Month: January 2014

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Friday – Clarkson On Spacesavers

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I reckon the spacesaver spare wheel I bolted on the Leon this week is about as wide as the tyres on my very first car – a lime green Morris Minor.

It’s a weird sensation, knowing that one of your wheels is shod with the equivalent of an orthopaedic shoe. Max speed is 50mph but of course, the temptation is to go faster. Or simple forget…

Obviously, they don’t put that many spacesavers in a car but imagine what it would be like driving a hot hatchback – which is definitely how I would class the Leon SC – with FOUR spacesavers?

I’m surprised the ‘light entertainment’ programme that is Top Gear hasn’t pulled the stunt and trashed a perfectly good car in the process.

Modern cars have so much rubber on the road I think we forget how good tyres are these days. But four spacesavers on a SEAT Leon driven by Clarkson along a dangerous mountain pass – I think a lot of people would pay to see that on television…

 

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Thursday – Man At Work

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Rain brings large puddles, which in turn bring potholes! And yesterday the Leon and I met one on the way down to London, with slightly disastrous results…

I thought we had got away with it but eventually, the tyre pressure light came on and I had to pull over. The result – a large nick in the side of the low profile tyre and a 50mph trip to Fulham on the spacesaver.

Not sure what the moral of this story is but the pothole wasn’t that big and I wasn’t driving that fast. At least the SEAT was equipped with easy to use tyre changing gear.

Apparently, most people call the AA or RAC when they have a flat these days. The art of changing a wheel yourself seems to have been left on the hard shoulder. However, the most common reason for calling a roadside recovery service? A flat battery….

 

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Wednesday – In You Go, Grandma…

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The FR version of the Leon SC is all about driving but if you have to suffer passengers in the back, they aren’t going to find it easy to squeeze in. There’s plenty of room in the rear but a course in yoga will be required to negotiate past the front seats.

Despite a handle on the top, pulling the front seats forward is a bit of a chore. How a full-size adult is meant to gain access is beyond me. Don’t even think about using baby seats in the rear either because you will have a nightmare battling with them.

Yes, it’s a tad tight and your aged relatives are going to be fighting over the lone front passenger seat when you next turn up to collect them. Anyone over 15 stone might find the well bolstered sports seats a little cosy too.

At least the boot is a decent space – 380 litres of it. Excellent additional room if you fold the back seats down too. In fact, that might be an easier route to the back seat for passengers.

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Tuesday – Balancing Act

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Somebody asked me what the Leon SC was like to drive… Well, if you are a gentleman of a certain age then you might just remember the Peugeot 205 GTI, circa 1985.

Yesterday I thrashed the SEAT back home across the Cotswolds in a state of some excitement. For me, a powerful car is nothing unless it is beautifully balanced and capable of making an average driver look and feel good.

The Porsche 911 does this beautifully. A Ferrari may be faster and an Aston Martin more brutish but the 911 doesn’t intimidate people when they slip down behind the steering wheel.

And so you can say the same about the Leon. OK, this is a performance diesel of limited grunt but it inspires you to push on through the gears by being uncomplicated and reassuringly easy to drive.

If you want a more meaningful reason to buy one, the SC is returning over 47mpg in all conditions, easily seats five adults and has VW group build quality as standard.

Personally, five miles across the Cotswolds on a clear road should be enough to swing it for you.

 

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Monday – Golf In SEAT Clothing

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Volkswagen Golf fans should be kicking themselves. Why? Because the Leon is just as good a car and costs around £3,000 less when when you opt for the 2.0 TDI version.

We all know that VW, Audi, Skoda and SEAT share the same platform for many of their cars, yet we seem happy enough to pay a premium for the right badge on the boot. All very odd.

So, if you are about to pay £26,000 for a Golf TDI 2.0, I’d suggest you consider the Leon first. It’s true, the interior isn’t quite as well styled as the VW and the sharp edge of the designer’s pen on the bodywork might be an acquired taste.

