Finally picked up my Cupra ST 4drive 2018, woohoo! (initial mini-review and impressions)

[SitdownandhaveaCupratea]

Well, after a long wait and lots of umm'ing and ahh'ing over whether I should get the 2019 model, I finally picked up my new Cupra ST 4drive 2018 today. In the end I managed to get a free set of winter tyres fitted and ready to drive with as well as replacing my front and rear badges as part of the service.

I took it for an hour's drive on city and country roads and some motorway and was just blown away by how awesome it is to drive... the DSG6 box is also just excellent whether tootling around town or at speed and to be honest I cannot imagine the DSG7 provides much, if any, discernible improvement. Gear shifts are smooth and precise and also on the motorway the cabin noise is impressively quiet... my friend has an Audi A3 DSG7 and he was pleasantly surprised at how little noise there was.

I still have some playing around with the settings to do as part of the learning process, but things I noted so far were:

Positives:

+The car looks drop dead gorgeous imo, one of the loveliest estates I have ever laid eyes on. The matt black badges I added really do make a difference.
+The cabin is a nice place to be, bucket seats and driving position are very comfortable.
+The steering and handling are extremely precise.
+Acceleration has great tactile progression, no sponginess and is very responsive.
+The tech seems to work very well... ACC is a godsend!
+Media system is very responsive (even if it is only touchscreen)
+The speed warning beeps are extremely useful.
+Digital dash seems genuinely useful.
+The Beats system sounds a little better than my initial impressions but I need to spend time tweaking it.

Negatives:

-The park pilot rear reverse camera unlike my friend's audi A3 does not have prediction lines (ie where the car is going to end up), it only has static lines. I don't understand why this would be different.
-The virtual cockpit is nice but it would be better if it was a little bigger and if you could make the dials smaller.
-My navi system isn't the "Plus" so can't display nav on both screen. No big deal though.

Photos:

These are some quick ones with my phone but you can see the lovely Pirineos Grey colour (which I really prefer to the newer Magnetic Grey colour). I also had the matt black pack option on the car (alloys, external mirrors, roof railings and rear cupra logo) so I then bought some matt black front and rear Seat badges from RBstyling.com which really complete and complement the overall look imo https://rbstyling.com/de/automarken/seat/leon/leon-iii-5f-facelift-2017

Overall I am absolutely ecstatic with it and while I of course have yet to experience any long-term ownership and service/mechanical issues my initial impressions are that this is one lovely car that will hopefully give me a few years of joy.

 

['& Son' managed]

Nice car. I'm also picking-up a 'new', (well, 67 reg) car this afternoon, a red Citroen C3 for
the Missus as a Christmas pressie, though I don't expect it to impress anyone on here in
VAG land lol

 

[Rob66]

Well, after a long wait and lots of umm'ing and ahh'ing over whether I should get the 2019 model, I finally picked up my new Cupra ST 4drive 2018 today. In the end I managed to get a free set of winter tyres fitted and ready to drive with as well as replacing my front and rear badges as part of the service.

I took it for an hour's drive on city and country roads and some motorway and was just blown away by how awesome it is to drive... the DSG6 box is also just excellent whether tootling around town or at speed and to be honest I cannot imagine the DSG7 provides much, if any, discernible improvement. Gear shifts are smooth and precise and also on the motorway the cabin noise is impressively quiet... my friend has an Audi A3 DSG7 and he was pleasantly surprised at how little noise there was.

I still have some playing around with the settings to do as part of the learning process, but things I noted so far were:

Positives:

+The car looks drop dead gorgeous imo, one of the loveliest estates I have ever laid eyes on. The matt black badges I added really do make a difference.
+The cabin is a nice place to be, bucket seats and driving position are very comfortable.
+The steering and handling are extremely precise.
+Acceleration has great tactile progression, no sponginess and is very responsive.
+The tech seems to work very well... ACC is a godsend!
+Media system is very responsive (even if it is only touchscreen)
+The speed warning beeps are extremely useful.
+Digital dash seems genuinely useful.
+The Beats system sounds a little better than my initial impressions but I need to spend time tweaking it.

