SEAT Altea XL 2.0 TDI Stylance review
by Tom Stewart (25 July 2008)
Seven hundred and fifty miles in a day is rarely a doddle, especially when you've a wife and three kids aboard, but the drive down to our now-annual holiday destination on the Côte d'Azure proved to be a real feat of endurance this year.
The car chosen to suffer with us was a SEAT Altea XL 2.0 TDI Stylance (that's the 2.0 TDI with 138bhp, not the 168bhp version). This being the year of the "crunch" and even more exorbitant fuel prices, we needed a car just big enough for the five of us plus luggage, and one with ample, rather than surplus power.
The day chosen for the trip turned out to be the Friday before Bastille Day, seemingly the day when every French person with a car also chose to drive south on the same autoroute as us. It was a day of successive traffic jams, hot sun, thunder, lightening, torrential rain, hail, high winds, and then, an hour's drive from our destination on any ordinary day, the jam to end all jams - caused, apparently, by an overturned lorry and subsequent closure of the autoroute. Aarrgghh.
Last year's drive wasn't without its hold-ups, but we completed the same Calais to Ste Maxime journey in 10.5 hours. This year, again stopping twice for fuel, it took 17 hours 10 minutes, or over 20 hours including the drive to Dover and the P&O crossing to Calais. If we'd known what was in store we'd have picked another day, but c'est la vie . . .
Now in case you're slightly confused by SEAT's current range (and I wouldn't blame you) the León is the mid-sized, C-sector hatchback, the Altea is essentially a taller, roomier, "monospace" version of same, while the Altea XL is an 18.7cm longer estate. (There's also the similarly-sized and priced Toledo notchback, but this has slight executive, or D-sector, aspirations and is something of a niche model in the UK.)
With the XL boot's two-tier floor divider and luggage cover removed, its 532-litre capacity proved sufficient for all our paraphernalia, although this could have been further increased by sliding the rear seats forward (thus reducing rear legroom), or to a cavernous maximum of 1604 litres by folding those same seats flat, but that would have meant leaving the children at home.
The Altea's centre rear seat is definitely too narrow for an adult over any kind of distance, but otherwise there's generous headroom, legroom and space aplenty. Exactly what constitutes an MPV I'm still not entirely sure, but I reckon the Altea XL almost qualifies as an MPV, but not quite. (For a fully-fledged SEAT MPV, think Alhambra.)
The Altea XL Stylance comes with most of the essentials for a long trip and so, amongst much else, it features dual-zone climate control, cruise control, a trip computer and an MP3-compatible CD player. French radio broadcasting being what it is, the optional (£90) iPod docking in the front centre armrest proved a godsend, while leather seats and satnav are also extras, the latter being a hefty £1595 option, so you may prefer to sucker-on a Euro-mapped TomTom or equivalent for about £1470 less online. A DVD player is not available as a SEAT option.
Volkswagen's ultra-high pressure Pumpe Düse TDIs (as used by SEAT and others) have never been the quietist or most refined diesels. Frankly, they clatter like a tin cans on cobblestones, but there's no denying the urge and efficiency of this one. Acceleration is impressive, much more so than this model's 10-second 0-62 time might indicate.
Prod the throttle at around 1200rpm or more and the car surges forward, almost regardless of gear or incline. Press and hold your right foot to the floor and you'll see an indicated 120mph or more sooner than expected - where the law and conditions permit, of course.
With so much torque (236lb/ft) the six-speed manual gearbox seems like an overkill when five or even four speeds would surely suffice, but the extra ratios are there to reduce fuel consumption while cruising. When free of traffic, and not in the epicentre of a violent electrical storm, we cruised at a relaxed 95mph which resulted in a very reasonable 35-40mpg (or about 400 miles on a full tank).
Matching the car's impressive 55.4mpg extra urban figure might be achievable, but it would take unusual circumstances, plus the kind of dedication that I simply don't have.
No complaints either about the excellent electro-mechanical power steering, its compliant ride or decent brakes. The Altea's unusual rest-in-the-A-pillars wipers (with auto rain sensor) were certainly put to the test and coped well - most other cars stopped on the hard shoulder during the worst of the weather, but not us. However, as home to both wipers and two of the six airbags, those bulky A pillars can hinder visibility. Also note that small kids might find it hard to see out over the Altea's high waistline.
Those observations aside, the Altea XL is genuinely hard to fault. It's hardly the most thrilling of cars, but based on this 1789.2-mile adventure, it's definitely right up there among the most frugal, practical and downright sensible.
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