This has the new longer stroke 2.0t from GM, which somehow has less power and torque than the old one they've been plunking into everything from Malibus to Equinoxes for years which is a square 86mm bore and stroke (like about three other manufacturers of 2 litre engines). I read about the change somewhere or other, and as a mechanical engineer found myself in a true WTF moment. It's supposed to be smoother and slightly more thermally efficient. Whoopee. Less money spent on refining the existing engine would have gotten the same result unless Powertrain is staffed by dolts, and at least its reliabilty is proven. How to waste money like Mercedes and BMW, both of whom have made two entirely different 2.0 t engines since 2011. And that Berlin by garish moonlight MB dash is the height of bad German ground-pounding taste in my opinion - a Gorden Wagener wet dream of Teutonic brass band glitz.
The reviewer went off into flights of fancy about this vehicle, showering accolades with gay abandon. Guess he'll be at the press barbecues for the immediate future. At $75K with taxes, the XT4 had better be wonderful. But it's just a gussied up GM something or other with a flash bit o' styling, a different interior, the aforementioned engine and hasn't a hope against a Lexus NX in the real durability stakes. I never got GM vehicles. At least for the past 40 years. They seem to be a collection of decent modules assembled into a unit, with nobody in charge of integrating the result into a seamless whole. Mystifies me over and over again - started with those Citations in 1979 and hasn't let up since, Corvettes and the middle gen CTS excepted, perhaps the trucks which interest me not one bit so I cannot judge them.
The MB GLC is a dud, as a trip to the forums will prove, and C/D found the new CLS with straight six to have a flimsy structure, so only badge boys or people believing in Black Forest elves assembling them still believe they're buying real quality in every model from a given brand. It seems to me that actually driving some of these chariots might sway some prospective purchasers into sanity. That's what I endeavour to do myself. Who makes the vehicle I couldn't care less. Decades of engineering experience have taught me that some designs transcend others of nominal equality, and nobody really knows why some things just work well and others are mere journeymen or worse. But that's the way it is. Is the XT4 a standout star? Highly unlikely, like about 90% of the general mediocrity out there.