As reference, car indirectly replaces 2017 Audi A8 and will live along Abarth 124 Spider. I ordered it, because I liked the way it looks and it had decent spec as standard. Before I read about it, I didn't see any brand new car I could want.
I collected my car from local London
dealership on Saturday morning. Could go back home 12 miles through city traffic or go around on M25, which was my preffered way.
Before leaving dealer premises, I authorised myself as main user. And before driving away, switched off 4 smart assistants: start/stop, lane assist, front assist and emergency assist. From what I've seen, it's possible to switch off some of the systems from stalk button and lane assist from steering wheel. I filmed it later for a friend, and it takes 20 seconds to start the car, get to the menu and switch off all these gadgets. And that was with Infotainment already initialised, because I was driving earlier. I suspect it will take a minute if you have to wait for everything to start.
I immediately setup Individual driving mode, because comfort was like a boat for me. I put everything to hardest/highest setting, except engine. So I created myself standard driving setup that won't cause me sea sickness, but is still normal engine mode. I plan to rip up noise generating device, to get rid off the fake noise in
Cupra mode. Saw a video somewhere,
how to do it. Don't have any coding device to deal with it.
I never used ACC before, only had standard cruise on previous cars. Had a chance to test it before I got to M25 and was nicely surprised how well it worked in city. I set it up with shortest distance and it was ok. However on motorway and some A roads it wasn't that great any more. It slowed down ok, but sometimes it didn't accelerate back or accelerate like crazy, not in a manner human would do this, with moderation. Also, on A road it was slowing down due to cars on left lane. I had to press pedal for it to accelerate which it readily did and went back to set up speed.
After coming home, I spent some time in the car, going through all menus and options and setting up everything. After going through Infotainment, I came to conlusion it has limited options. Going though tiles is tiresome. I would prefer just standard list of options, so I can find things easily. For some car settings, you have 4 screens to scroll, to find something. In DAB, I don't see option to search for stations, instead you have to scroll through all of them. When I want to listen to music from my own media, after switching to media, I have to click back arrow 4 or 5 times, to go the main catalog to see actual device. Otherwise music is displayed by Albums, Artists, etc. I don't have proper tags on my mp3 and play them by folders from USB stick. It took me a while to discover, that you have another screen to show you what's playing. I couldn't find it initially. It's a shame that SD card reader is not available. It's a small device, why couldn't they put in the glove compartment, like I saw it installed in
Ateca?
Sign reading function is not great. I'm pretty sure it's showing me km speed limits from time to time, like 45, 80 and 110. It also reads signs from who knows where. No sign on the road, but it suddenly changes from 60 to 40 and back to 60.
I still didn't work out
how to use certain functions, there's no mention of them in manual, except that they exist and can't find anything in English on internet. Was considering checking Polish websites, but these functions are not available in Poland. I guess German websites will be next step.
Fiat/Mazda navigation gets bad
reviews and people say it's poor, but it's great comparing to
Cupra. It shows me all things I need, I don't have to guess where to find anything.
On Sunday, I got up at 7.00am to go for a ride to Eastbourne. Country roads all the way until some dual carriageways close to Eastbourne. Could test ACC again, driving modes, etc. I switched on Lane Assist by accident and that was scary. I was on country lane and had to fight with the car, that wanted me to go to the left. I'm pretty sure, I don't want to use it in any circumstances. Computer was showing 34mpg until I hit dual carriageway and it went down to 32mpg. I put full tank of petrol, so will have real mpg readings at next top up.
Cupra App shows 32-24mpg from my runs.
I did not encounter any interior rattle, infotainment froze once on me, everything else worked ok. Interior is fine, leather looks ok for now. Steering wheel heating and seats work ok.
I setup tailgate to open to certain level, but tested full opening first and it stops just below my garage door hanging on the ceiling. It's possible to open and close boot with button on the door, with virtual pedal or just from key. On previous cars, I never closed boot with virtual pedal, somehow never thought about it, just used button, but salesman showed it to me.
It's nice to get back glove compartment and door pockets, which I don't have in Abarth. Cup holder worked ok for my tall mug. Wireless charging is convenient. All mod cons present
In total, I drove around 150 miles yesterday on country roads. Went through some serious bends, which I know quite well, to test how the car handles.
Formentor will do well as daily, but it's not a sport car. I was considering resonator delete, but I'm not sure there's any point in it. Car will never be loud and I have Abarth for making noise.
Have to go to the office later today, so will do some motorway driving.
Country lane on Surrey Hills. Normaly, I would obscure reg plate, but I'm changing it anyway.
