Seat Alhambra Stylance 2.0 TDI 140 Review

Overall Rating

Great to drive, loads of room for our growing family, plenty of room for the taller driver.

None really, we have found no significant problems so far - though a couple extra storage 'bins' may have been handy.

7 months ago I bought at Seat Alhambra Stylance 2.0 TDi and I have been very pleased with it. Here are my thoughts about the car and reasons for buying it.
Our 3 growing kids meant that our old style Renault Scenic was getting a bit small for our needs, so we opted to get a 7 seater to give us extra room, and a diesel engine to give better fuel economy. I am a fair bit taller than average, and one big problem I have is due to the modern trend to have a lot of plastic between the driver and front passenger footwells. This meant that most of the 7 seaters did not have enough leg room for me to drive the car comfortably. Of the cars I tried, the best were the Renault Espace, Seat Alhambra, and new Ford Galaxy. All drove well and all seemed well equipped, but the Alhambra seemed best for us (the Espace was a bit expensive, seemed a bit heavy, did not have brilliant fuel economy and I was not keen on the electronic handbreak [though it did have the most room]; the Galaxy was a touch small for me and I was not sure of the folding rear seats).
I found a good deal on an 8 month old Alhambra Stylance with less than 4000 miles on the clock, and so far it has been brilliant. This is the first diesel I have owned and the 2 litre engine is just great for powering the car along, it is a rear pleasure to drive the car and is very easy. Even though we do a fair amount of short journeys as well as some long ones, we are still getting the same fuel economy as our old, smaller petrol Scenic. Though I did not buy the car from a main dealer, I have also found the local Seat dealerships in Nottingham and Derby really helpful.

There is loads of room in the Alhambra for our kids, and there is now space between the child seats for them to do up their seatbelts without struggling (and arguing !). The 2 extra seats are great for carrying our kids 'friends, and the height of the Alhambra helps my ageing parents-in-law get in/out of the car. Though the 2 rearmost seats are a bit heavy they are not too difficult to take out, and once removed give a huge amount of space in the back. We have just come back from a holiday driving through France, and the car was just right for the job " it ate up the miles with ease and gave us loads of room for all the suitcases, beach stuff etc.
The Stylance model is a bit fancier than we really need and some of the features we don ' t make much use of (e.g. the seat warmers). However, the most useful of the 'knobs and whistles 'are the parking sensors, which make life so much easier.
So, so far, I have been very happy with the Alhambra.