But I’m clutching at straws here – this is basically the same car underneath. Which means it is a beautifully balanced drive, loves to be hurled around corners and in 184bhp guise, has incredible amounts of torque. It pulls from 65mph in sixth gear… and keeps on going.

The Leon SC doesn’t have the legendary status of a Golf but it rather deserves to…

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Sunday – The Non-Enigma Machine

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I took the Leon to Bletchley Park yesterday. The home of the Government’s top secret Code and Cypher School near Milton Keynes is packed with British technology used to crack German coded transmissions during the Second World War.

Hitler’s Enigma and Lorenz code machines were tough to decipher but the men and women at Bletchley cracked it, using incredible devices like the Colossus, which look like something from a bad Dr Who set and fill an entire room.

Less complicated, thankfully, is SEAT’s infotainment system. I’m still gobsmacked that some manufacturers still manage to create complicated units which aren’t intuitive at all.

The Leon’s touchscreen system is foolproof. So simple you don’t need to be a codebreaker to get to grips with the navigation, Bluetooth or DAB radio. Simples indeed…

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Saturday – SEAT Leon SC

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Everything on the farm is green – green grass, green wellies and green jackets. This column should be sponsored by Barbour. So, imagine how out of place a brilliant blue SEAT looks parked in the middle of it all.

Thankfully, blue is my second favourite colour, after green. And I also know from reading endless reviews of the new SC, that beauty is much more than skin deep with this car.

Autocar’s Car of the Year, the Leon offers owners the perfect mix of power and economy, with well balanced steering, annual road tax of only £20 a year and sharp if unspectacular looks.

So, what’s not to like? Well, nothing so far. Even the delivery driver was cooing and seemed reluctant to hand over the key. Let’s see if we feel the same after seven days….

This Week’s Test Car

Jaguar F-Type R-Dynamic Convertible 380PS

As pretty convertibles go, the F-Type has to be one of the best. Slick as a Ferrari, or even an Aston Martin whichever way you look at it. The F-Type hasn’t quite lived up to expection since it was launched five years ago – so how does the 380PS V6 fare? The V8 models are faster but you can actually afford to run the £71,725 R-Dynamic, with rear-wheel drive. It returns 32.9mpg combined and holds its value well. Join us for the last rays of the summer in a sexy Jaguar…

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Friday – Ice Ice Baby

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Jessica Being a gym bunny of the very early morning variety, through necessity rather than choice, it means I experience the full effects of a frosty morning in the pitch dark.

Beware of starting your Audi Q5 by pressing all the buttons available and expecting a quick departure, because it does not want you to leave fast once it is turned on.

Or let put it this way, sometimes an ice scraper is required and all you get is a needy alarm or a switched off engine, not only that the seats are not heated. Gym kit is not ideal for the cold, so I was left with a chilled behind and shivering body before finally venturing out onto the open road.

The car of course in any other setting is pure Audi, crafted carefully to make driving a pleasure and (apart from frosty morning troubles) painless.

Fast with controlled steering, just the right amount of responsiveness on the brakes,  you would be happy to drive your family, pets and others about in style and confidence once you had handed over your well earned cash.

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Thursday – Get ‘Orf My Road!

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Bloody typical! I’ve just had an altercation with a local farmer, head to head down a narrow lane, my Q5 against his poo-covered tractor. Not sure what his problem was but apparently, I’m a city type who doesn’t know the ‘way things work’ in the country’.

Now, was it just because I was driving a posh Audi? Would it have been the same if I had been in my ancient, poo-covered Land Rover I wonder?

Maybe it was the fancy daylights, the ’13’ on the registration plates, or the angry front grille (see earlier post)? Has Audi become the new BMW – the most despised premium brand on the market?

I’ve grown to like the Q5, especially since I found the dynamic drive button. It’s also fairly inoffensive, unless you are an angry farmer.

I’m also sure that with privacy glass, bling wheels and sporty bits, it could well be a ‘townie’ car. Especially if you are an angry farmer in Gloucestershire…