SEAT Altea

The Seat Altea is a Leon, given a height stretch to find more room. Then there’s the Altea XL, which has a length stretch too. And the Altea Freetrack 4, which SUV-ifies the XL.

• Comfort

  In true VW Group style you get an excellent driving position, adjustable for anyone, and firm spine-friendly seats. Seat is good at doing ride comfort too.

  

• Performance

  The 1.6 petrol is a bit of a damp squib. You can get the 2.0 turbo in the Altea and that's a wolf in sheep's clothing. The XL offers a fine 1.8 TSi. For diesel buyers, the vast majority, there are the usual Seat range of effective chuggers.

  

• Cool

   No way. Too, too sensible.

  

• Quality

   The dash has some hard plastics, just to provide some differentiation between Seats and the more expensive VWs. But the fundamentals feel reassuringly sound.

  

• Handling

  The longer and higher you build a car, the soggier its handling becomes, so sure enough the Altea and XL aren't as agile as the Leon. But they aren't total misery either, provided you don't mind a bit of body roll. They steer accurately and tell you what's going on.

  

• Practicality

  All Alteas have sliding reclining rear seats and bags of space. It's what they are invented for. There are heaps of mini storage spaces too, with some models including ceiling consoles. The Freetrack has a more muck-proof cabin too.

  

• Running costs

  The diesels are pretty thrifty. Depreciation, servicing and so on are all on par for the class: compare them with a Ford C-max and you'll get the idea.