Seat Leon review

There’s more than enough space for a couple of tall adults in the front, with particularly good head and leg room and reasonable interior width, so you're not butted up to your passenger.

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There are also plenty of cubbyholes in which to stow odds and ends. There's an armrest with a storage compartment beneath, a pair of cupholders between the seats and a decent-sized glovebox and front door bins. You even get an extra storage drawer under the driver's seat (and the passenger's seat on upper trims).

Despite the thick pillars behind the back doors, the back of the Leon still feels relatively airy. There’s even space for three – although if that’s three adults, only with a squeeze. A pair of tall adults will feel comfortable, though, with similar head and leg room to a Golf, but both the Focus and Octavia hatchbacks are quite a bit bigger in the rear, as is the Skoda Scala.

Rear seat passengers don’t get lots of storage space, but there are useful door bins that are each big enough for a reasonably large drinks bottle.

The Leon is a conventional family car, so, unlike MPVs and SUVs, it doesn’t try to do anything especially clever with its seating configuration. The rear seatbacks fold down in a 60/40 split to extend the boot space, but that’s your lot.

The passenger seat has a height adjuster as standard, but only FR trim and above get the added bonus of passenger lumbar adjustment.

With the rear seats in place, boot capacity is a decent – but not outstanding – 380 litres. In real-world terms, that’s enough for the weekly shopping, but you might want to double-check whether your buggy will fit, particularly if it’s one of the larger ones. The boot is similar in size to those of the Golf and Focus, but the Scala and Octavia offer considerably more boot for your buck.

The boot lip is pretty high, too, so it can require some effort to heave anything heavy in or out. That's less the case if you raise its useful dual-height boot floor, though; this comes as standard and, as well as reducing the load lip, removes the step created when you drop the rear seats. It also offers a segregated storage area beneath the main load area.

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