Living with the Seat Ateca

In case you’re forgotten, SUV stands for Sports Utility Vehicle. Seat’s new Ateca, its first ever SUV, has already more than proved its ‘Sports’ credentials. By any standards, not just SUV ones, it’s a great handling (if slightly firm riding) car.

After all the road tests and group tests it’s time to test the Ateca’s ‘Utility’ . The keeper of our 2.0 TDI 150 4Drive Xcellence long-term car has had a perfect opportunity to do just that: a house move.

Depending on how much of a hoarder you are, emptying an old house can easily be the most daunting part of any move. Countless trips to the council tip will test not just the owner’s personal patience, but more importantly a car’s ease of loading and its resistance to old bikes and damp, spider-infested boxes from the garage.

In addition to that there’s been all the new stuff to transport: a ladder, a dressing table, a dining table, enough painting kit to refit a battleship, and an Ikea flatpack wardrobe.

That last item was a bit of a squeeze, but by and large the Ateca has been up for everything thrown at it – quite literally, more often than not. The wide opening of the boot makes light work of loading and unloading objects large and small.

The only criticism was a lip in the boot floor once the rear seats had been folded down. That was a shame as it complicated the task of sliding in big items like the dressing table. Of course, that’s not something you’re likely to be doing every day, or even every year, but a totally flat floor would have reduced the friction not just between the table and floor but also between driver and partner. You can pay £115 for the double boot floor option, which our car does actually have. This flattens things out nicely, but in the case of the dressing table, it wouldn't have fitted in with the double floor in place.

It’s churlish to complain about a single awkward item when the Ateca’s boot space trumps that of both the Nissan Qashqai and the Kia Sportage, with 510 litres expanding to 1604 litres. That compares to the Qashqai’s 430-1585 split, and the Sportage’s 503-1492 figure. Again, our particular car has four-wheel drive which nibbles away some boot space, reducing it to 485-1579 litres.