7 LTZ 2015 Review

The Captiva 7 has long been considered the bridesmaid to rivals such as the Ford Territory, Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorento and Toyota Kluger. Its reputation has been founded on offering second-tier build quality, driveability and refinement, yet the Captiva 7 outsold all of those rivals in 2014, other than the Kluger.

There must be some reason for the Holden's relative popularity in the segment.

As an obvious starting point, it's cheaper than its rivals, but provides similar levels of equipment – if not better – so there's a value consideration there. Then there's the Holden badge, which still counts for something, even on a fully-imported SUV. Some buyers love the Captiva 7 for its looks too.

And as I found with the Captiva 7 tested, it's not a bad drive overall. There was decent grip in corners, reasonable weight through the steering wheel and some feedback, although actual steering response bordered on slow.

The Captiva's ride comfort soaked up smaller irregularities at lower speeds, but firmed considerably over lumpier bitumen and at higher speeds. It's more at home in the suburbs than on the open road.

Brake pedal feel was fine, and allowed progressive modulation of the braking effort and even commendable soft stopping. All up, however, the Captiva was left trailing in the wake of its dynamically superior competitors – especially the Territory, which won't be with us much longer.

The Captiva's engine mustered decent pulling power, with some turbo lag present at times. Once on the move the four-cylinder diesel powerplant went hard enough to keep up with or stay ahead of traffic, and it was certainly no slacker, despite its on-paper deficit. Fuel consumption for the week was 11.7L/100km, which was to be expected from driving in traffic most of the time.

The auto transmission shifted smoothly, but the changes were slow and slurred. It would engage lower gears on hills for additional engine braking, to its credit. ECO mode changed the transmission shift points and held higher gears longer than desirable, however. Frequently this resulted in a strong, drumming vibration as the engine tried to deliver torque while accelerating uphill from an engine speed as low as 1500rpm (or less).

Tyre noise was subdued and there was little wind noise, but the Captiva made up for all the good work done suppressing NVH with squeaks, rattles and knocks within the cabin. It was definitely poor in this regard, measured against its obvious competitors.

There was little point taking the Captiva off-road either. The Holden might be more capable with better tyres than the original equipment Hankooks, but as it was, the SUV couldn't get further than about five metres up a 30 metre-long grade that a Subaru Outback had managed to crest two weeks earlier.

Quite simply, the Captiva's Hankooks just couldn't find grip on the sandy, rocky track. The diesel four-cylinder fought the good fight, but without chunkier tyres or diff locks or dual-range transfer, the Captiva slid backwards in a plume of dust.

Holden will argue – justly, it must be said – that the Colorado 7 is the SUV people should be buying if they want to go off-road. But given the OE tyres' apparent lack of grip, I would question whether the Captiva 7 could even tow a 'tinny' up a wet boat ramp. Based on that, the Captiva 7 might as well be considered a higher-riding people mover.

Placed in that context, the Captiva 7 makes sense. For a relatively large SUV, it offered what seemed like a relatively low H point, yet the driving position remained high enough to satisfy shorter drivers who prefer to look ahead (or down) in traffic.

Access to the third-row seat was straightforward and the second-row seats tipped forward with ease – using just one hand. One problem, however, was the single seat that folded up for access to the third row was on the driver's side. That's fine if the little ones are boarding in a driveway, but in a street outside a school it's an inconvenience – and potentially unsafe.

The third row seats were very easily deployed, yanked up out of the floor with a hand pull in the back. Headrests could be lifted up and back to lock into place. Lowering the seats again was simply a reversal of the procedure – haul on the hand pull, push the head rest forward and allow the squab to drop back into the floor.

Adults of average size could, at a pinch, sit in the third row. There's respectable headroom and kneeroom, but you can't really stretch out or feel comfortable as such for more than perhaps five to 10 minutes. The second row didn't slide fore and aft, so it just wasn't possible to adjust the legroom there to make the third row more accommodating. However, the Captiva 7 is not alone in that among its large SUV peers.

Space for second-row occupants was considerably better, but there were no face-level vents there. And on a day when the temperature didn't quite reach 30 degrees, the Captiva's air-conditioning struggled to keep even the front-seat occupants comfortable, let alone anyone else sitting behind. We had the temperature set to 'Lo' and the fan running at around 75 per cent of capacity. Not until the outside temperature had fallen to 25 degrees did the climate control match the occupants' expectations.

The cabin was gilded with splashes of chrome brightwork here and there, some satin-finish plastics and a subtle, dark woodgrain-style veneer, to lift the look. The main infotainment display – a high-resolution touch screen – looked good and was easy on the eye, but called for different screens to display navigation, climate control, audio, et cetera, and they were not replicated elsewhere.

While the centre fascia seemed simple enough in its layout, users had to drill down at times to find the information required in the touch screen. There was a blue-lit general purpose display between the audio system controls and the touch screen that briefly displayed the climate control settings if you adjusted the temperature, the fan speed or some other input. But why not just have those climate control settings displayed constantly with the switches, as Subaru has done so sensibly with its latest Outback?

Hazard warning lights, hill descent control and stability control disable buttons flanked the large digital clock located below the touch screen – a stretch for drivers in left-hand drive cars, let alone those of us in a right-hand drive market.

And Bluetooth was reluctant at times to stream audio from a smartphone – on one occasion it struggled even when the phone was connected by cable through the USB port.

The seats weren't all that flash, and the adjustable lumbar support didn't make much difference to comfort one way or the other. Flat cushioning was not helped by lack of side bolstering, which manifested itself with the driver bracing the knee against the door or the side of the footwell while cornering.

The massive diameter of the steering wheel provided an unobstructed view of the binnacle, but the stalks either side of the steering column felt cheap and uninspiring to use. A strident reverse-parking acoustic guidance alarm was distracting and wouldn't cease operating just because Park or Neutral had been selected. That was frustrating for passengers if the driver left the car idling to duck inside to fetch something.

Some of the Captiva 7's shortcomings like the annoying acoustic guidance seem to be symptomatic of design age; others are harder to pin down. The Captiva 7 is an acceptable means of transporting a larger family hither and yon, and sales prove that there's a sizeable market for an affordable, well-equipped seven-seat SUV offering diesel power. For not much more money, however, there are better alternatives around.

What we liked:
>> Easy to drive
>> Family-friendly price
>> Generally good packaging

Not so much:
>> Sundry clanks and rattles
>> Mediocre seating
>> Marginal off-road ability

Also consider:
>> Ford Territory TS (from $49,990 plus ORCs)
>> Hyundai Santa Fe Elite (from $48,490 plus ORCs)
>> Kia Sorento SLi (from $44,990 plus ORCs)