Alfa Romeo Stelvio Review 2024

People love SUVs because they combine the practicality that a family needs with the style and desirability that you just don’t get from an MPV. And the Alfa Romeo Stelvio is arguably more stylish than any of its premium mid-size rivals thanks to its glamorous looks, its Italian heritage, its desirable badge and its relative rarity. It’s not the most obvious choice in the class, but it’s certainly one of the more interesting.

It’ll also suit you if you prioritise driving fun over comfort. That’s not to say it isn’t comfortable - it’s fine - but where it really dazzles dynamically is in a set of bends where its tight body control and quick (sometimes too quick) steering combine to make direction changes feel lively and alert.

For most used-car buyers, we reckon things are best kept humble. The entry-level diesel engine will be more than powerful enough for most, and will keep purchase prices down. You’ll make up your own mind whether you want it with rear- or four-wheel drive: the rear-driver is significantly better on fuel, but the other one will be more handy on the two snow days we have per year.

Trim-wise, though, we’d spend a little extra upgrading from Alfa Romeo Stelvio Super trim to the Sprint version, because it adds desirable items like active cruise control and heated leather seats to the already generous kit list. Later on, the Sprint became the entry-level model.

However, we wouldn’t blame you if you decided to go all-out and buy the bonkers Quadrifoglio version, with its insane pace and unruly-but-fun handling. Just make sure that you’ve got plenty of petrol money and an endless supply of brave pills.

Premium mid-size SUVs aren’t exactly in short supply, so the Stelvio’s rivals are numerous. The most obvious will be the best-selling German trio of the Audi Q5, BMW X3 and Mercedes GLC, and you also have the super-popular Volvo XC60 as well. 

Then you have slightly less successful - but no less desirable - rivals such as the Jaguar F-Pace, Porsche Macan, Range Rover Evoque and Volkswagen Tiguan. Also, there’s the crowd of slightly less premium cars of the same size than do pretty much the same job, cars like the Honda CR-V, Kia Sportage, Mazda CX-5, Peugeot 3008 and countless others.

Inside, the Alfa Romeo Stelvio shares a lot with the Giulia, and that’s a good thing. The quality of the materials on show is generally pretty good, with squishy surfaces in all the right places and nice touches like real, open-grain wood inlays. A facelift in 2020 improved things further thanks to some new interior finishes, and generally, everything feels solidly put together.

That said, it’s not perfect. A few of the other surfaces - like the plastic surrounding the rotary infotainment controller - don’t feel as premium as the rest, while the centre console flexes a little bit when you rest your knee against it. For those reasons, it’s still a little way behind the impeccable quality you find in rivals from Audi, BMW and Mercedes, but it still feels like a high-end environment. 

All Alfa Romeo Stelvio versions get the same 8.8-inch screen to take care of all the Stelvio’s various infotainment functions. Like most rivals, it uses touch-screen functionality, but you also have the ability to scroll through the on-screen menus using a dial controller found on the partition between the two front seats. This is much easier and less distracting to use on the move. The menus are logically arranged, too, making the system impressively intuitive to operate, while the graphics look sharp and slick. However, if you crave the familiarity of your smartphone’s operating system instead, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are both standard.

Most of the other functionality you’d expect is covered, too, including navigation, DAB radio, a Bluetooth phone connection and various connected services. Alfa Romeo Stelvio Lusso Ti models and above also get a wireless phone charger, while later on, this feature was made standard throughout the range.

Early cars got a small digital screen between the analogue dials in the instrument cluster, which could be configured to display the information you’d like to see, such as sat-nav instructions or driving data. The instruments were later replaced by a 12.3-inch digital screen.

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio is 4687mm long, 1903mm wide and 1666mm tall, so it's not the largest SUV in this mid-size segment. Whether you’re sitting up front or you’re relegated to the rear, you shouldn’t feel short of space when sitting in the Stelvio. Both rows have decent head- and legroom, allowing adults and lanky teenagers to stay comfy. That said, some rivals are even more generous with interior space, meaning even more comfort.

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio's boot capacity is 525 litres, which is a little less than rivals such as the Audi Q5 give you, but it’s still plenty for shopping trips, suitcases, pushchairs or anything else you’d want to carry in a family car. 

For bulky objects like furniture flatpacks, you can also fold the back seats down, and because the rear seatback is split into 40/20/40 portions, you can do this in a variety of different ways for extra versatility. There’s no step between the seatback and the boot floor, either, although the former does lie at a slight angle, leaving you with a gently sloped load area.

The engine range for the regular Alfa Romeo Stelvio has always been pretty straightforward. Early cars came with 2.0-litre petrol engines and 2.2-litre diesels, two of each. Go for petrol and there are 200PS or 280PS power outputs, while the diesels provide either 190PS or 210PS. The lower-powered diesel has either rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive, but the rest get all-wheel drive as standard.

