Living with a… Cupra Leon Estate (Final Report)

In the age of crossovers and SUVs you might think small estate cars like this Cupra Leon were a thing of the past. Especially ones powered by powerful petrol engines without even the mildest of hybrid assistance. Somehow this one seems to have slipped through the net, though, and with its feisty 310 horsepower engine, all-wheel drive and unashamedly sporty vibe presents as some sort of half-price BMW M3 Touring. Which is a tempting prospect! The low-key looks compared with the Golf R on which it is based are also appealing for someone who wants a fast, practical car that won’t attract the wrong kind of attention. Does it still make sense in an electrified world, though? We’ve got a few months with it to find out.
Skip to: Month 1 – Spicy Spanish sauce Month 2 – Sports Utility Vehicle Month 3 – Puncture gods strike again Month 4 – Testing the limits Month 5 – More grey than a July day Month 6 – Ta-ra, then!

Dan says:“It’s also totally understated, meaning I can indulge my inner dad racer without attracting unwelcome attention!”

Trips taken

Delivered with only 160-odd miles on the clock the Leon arrived with that new car smell still present. Which won’t last long once I unleash the family on it, but I’ll enjoy while I can. From there it was straight to my favourite moorland loop for an initial shakedown on some twisty, bumpy roads.

We like

Well, it’s fast! Perhaps not in a new-school electrically assisted way. But I’m quite old-school, and I still enjoy the (relatively) delayed gratification you get from a powerful, turbocharged petrol engine. I also like the fact it’s totally understated, meaning I can indulge my inner dad racer without attracting unwelcome attention!

We're not so keen on

While I appreciate the stealth looks the grey is almost too low-key, especially compared with the lovely metallic red of the last Cupra Leon estate I drove. Meanwhile, as an unashamedly sporting car it feels unfair to complain about stiff suspension but I wonder if that novelty will fade in day-to-day driving.

Niggles

The Ateca I swapped out of has an older interior combining the functionality of the fancy screen with proper physical switches for things like heating and lights. No such luck here – being based on the latest VW Golf the Leon has the same button-banishing frustrations of touch-sensitive controls demanding eyes off the road to operate. Bah.

Surprise and delight

Remember me saying the ride was a bit stiff? Good news! As a range-topping VZ3 I get 14-stage adjustable DCC suspension via a simple swipe control on the screen. For my ‘Individual’ driving mode I’ve got this set to the softest while keeping the fiercest ‘Cupra’ setting for the engine but with the silly fake noise switched off. Result!

Mileage: Not much, yet Fuel consumption: Already a lot

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Dan says: “The Leon has a neat hidden tow hook that deploys at the push of a button in the boot and means my Thule bike rack slips straight on”

Trips taken

We’ve come to think of ‘Sports Utility Vehicle’ as big, 4x4 style cars but, taken literally, I think it should apply to anything used for getting people and gear to where they do whatever they do, be that golf, windsurfing or, in my case, mountain biking. To those ends I’m calling it a result the Leon has a neat hidden tow hook that deploys at the push of a button in the boot and means my Thule bike rack slips straight on. Happy days, and an SUV with a twist!

We like

Each to theirs but another advantage of estate cars is their relative anonymity, especially in overcast grey like the Leon. The fact this is totally at odds with the performance is also amusing, and where an equivalent Golf R estate would attract all the wrong attention I’m past and gone before anyone even notices I’m there. Quiet and comfy on the motorway but also fun and agile on the twisty back roads to riding spots, I’m loving the Leon’s undercover ability to get to places fast.

We're not so keen on

It’s a high-performance model with, for this day and age, a relatively big petrol engine. So, expectations to realistic – the Leon is never going to be an especially frugal car. Thankfully it’ll sit at mid-30s mpg on my long runs up and down the motorway but that plummets to mid-20s around town. Which is going to hurt.

