USED Seat Altea Hatchback (04 - )

My car

I bought this car in February 2008 from a local Seat dealer. Originally, it was one of their demos. The balance of the full Seat warranty came with the vehicle. My previous car was a 1.6 Grand Scenic.

I can't really fault the car to date, although the ignition key took some getting used to. Fuel economy is a lot better than the Renault, and acceleration is fabulous when needed.

I recommend the Altea XL to anyone that needs a reliable family car. Forget about the thick A-pillars that house the wipers obscuring your view - you adapt your driving.The critics have to write something to keep their jobs.

My car

Just about to trade in my wifes 06 (56) plate only 10k miles 1.6 Reference Sport, bought new with £1,500 off list price - we had high hopes for this car after having owned two Ibiza`s old and current model both from new without major issue. Good points with the Altea are good looks, well equiped, plenty of interior space and good handling, not finding sports suspension particularly hard. However now the bad points, under no circumstances purchase the 1.6 petrol engine woefully inadequate in both performance and dire fuel ecconomy. From day one the complex rear seat subframe has rattled, along with the drivers door and various places behind the dash. Part of the heating system located behind the glovebox also emmitts a clicking sound when operating, and we have also been plagued with intermittent poor running when starting fron cold.

Hard finish interior plastics are easily marked and the paint on our silver metallic example is rather blotchy in certain lights. In all a dissppointment hence it has to go early usually we change vehicles at 3 years. This could be such a good car with better build and higher quality interior. Finally Seat Dealers and in fact Seat UK - useless. If you must buy get a diesel and I am sure if you get a good one it will serve well - I will stick to Audi and the Altea is to be replaced with a VW.

My car

I bought this car via seat fife dealership and would not to hesitate in recomending them as being very good, the sales rep was excellent , kept me informed of what and where the car was because i requested the leather upgrade the leather was fitted by a local firm , an excellent job, from ordering to picking up 3 weeks

i have only had the car for 10 days but so far find the handling,space, and the general appearnce superb, i cannot comment on running costs, but can say that my grandchildren think it is awesome, much better than the 10 year old volvo v40 i had run from new.

this is my first diesel car and does take a bit of getting used to, i am particuarly impressed with the underfloor space in the boot, i manage to conceal all my (rather expensive) bird watching kit something the volvo lacked i will write a review after i have put some miles on the clock

My car

My car is a 54-reg with one owner. I've owned this car for just over a week (I bought it privately) and drove from Manchester to Brighton and back.

Wow. I also carried out the 40,000-mile service (£199 inc VAT from a Seat dealer).

One thing I'd query is the cambelt change. My car is approaching four years old and I'm getting conflicting info from Seat. The service manager looked at the updates and said it needed done at five years or 60,000miles, but Seat technical says every four years.