SEAT Leon X-perience estate (2014-2018) - Reliability & safety
Solid construction and an excellent safety record make the SEAT Leon X-perience a dependable family car
As the Leon X-perience shares many parts with the rest of the Volkswagen range, it feels better built inside than rivals such as the Honda Civic Tourer and Peugeot 308 SW. There’s also more flair on show in the interior design, which may make it more appealing to some buyers than the equally well built Skoda Octavia Scout. The new Volkswagen Golf Alltrack should be even higher quality, but it’ll be more expensive to buy, too.
SEAT Leon X-perience reliability
The new SEAT Leon has yet to feature in our Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, but we expect a strong performance when it does. The car shares parts with the latest Volkswagen Golf, which came an impressive 18th out of 150 cars in the 2013 survey. Buyers heaped praise on the Golf’s in-car technology, ride quality, ease of driving and handling, so we’d expect the SEAT to do similarly well in those areas. Having said that, SEAT could only manage a 27th-place finish out of 33 brands in our manufacturer rankings – largely due to a poor opinion of its dealer network.
Safety
You’d expect the SEAT Leon to match the VW Golf for safety – and it does. The standard Leon received the maximum five-star rating when Euro NCAP evaluated it in 2012, and the X-perience should be just as safe. Its repertoire of safety features includes numerous airbags, electronic stability control and traction control.
While those items are pretty taken for granted these days, the SEAT has other clever features including brakes that lock on after an accident to prevent a secondary collision, automatic hill hold and a seatbelt reminder for the front seats. Plus, the X-perience’s four-wheel-drive system should also lessen the chance of the car being involved in an accident thanks to the extra grip it provides on slippery roads.