Niggles

My kids love the configurable ambient lighting effects and are constantly fiddling with them, which is an annoyance I’ll indulge. More frustrating is how dazzling it gets after dark on roads without streetlights, like the long stretches of A1 I drove the other week back from Stansted. Trying to dim this and the various screens is a mess of multiple menus and settings – for trips like this I just need a single ‘night panel’ button like old Saabs used to have that would turn off every light in the car bar that illuminating the speedo.

Surprise and delight

I’ll include that tow hook here, on the basis when it’s stowed there’s no ugly ironmongery hanging under the bumper and you’d never even know it was there. Another candidate? While the Leon’s engine sounds a bit flat from the inside I was following my wife in it while on my motorbike and it turns out those quad exhausts make a rather nice sporty growl. Not offensive or unsociable. Just purposeful.

Mileage: 895 Fuel consumption: 33.6mpg (measured)

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Dan says: “I was very glad of the Leon’s ability to cover fast miles with the minimum of fuss and a little bit of fun where the roads provide opportunity”

Trips taken

The Cupra leads a busy life, weekend jaunts like the biking trips mentioned in last month’s report going on alongside the regular household errands, commutes and longer trips to airports and photoshoots like the one I was on last month down south. This meant a late-night run back up a very dark A1 after a long day of shooting, where I was very glad of the Leon’s ability to cover fast miles with the minimum of fuss and a little bit of fun where the roads provide opportunity.

We like

I’ve always enjoyed Cupra’s distinctive visual style, the combination of relatively understated looks jazzed up with distinctive little details like the bronze badges and colour-matched wheels standing out as something a bit different. Unmistakeably sporty, and yet not too pushy, attention seeking or overly aggressive. Fast cars for grown-ups, in other words.

We're not so keen on

While the Leon proved itself an excellent late-night mile muncher on that drive back up the A1 mentioned above that was only once I’d managed to dim all the many and various lights inside. If it’s not the glow of the digital instruments or central screen it’s the dazzling effect of the ambient lighting, the fact each has to be disabled via a separate menu a complete pain. For the love of god just give me one ‘dark’ button where I can turn it all off bar the essentials!

Niggles

The puncture I got in the right rear tyre wasn’t the car’s fault, the pressure warning alerting me to the slow leak of air from the nail that had embedded itself in the tread. But a couple of quirks have arisen, including the fact my wife’s preferred driving position has the car thinking she hasn’t got her seatbelt on, unleashing increasingly strident alerts. Lowering the seat a fraction has silenced it but it still shouldn’t happen. For some reason the variable speed limiter I use a lot for roadworks sections on the motorway has stopped working as well – the car will be going back to Cupra shortly to get this and the tyre sorted.

Surprise and delight

For all the annoyance of the dazzling ambient lighting strip in night driving the fact you can adjust the colours is a constant delight to the kids, who constantly fiddle with it and have raucous discussions with their friends about the best colour combos. I’m currently sporting a rather fetching purple stripe at the moment. Even better is the way this integrates with the blind spot warnings, meaning the lighting in the doors changes colour to flash orange when there’s a car there. A really useful feature, and cool with it.

Mileage: 1,463 Fuel consumption: 30.9mpg

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Dan says: “It’s a shame the nice rasp you get from the exhausts on the outside doesn’t make it into the interior”

Trips taken

It’s been a busy period of launch events with the attendant runs to airports and back, along with the usual daily stuff of kids’ taxi service, shopping trips and all the rest. Put it this way, the Cupra doesn’t spend a lot of time standing still. Most recently it had to swallow a motorhome’s worth of camping kit, camera gear and a couple of bikes on the back after a rain stopped play on a shoot and I had to dump all the stuff I’d taken in the van in it. Seats down, bike rack on, job jobbed.

We like

I was very glad to get the Cupra back after its trip back to the press garage for a new rear tyre, the pressure warning light proving correct and the slow puncture down to a screw embedded in the tread. Some complicated logistics saw me riding a Suzuki test motorcycle to Milton Keynes to drop it off after a loan, hopping in a taxi and then picking it up from Cupra’s place across town. At which point I was very happy to sink back into its comfy seats and continue my journey on four wheels!

