I?m just back from a couple of weeks in France, during which I hired a brand new (8km on the clock) SEAT Altea TDI 105.
Impressions? Well, it drove pretty well. It?s a good engine, and had as much power and torque as I needed, though some aspects of it took a little getting used to - for the first few days I kept stalling it, but eventually got the hang of it. I only filled it up twice, which only gave me one opportunity to test fuel economy brim-to-brim, and the result was 50 mpg, which is just short of the official combined figure. I find with petrol hire cars I can generally match or better the advertised economy figures, but with diesels it is more difficult. (I take it that this is because diesel engines are ?tight? when new, and fuel economy improves significantly after several thousand miles, whereas petrol engines are just about at their most economical when new?) I might add that the car was shod with Michelin Energy tyres, which should mean that fuel economy was about as good as it was going to get.
Handling was pretty good (the car cornered nicely), and ride was satisfactory. On autoroutes, it couldn?t be faulted, but speed ramps seem to have become very common in French villages in the last few years, and a lot of minor roads are not very smooth, so there were times when one would have liked a better ride. The car had 55 profile tyres, and it was interesting to look at the older cars and see 10 or 15 year old BMWs which all seemed to have 65 profile tyres and think that it would be pretty difficult to get them on a modern BMW.
In other respects, the car was also quite satisfactory. It was quiet enough, though at low speeds the sound of diesel was very audible, and I found the wind noise produced by opening the sunroof or even turning up the ventilation fan was irritating. It was nice and roomy, and had good size door pockets. I thought that the visibility was perfectly acceptable, except for not being able to see where the front of the car ended from the driver?s seat. It also felt rather wide, but when I checked the measurements, I discovered that I was wrong, and it is actually not a particularly wide car. The dashboard layout and controls were fine, and I liked the way that one accessed the various readings on the trip computer by means of a switch on the end of the indicator stalk.
I might add that when I booked with Europcar, the category I chose was ?Nissan Note or similar? (CVMR - Compact Van Manual Air Conditioning ). I was quite curious as to what I would get, suspecting it might be a Kangoo, since it was not much more expensive than the cheapest category, and Europcar normally seems to give out Renaults - so I was a little surprised to get an Altea. Does anyone have any idea what Europcar in France usually give out in this category?
(Oh, and I did see a couple of Citroen C6's on the move - and the same number of DS's.)
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