Negatives:

-The park pilot rear reverse camera unlike my friend's audi A3 does not have prediction lines (ie where the car is going to end up), it only has static lines. I don't understand why this would be different.
-The virtual cockpit is nice but it would be better if it was a little bigger and if you could make the dials smaller.
-My navi system isn't the "Plus" so can't display nav on both screen. No big deal though.

Photos:

These are some quick ones with my phone but you can see the lovely Pirineos Grey colour (which I really prefer to the newer Magnetic Grey colour). I also had the matt black pack option on the car (alloys, external mirrors, roof railings and rear cupra logo) so I then bought some matt black front and rear Seat badges from RBstyling.com which really complete and complement the overall look imo https://rbstyling.com/de/automarken/seat/leon/leon-iii-5f-facelift-2017

View attachment 3314 View attachment 3315 View attachment 3316

Overall I am absolutely ecstatic with it and while I of course have yet to experience any long-term ownership and service/mechanical issues my initial impressions are that this is one lovely car that will hopefully give me a few years of joy.

That looks fantastic.. how easy were the new Matt badges to fit, look like a good alternative to copper?

 

[SitdownandhaveaCupratea]

That looks fantastic.. how easy were the new Matt badges to fit, look like a good alternative to copper?

Thanks, it does indeed look far better than the silver (and especially copper) badges! As I wrote, the garage fitted them before I picked it up as part of the service.

 

[Rob66]

Thanks i missed that

 

[Rooster]

I wished i'd not looked at your photos now, that looks awesome!

 

[SitdownandhaveaCupratea]

Update:

Well, yesterday I took a trip over the border to a lovely town in France and did a few hundred kilometers of town and mostly motorway driving. Wow, ACC + lane assist really do make motorway driving a no-brainer... it's as automated as I would want or need while still retaining some safety. The ACC worked faultlessly to keep me at a safe distance from the car in front while slowing down and speeding up seamlessly. Lane assist works almost 100% of the time on motorways in daylight and maybe 80% of the time at night and I took my hands off the wheel a few times to test it, and when combined with the ACC it really does keep you on track to the point you can have a very quick look around and enjoy the surroundings when going past the mountains. Extremely impressive and convenient tech.

Regarding the DSG6 gearbox... again I am surprised at how smooth and quiet it is even when doing 130km/h+ (80mph+), the low cabin noise combined with the ACC/LA makes cruising extremely pleasant for long distances. I had it in Eco mode for a lot of the time and it returned around 30+mpg unless I put my foot down. Eco mode power delivery is fine for motorway driving. I had a bit of a play with Sport Mode and yes, although I couldn't use it much (first 1000km plus speed cameras) it did put a smile on my face, the engine definitely notches up a gear!

Again I have to praise the comfort and handling... it is a car that is as happy tootling around in traffic as it is stretching its legs on a motorway and the steering and driver position and comfort are just in my eyes sublime for a vehicle of this nature. It's an adventurous, practical and refined car with real grunt that is equally suited to outdoorsy types or families.

The Virtual Cockpit has gone up in my estimations and I find it genuinely useful. I use it on the mode where the nav is in the middle with trip info on the left and right and current gear and speed are displayed underneath. I will tweak the info there a bit perhaps, but it really does provide a lot of good info and leaves the main center unit free for additional navigation input or music fiddling by the passenger.

Speaking of the sat nav, it did a decent job on the trip... maybe not the best but certainly not the worst I have seen ether. It got me form A to B with the main impracticality being that it was hard to choose POI's as the map area is quite small when selecting them (I don't have the Navi Plus I'm afraid). It's also a shame knowing in future I won't be able to put google maps or Waze on that center display either unless SEAT do some software upgrades and apply them retrospectively which I doubt they will bother to do.

Annoying bits...