We're not so keen on

While back at the workshop Cupra had a look at the faulty speed limiter I mentioned last month and reported it to be working fine. Only for me to find that it wasn’t when I tried to use it, the car once again saying I needed to ‘check the vehicle wallet’, whatever that means. To add insult the process of turning the system on (or trying to) also changes the instrument display to a different format, and you then have to cycle back through the options to get back to your preferred arrangement. Annoying.

Niggles

To be honest, apart from the above not many thus far! If I’m being really picky I’d say it’s a shame the nice rasp you get from the exhausts on the outside doesn’t make it into the interior, and if you want ‘exciting’ engine noise your only option is the unconvincing growl over the speakers. Given this is meant to be a performance model that’s a pity, and robs the car of a bit of character.

Surprise and delight

Well, after the above rant the random return of the speed limiter was both a surprise and a delight! Not sure why it’s come back but I’ll not argue, given it’s such a useful feature for roadworks and the camera heavy M1 I use all the time. Not that I deliberately aim to break the limit, more that it’s nice to create a ‘soft’ buffer where you know that even in the ebb and flow of traffic you’re not going to accidentally start tripping the flashes in your wake. Which in a car this fast would be all too easy.

Mileage: 3,034 Fuel consumption: 29.7mpg (measured average)

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Dan says: “Like that favourite pair of jeans or trainers I’m developing a muscle memory with the Leon”

Trips taken

You know when you get a new pair of jeans or trainers and while it’s all very exciting when they’re new there’s also a period of everything feeling a bit tight and uncomfortable? The Cupra’s been a bit like that, and while the novelty of new car smell and shiny paint are all very well it’s definitely loosened up and relaxing into its role of fast family estate car. And if a bit grubby and sticky (thanks, kids) it feels like ‘mine’ now. Which is always a dangerous mindset to get into with a borrowed press car that someone one will, at some stage, want returning….

We’re loving

See above. Like that favourite pair of jeans or trainers I’m developing a muscle memory with the Leon and landing just where I want into my favoured driving position for every journey. Well, unless my wife has been driving it previously, the car not the only one who finds her chosen seat height and steering wheel position unfathomable. All praise the memory seats, which set the world to rights with a single button press. Included in this pre-drive routine is a tap of the left column stalk to disable the lane keeping and cycle through the driver modes on the wheel-mounted Cupra button to my configured ‘Individual’ setting with its combo of softest suspension and fiercest engine.

We're not so keen on

Leafing through big book of car reviewing cliches I’m duty bound to celebrate the Leon’s ‘Q-car looks’, a phrase meaningless to anyone but beardy motoring journalists hung up on maritime military history. But seeing as I’ve got this far it’s basically used to describe anything hiding its true potential behind unassuming (or, in the Leon’s case, boring) looks, based on the ‘Q-ship’ programme of arming innocent looking merchant ships to the teeth to trick German submarines. You’re welcome, etc. Where was I? Oh yes, the looks. I do like fast cars that don’t advertise the fact, and given the Cupra is basically a Golf R underneath but nothing like as nickable, that’s great. But, as I’ve said before, there’s a fine line between discreet and boring. And, in this grey, I fear the Leon is a little too far to the latter. Given the recent facelift Cupra has enacted on the Leon range it clearly could be worse, though.

Niggles

The moody speed limiter still can’t decide whether or not it’s joining the fun, it being a 50/50 lottery as to whether or not it’ll work when selected. Some assistance systems – especially those using cameras in the rear-view mirror housing - can get foxed by dirty windscreens or strong sunlight but there doesn’t seem to be any correlation here and a speed limiter shouldn’t require ‘vision’ to work, given it’s selected by the driver and not dictated in this instance by traffic sign recognition. Annoying in a fast car like the Leon, given I like to set a ‘ceiling’ speed for camera-controlled motorways and roadworks to make sure it doesn’t get carried away with doing what it does best.

