Seat Leon FR TDI 184

Leon 2.0 TDI FR 184

In September 2014 I splashed out and got myself a new car, a diesel SEAT Leon FR. I'm writing this after owning the car for 6 months/9k miles.

I got a bit carried away when speccing up the car and ended up with a fair few extras, but besides the obvious of losing a load of money as soon as I turned the key in my new motor, I've no regrets and have been happy with the car so far.

My spec list:

• Black metallic paint
• Titanium pack
• Winter pack
• Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC)
• SEAT Sound pack
• Convenience pack
• Technology pack
• LED Pack

The Engine

As with all car models the Leon comes in a variety of flavours, I knew I wanted a diesel as I'm doing a lot of miles commuting to and from work. So the choice was which diesel. There are plenty of options in the diesel version of the Leon too, I won't list them all here but you can find more details in the SEAT Leon brochure. 

The Suggested MPG and low emmisions were key factors in drawing me to a Diesel Leon. The one I chose, 1the 184PS 2.0L, on paper has a 0-60 time of 7.5 seconds, combined cycle MPG of 64MPG and CO2 emissions of only 109g/km.

The car pulls well, but best from a rolling start. Acceleration from around 1200 RPM is most entertaining!

Appearance

I really like the appearance of the mk3 SEAT Leon. With the distinctive LED running lights it's quite eye catching.
Mine is in metallic black, which seems impossible to keep clean! When it is clean though it looks fantastic (I've given it a coating Poor Boys Black Hole and Natty's Paste wax). 

Within 7000 miles I'd noticed a couple of chips in the paint, presumably from debri being kicked up from the road, which is a little disappointing. I'm talking to SEAT at the moment to try and get them sorted. 

update: SEAT official response is that paint chips aren't covered by warranty, not really a surprise. Now at 12k miles, I've found a number of scratches which have not been caused by hitting anything. One deep (to metal) was caused by a shoe catching the door sill on entry to the car. VERY disappointed how easily the car paint can be damaged,

The Titanium pack listed above adds smarter (in my opinion) alloy wheels and grey wing mirrors. I went for these to make the car my own and a little distinctive. If I had the cash left I'd probably add the body kit.

The LED pack mention in my listing is simply some interior lighting in the footwells and in the front doors which changes colour depending on the mode of the car (normal - white, sport - red). They look lovely at night but barely noticeable during the day. Not a must have, but a nice touch and didn't cost much to add.

Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC)

ACC was an option I wasn't initially going to add, but boy am I glad I did! I can set a speed and the car will maintain that speed, doing the acceleration and braking it needs to without me doing a think. So that's Cruise Control.

Whats Adaptive Cruise Control then? Imagine you'r cruising along, the car maintaining the speed you've set. With Adaptive Cruise Control the car will slow itself down to match the speed of a car the appears in front of you. When that car moves out of the way the Leon will automatically accelerate back up to the cruise speed set.

ACC takes some getting used to, and it can feel a little hard on the brakes at times, but it is fantastic!

SEAT Sound

The SEAT Sound pack adds to the base audio unit (which is already quite respectable with USB, SD Card reader, touch screen and 8 speakers) by adding an addition speaker in the cabin and a small sub woofer in the boot.

I've not had the standard SEAT audio setup to compare to, but I can say the setup with the SEAT Sound pack is cracking. A lovely deep bass (thanks to the sub woofer in the boot) and doesn't suffer distortion.

I have discovered that on some particularly bass heavy tracks the door cards can rattle a little, but only when turned up. Most of the time music is played clearly and so far my ears have chickened out long before the stereo has hit full output.

Winter pack

Like the Adaptive Cruise Control, the winter pack is another Leon add on I wasn't sure about adding but happy I did.
The Winter Pack adds heated (front) seats which have been well used, heated washer jets and headlight washer jets. This is my first car with heated heated seats and I doubt I'd now buy a car that didn't have them.

Fuel economy

Leon TDI 2.0 184PS published fuel economy figures:

Fuel economy has been a little lower than I'd hoped for so far. SEAT spec list claims around 67mpg combined, with higher (74MPG) for motorway driving. Well I reckin around 70-80% of my driving is motorways and so far I've been averaging around 50mpg some way sort of the 67mpg quoted.

Last couple of tanks of fuel have been premium Shell diesel, which has seen fuel economy increase slightly to 53MPG but of course at an increased cost.