Road test: Seat Leon X-Perience 2.0 TDI 184 DSG

Lifestyle estates are cars aimed at outdoor types who need four-wheel drive occasionally, but not to the hard core extent of, say, a Land Rover Defender.

Seat aims to fit this bill with a taller, toughened up version of its Leon Estate. The new car, called Leon X-Perience, has a two-litre diesel engine and permanent four-wheel drive, although under normal conditions all power goes to the front wheels. When it detects low traction, it switches to four-wheel drive without the driver’s intervention.

Power comes with either a 150PS manual gearbox or 184PS engine with twin clutch DSG auto — the only gearbox available with the more powerful engine. Both versions are smooth and easy to drive and feel very well screwed together. There’s bags of storage space with a 587-litre boot, rising to 1,470 litres with the rear seats lowered and, despite the car riding 15mm higher than the standard Leon estate, it doesn’t seem to affect the handling or ride, which is, for the most part, pretty good.

In muddy forest conditions, the four-wheel drive offers extra grip, but Seat admits that this lifestyle softroader is a stepping stone towards a full SUV version next year.

For normal day-to-day use, this is a practical and civilised car, its offroad abilities subtly hinted at by plastic mouldings round the wheelarches. It’s definitely more about being muddy but unruffled than truly down and dirty, and priced from £24,385 to £28,870, it’s not bad value, although lower spec models probably make the most sense.

Seat Leon X-Perience 2.0 TDI 184 DSG
Price: £28,870
Top speed: 139mph 0-62mph: 7.1 secs
CO2: 129g/km