Surprise and delight

I had to ride in the back of the Leon recently and was impressed with how much legroom there is, vindicating my belief that estate cars still have a place in this SUV and crossover crazed world. I’ll admit the middle passenger doesn’t do so well given the transmission tunnel running down the middle of the car, and taller cars often do a better job of mitigating this. But if you’re lucky enough to score one of the ‘proper’ outer seats there’s plenty of room for a six-foot passenger to relax behind a six-foot driver. Or even more if Mrs Trent has set the seat to her favoured position.

Mileage: 4,033 Fuel consumption: 32.4mpg (measured average)

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Dan says: “This is a fast, exciting car as well as a practical and useful one”

End of term report…

5,000 miles later the Cupra has gone. Will it be missed? Well, the ‘boring’ grey paint is a neat summary for the car, really. On the face of it even with 310 horsepower, quad exhaust pipes and sub five seconds 0-62mph time the Cupra Leon Estate is unlikely attract a second glance from anyone. Which is both its greatest strength and a significant weakness. This is a fast, exciting car as well as a practical and useful one but, even with Cupra’s characteristic copper flourishes, it perhaps was a little too understated. Which is an odd thing to say, because I really like the whole undercover nature of fast estate cars. Maybe I was spoiled by the lush metallic red of the previous one I tested and sense life feels too short to be driving grey cars.

What went right?

Absolutely no complaints about the way the Leon goes, though. If not as instantly quick as some of the electric cars I’ve been driving lately it’s still a rapid piece of kit, the turbocharged engine very much pressing my buttons as a former hot hatch owner. Just with the extra practicality of a big boot, plenty of legroom in the back and that neat deployable tow hook for the bike rack when I needed it. Reasonably refined with the adjustable suspension set to its softest for boring motorway runs but able to transform into something sharper and more entertaining if the road or mood took me, it has a very broad range of talents. Interestingly my wife didn’t like the slight delay to the power delivery – ‘turbo lag’ in the petrolhead parlance – but I’m old-school enough to prefer that building sense of excitement over the instant gratification of electric power.

What went wrong?

Not a lot! Much has been written about wobbly infotainment systems in recent VW group products like the Golf on which the Leon is based but a few annoyances aside (see below) it all worked as it should have done. The puncture I picked up mid-way through the loan wasn’t the fault of the car, and the only thing that actually went wrong was the will-it, won’t-it speed limiter that still came and went even after the Cupra press garage took a look at it. Sounds a minor thing but given much of my driving is on the mainly speed limited M1 (now with added roadworks, joy) it’s a useful function I depend on a lot.

Niggles

Cupra has done a better job of the infotainment system than its VW masters, and the graphics are slick, the menus logical and the response times sharp whether in the car’s system or paired wirelessly to my phone on CarPlay. But having temperature and fan controls for the air-con in two totally separate menus is a faff, ditto having to dim screens and interior lighting in individual sections and menus for driving after dark. A total pain – given how bright and distracting it all is, especially the ambient lighting, it badly needs a single button ‘night’ setting to dim everything but instruments to a minimum to avoid fatiguing eye strain. Like all modern cars occasional false alarms and brake interventions when the car thought I was going to crash into something (but actually wasn’t) were also seriously annoying.

Would I buy one?

Absolutely! If someone had custom designed a car to suit someone of my stage of life, interests and motoring tastes it would probably look pretty much exactly like this. Maybe just in a jauntier colour! The fact there’s zero electrification would make it ruinous to run as a company car, and it was pretty thirsty around town. But on longer runs I often saw close to 40mpg, even when driven at what we’ll call the enthusiastic pace the Cupra encourages. So, not too bad in the real world. I’ve made the point previously as well but the fact the Leon delivers pretty much all the fun of a Golf R but for less money and in a less nickable package is another huge plus. Maybe grey anonymity isn’t all bad after all..

Mileage: 5,187 Fuel consumption: 34mpg (measured average)

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