Basically, all of them are smooth, eager and punchy, with plenty of power available from the mid-range. Even the entry-level ones shouldn’t have any trouble with slip roads or overtaking, while motorway cruising is subdued and relaxed. These will be perfectly adequate for most drivers, although the more powerful choices do add a fair bit more sparkle for those who enjoy their driving.

If you're after a newer Stelvio, you'll only have the choice of the more powerful petrol and diesel units, as the lower-powered ones were later discontinued.

If you reeeally enjoy your driving, you’ll probably want to consider the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio range-topper. It has a monstrous twin-turbocharged V6 giving 510PS, and this means seriously rapid, supercar-scaring performance. If that weren't enough, a 2024 update of the Quadrifoglio upped the power output to 520PS.

All cars have an eight-speed automatic gearbox that’s impressively smooth and responsive, and in any driving situation, it always serves up the right gear for the job at the first time of asking.

While all the Alfa Romeo Stelvio’s engines are pretty smooth, meaning you’re well protected from unwanted vibrations, none of them are particularly quiet. The petrols are surprisingly coarse, even when you’re just trundling along gently, and when you stick some revs on the dial, the note you hear turns a bit raspier. 

The diesels grumble and murmur away for too much of the time, too. None of them will have you reaching for the earplugs or begging for mercy, but it’s also true that they make appreciably more noise than the super-refined engines in an Audi Q5. There’s more wind-and road noise to be heard than in the Audi, too, so it’s not as civilised on the motorway, but again, it’s nothing that’ll have you screaming at your passengers to be heard.

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio, however, is a different kettle of fish entirely. The noise this engine makes is all part of the joy it gives you. The pulsating boom it gives off as it rolls along will have passers-by thinking there’s a Spitfire coming down the street, rather than an SUV. And that’s at low urban speeds: stand on the throttle pedal, and there’s a glorious metallic moo as it hurls you towards the horizon, and every high-rev downshift causes the exhaust to spit and crack satisfyingly. It really is something to behold.

The Stelvio has achieved the full five-star rating in Euro NCAP crash tests. It should be noted, however, that this rating was earned in 2017 when the testing standards weren't as stringent as are today. Since Euro NCAP only recognises its own ratings for five years due to ever-improving testing standards, the Stelvio's rating has now expired.

Even so, the car comes with a plentiful amount of standard safety kit. Even better, the standard roster is pretty much the same no matter which version of the Stelvio you pick, so buyers of cheaper versions aren’t penalised in this important area.

Automatic emergency city braking with pedestrian detection is provided, as are several airbags and a lane departure warning system. On earlier cars, you needed to add the optional Driver Assistance Plus Pack to get blind spot monitoring and an adaptive cruise control system that will pretty much drive the car for you in traffic, but these features were later added as standard across the board.

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio recorded a 9.00 out of 10 for reliability in the HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Survey in which Alfa Romeo was included. That's  a little below par, and also less than the mechanically-similar Giulia. That said, there have been no specific problems reported.

Less impressive is that Alfa Romeo as a brand was placed 23rd out of 30 manufacturers in the Satisfaction Index, which suggests not all owners are entirely happy with their cars.

Insurance groupings for the most modest Alfa Romeo Stelvio versions start in the low twenties, while the more powerful variants of the regular car get up to around the mid-thirties, so while premiums won’t exactly be a snip, they won’t be ruinously expensive, either. It’ll be a very different story if you’ve got your eye on the Quadrifoglio versions, though. Its meat-head engine puts it in group 50 for insurance, which is the priciest bracket there is.

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio was released in 2017, but not until after the VED road tax  rules changed in April of that year. As such, all versions are subject to the same flat rate  of tax as all petrol and diesel cars, that flat rate being £180 per year.

However, cars that cost more than £40,000 when brand new - including the cost of any optional extras - are also subject to an additional luxury car surcharge of £390 for a five-year period between years two and six of the car's life, taking your total annual outlay for that period to £570. That doesn't apply to all versions of the Stelvio, but it does apply to the vast majority of them, certainly all brand new ones. It's always a good idea to do an online search with the registration of any used example you're considering, so that you know exactly what you're letting yourself in for. Having said that, if you buy a used one that's old enough, then the five-year period will have already expired and the surcharge will no longer be a factor.

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio has been around for such a long time now that the trim levels available - and the amount of kit provided with them - have changed numerous times over the years, while numerous special edition versions have also come and gone.

At present, the range starts with the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Sprint, and this comes with 19-inch alloy wheels, active cruise control, wireless phone charging, hill decent control and the 8.8-inch touchscreen infotainment system. You also get automatic lights and wipers, a powered tailgate and seat wrapped in artificial leather and cloth.

Next up is the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Veloce, and this adds 20-inch wheels, a limited-slip differential, aluminium interior elements, a hands-free tailgate and heated- and powered leather sports seats.

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio Competizione adds active suspension, extra styling touches and an upgraded Harman Kardon stereo system.