The steering is oddly weighted around the straightahead, so it’s easy to drift out of your motorway lane. It’s like driving in slush. Then you get to a corner or roundabout, probably too fast if you’ve not taken control of the CVT because there’s then no engine braking. So you pull the wheel and the car rolls onto the outside-front wheel, and then you get back on the throttle and there’s more CVT delay before you finally lurch your way out.
But guess what. Get the entry right, hold a ratio on the paddles, turn in smoothly and matters are very different. You can feel the AWD system shuffling effort to the tyres that can use it, and the chassis and steering feed some info, and the balance is fine.
It’s really strange. Such a discord between initial impression and dynamics under stress.
Still, anyone can appreciate a pliant ride. It’s got one, and doesn’t clang or thump over lateral ridges. It cruises through the air quietly too.
On The Inside
The Eclipse Cross carves a lot of people space from its compact footprint. You sit in the usual throne-like crossover attitude up front. Out back, there’s top-class leg room, and foot space under the front seats. Enough headroom too (just), but then you couldn’t expect more when you see the roof-line.
Open up the tailgate and the reason becomes clear. The boot isn’t very big. The rear seats are set neither well back, nor indeed top-to-bottom because the luggage blind is set low down so you can see out of the spilt rear window.
There’s an answer. You can slide the back seat bench forward, one-third, two-thirds or all of it. This adds boot space, although this leaves endless possibilities for small clutter to disappear into the seat sliding mechanism, never to be seen again. The rolled up blind stores under the floor, handily.
The strongly three-dimensional dashboard emerges at you in a series of tiers, like the architecture of a sports stadium. It looks good, though does force some compromises, like hiding the climate controls in a deep dark recess. Still, at least they are proper controls, not virtual ones lost behind layers of screen menus.
Some of the other switchgear is scattered around with little apparent clarity or logic. By the time you’ve rooted around and found the lane departure or collision warning system switches, you might have already had the collision.
The dials and screens are clear enough, and top versions have a head-up display. Infotainment is controlled by a touchscreen or well-designed trackpad controller down in the centre console. Mirroring of Apple or Android phones is standard, just to add to the user-friendliness.
Owning
The petrol FWD manual is officially rated at 42.8mpg, or 151g/km. The 4×4 auto is barely worse, at 40.4mpg. There’s usually a bigger gap between FWD and 4WD, so that’s a demonstration of the efficiency of the loathsome CVT.
Standard or optional are most of the safety and driver-assist features you’d expect: collision warning, active cruise including stop-and-go, blind-sport warning with cross-traffic assist, and all-round parking cameras. It’s only lane-departure warning, though, not lane-keeping assistance.
Our Verdict
A comfy, versatile crossover that looks distinctive enough to be recognisable in this crazily crowded market. Better to drive than the first impression suggests, but in the 4×4 you’ve got to fight your way past an obstructive CVT.
