Seat Alhambra 2.0 TDI SE DSG (2012) long-term test review
By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests
The highs and lows of an integrated seat
We were pretty much given a blank canvas by Seat when speccing up the Alhambra. We went fairly conservative too, with road test editor Ben Pulman reining in my demands for the pretty olive green-cum-gold ‘boal’ paint in favour of bold salsa red, but our Spanish friends did stipulate one thing.
Knowing that I had one child and another on the way at the time of ordering (second boy finally born November 2011) they asked that we try out the integrated child seat. It’s certainly a neat device, but it’s only now that I’ve plucked up courage to use it – okay, for my son to use it – in earnest.
To look at, the seat looks like a common or garden one at rest, but pull the handle under it and it lifts upwards, as if on a little dais, creating a mini footrest for your mini adults in the process. It becomes, in effect, a super sturdy booster seat. You also swap the standard headrest for one with side supports – although that support looks pretty minimal. By which we mean very open. Which is where my problems with the childseat begins.
Anyone who has got two children will own after-market childseats and will know that if you have more than one car the constant unbuckling, un-Isofixing and swapping of them between vehicles is a damnable chore. Which is why the Seat integrated seat appeared so attractive to me. The wife? That’s another matter altogether.
She simply doesn’t think it looks safe enough, pointing to the cushioned comfort afforded by the big Britax childseat she has fitted in her C-Max. But as our eldest, Raffi, is three, the law says the Seat seat (that’s not word repetition) is legal. I love how easy it is to set it up, but I’ve been barred from using it, apart from on very small trips. As my wife is editor of Pregnancy & Birth magazine, she is something of an expert on all things baby and child related, so I’ve decided this is one battle not worth pursuing.
Which has left one young man rather unhappy. Raffi loves his ‘big boy’s chair’, especially its footrest. Sadly, by the time he will be old enough to fit in it without raising my wife’s ire, the Alhambra will be long gone. It will be yet another reason to bemoan the departure of a rather brilliant vehicle.
By Stephen Worthy
Long Term Tests
The highs and lows of an integrated seat
We were pretty much given a blank canvas by Seat when speccing up the Alhambra. We went fairly conservative too, with road test editor Ben Pulman reining in my demands for the pretty olive green-cum-gold ‘boal’ paint in favour of bold salsa red, but our Spanish friends did stipulate one thing.
To look at, the seat looks like a common or garden one at rest, but pull the handle under it and it lifts upwards, as if on a little dais, creating a mini footrest for your mini adults in the process. It becomes, in effect, a super sturdy booster seat. You also swap the standard headrest for one with side supports – although that support looks pretty minimal. By which we mean very open. Which is where my problems with the childseat begins.
Anyone who has got two children will own after-market childseats and will know that if you have more than one car the constant unbuckling, un-Isofixing and swapping of them between vehicles is a damnable chore. Which is why the Seat integrated seat appeared so attractive to me. The wife? That’s another matter altogether.
She simply doesn’t think it looks safe enough, pointing to the cushioned comfort afforded by the big Britax childseat she has fitted in her C-Max. But as our eldest, Raffi, is three, the law says the Seat seat (that’s not word repetition) is legal. I love how easy it is to set it up, but I’ve been barred from using it, apart from on very small trips. As my wife is editor of Pregnancy & Birth magazine, she is something of an expert on all things baby and child related, so I’ve decided this is one battle not worth pursuing.
Which has left one young man rather unhappy. Raffi loves his ‘big boy’s chair’, especially its footrest. Sadly, by the time he will be old enough to fit in it without raising my wife’s ire, the Alhambra will be long gone. It will be yet another reason to bemoan the departure of a rather brilliant vehicle.
By Stephen Worthy
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Reviews,
Seat Alhambra 2.0 TDI SE DSG
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