SEAT Alhambra 2.0 TDI SE
E Ecomotive review
by David Finlay (4 October 2011)
There are people within SEAT who are prepared to admit, quietly, that they consider the Alhambra to be their best car, and I think they have a point. The Spaniards soldiered on for nearly 15 years with the original model, but that wasn't their fault. Of all SEATs, this was the closest to being simply the equivalent Volkswagen (in this case the Sharan) with different badging, and since VW didn't come up with a new version of its large MPV SEAT wasn't able to either.
The new Alhambra is slightly more distantly related to the second-generation Volkswagen, since this time round SEAT was allowed to apply its own styling, but in other respects this is still largely a Sharan. This is hardly a problem, since if you're going to base your own MPV on someone else's, the Sharan is as good a starting point as any.
We've dealt with the Alhambra twice before, in Tom Stewart's launch report and my review of the 1.4 TSI. There's plenty of information to be found there, but here's a brief summary: the Alhambra is a proper, full-size seven-seater which can actually carry seven people in reasonable comfort, while still leaving some room - 267 litres - for luggage and, importantly, a gap between the third-row passengers and any other vehicle which might inadvertently be driven into the rear of this one.
With all but the front-row seats folded down, has a load capacity of 2297 litres, just as the Sharan does. That should be enough for most people, though if we're being picky about this it's worth noting that the Ford Galaxy is slightly ahead of both at 2325 litres.
The fact that the Alhambra's back doors slide rather than open conventionally is good for all sorts of reasons, most of them to do with being able to access the rear in tight spaces (though you would still have to be careful with the front doors in those conditions, since they are hinged normally). Strictly speaking, the doors on the test car should have slid open manually, since that's the way of things with the mid-range SE specification.
Well, they would have done, except that this particular car was fitted with electrically-operated doors, which are standard on the SE Lux and a £995 option on the SE. The only time I wished this hadn't been done was when I needed to pop an umbrella into the back during a heavy shower of rain.
If the Alhambra had had manual doors I would have created a gap only slightly wider than the umbrella, and the process would have taken about three seconds, but the electric doors insist on fully opening before they'll close again, which takes much longer and creates the risk of getting the seats and carpet wet. For that reason - along with slight doubts about reliability several years down the line - I'd probably stick the manual doors myself, though there's no question that the electric ones save a bit of effort.
The 138bhp two-litre turbo diesel engine in this car (badged E Ecomotive to distinguish it from the 168bhp version) provides the Alhambra with almost exactly the same key performance figures as the 1.4 TSI turbo petrol. Admirable as the TSI is, the diesel has greatly superior low-rev power which has no effect on the top speed or 0-62mph time but makes it much more relaxing to drive.
Heaps more economical, too. The TSI's official combined fuel consumption figure is 39.2mpg, while that of the Ecomotive is 50.4mpg. And I know official figures aren't normally to be trusted, but during this test I did get almost exactly 50.4mpg - a very impressive figure for an MPV, and helped no end by the fact that the start/stop system worked almost every time the car came to a halt, which is by no means the case with many other similarly-equipped vehicles.
The Ecomotive's CO2 emissions are rated at 120g/km, which means it just squeezes into Vehicle Excise Duty Band C, so you'll pay £30 a year to tax it rather than the £95 that would have been required if the car had registered 121g/km. 1.4 TSI owners will have to pay £190, and although that car (in the same specification) is £1255 cheaper to buy, I suspect that the diesel will be worth at least that much more at resale time.
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