I am still a bit annoyed with the reversing camera... it seems a bit blurry and the lack of predictive lines are baffling, I was not expecting such a simple and standard piece of equipment to be a downgrade from my friends 2 year old Audi A3. Also, it would be nice if it had the option for the automatic parking but sadly the Leons don't have the cameras for it.

I wished i'd not looked at your photos now, that looks awesome!

Hah thanks mate... slightly less awesome now that I kerbed the alloys once or twice yesterday due to not being familiar with the size and space of the car, not to mention the thin tyres.

 

[KXL]

I was under the impression you could get Googlemaps if you connected your Android phone to the Media system by ways of AndroidAuto?

 

[SitdownandhaveaCupratea]

I was under the impression you could get Googlemaps if you connected your Android phone to the Media system by ways of AndroidAuto?

Yes, on the main unit, but not on the Virtual Cockpit display unfortunately.

 

[Hickery1995]

Yes, on the main unit, but not on the Virtual Cockpit display unfortunately.

What sort of fuel economy are you recieving so far?

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[JACUPRA280]

Lovely car.

As an aside, does anyone know if you can get the nav to show on both screens with VCDS?

 

[SitdownandhaveaCupratea]

What sort of fuel economy are you recieving so far?

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

Hmm, on the motorway between 30-35mpg on Eco. I don't have the DSG7 which I am sure would improve things a bit.

Lovely car.

As an aside, does anyone know if you can get the nav to show on both screens with VCDS?

VCDS?

 

[DEAN0]

VCDS?

VCDS or Vagcom as it used to be called - allows you to adjust some of the cars functionality through an OBD cable.

 

[SitdownandhaveaCupratea]

VCDS or Vagcom as it used to be called - allows you to adjust some of the cars functionality through an OBD cable.

You need the Navi Plus to see Nav on both screens, its well documented on the forum. Regular Nav doesn't allow it.

 

[SitdownandhaveaCupratea]

So I took Sara (I had to name her) for a 2.5 hour round trip to the mountains to do some skiing yesterday and once more there is zero doubt in my mind that I made the right purchase with this car. My skis fit in length wise through the ski hole without intruding on the drivers area and I easily fitted all the ski gear in for 3 people inside, and 4 would also be fine. I have ordered a ski rack for the top of the car to reduce the risk of scrapeage and also a car box boot liner to make sure I don't get crud everywhere from boots etc.

It's just a beautiful car to drive up the twisting mountain roads with the sharp steering and tight turning circle making things easy. Motorway cruising is effortless and so safe and I seem to be averaging 33-35mpg. The only thing I really wish is that Android Auto could be sent to the Virtual Cockpit... that is really a missed opportunity but not the end of the world I guess. The Beats audio system is still not amazing, but I have now tweaked it using the equalizer for better sound.

My two female passengers were also extremely complimentary about the car which was also nice.

 

[Jaco2k]

I really need to go hear a car with Beats when I find one nearby.
I honestly couldn't be happier with the Seat Sound System, so I don't really see any way they could make it better - only worse.

 

[SitdownandhaveaCupratea]

Today was another day that my car did it's job with flying colours. I was skiing in very snowy conditions and although the morning roads didn't seem too bad when I got there, my friend in his FWD car could't even make it up to where I parked and had to turn back and park lower down the mountain. By the end of the day the roads were a mix of ice, slush and snow. A lot of cars had chains on or were crawling down the mountain roads with great trepidation, but Sara did not miss a beat. Armed with 'only' winter tyres and traction control she was extremely sure-footed, no slip or loss of traction was noted and I felt extremely confident driving down. Of course AWD doesn't help the brakes or steering, but the car was solid in combination with my careful driving.

This is my first AWD car and to be honest I can't imagine not having one again. Even if it saves you ass only a couple of times per year then it's well worth it.

I really need to go hear a car with Beats when I find one nearby.
I honestly couldn't be happier with the Seat Sound System, so I don't really see any way they could make it better - only worse.

Yeah I'd be lying if I said the beats was anything special.