So you don’t have: the rubber inserts in the cubbies in the transmission tunnel, felt in the bottom of the door cubbies, the digital dash, improved infotainment and Nav system, full led interior lighting, gloss black trim vs anthracite, electronic hand brake in place of the hand brake on the wrong side, removal of the vinyl door cards that rubbed against the ends of the dash and sounded like a field of crickets.
Noting that some of the above is specific to the
Cupra versions and not FR.
I had to go out and check some of those!
The FR does not have rubber in the tunnel cubbies or felt in the door bins. Of note here is that the center tunnel and center dash cubbies are less practical than the ones on the pre-facelift car. For example, the one under the dash is now shallower and has about a third of its width taken up with the USB port block. Previously you could get two pairs of sunglasses, in their cases into that cubby. Now you can only get one pair lying sideways across the face of it. It's so small that it's hard to get cables to stay in it. They tend stick out and hit your hand when you change gear.
The FR doesn't have a digital dash. The dash is identical to the pre-facelift car.
The infotainment system is not upgraded. It is in fact downgraded. The system itself is identical to the pre-facelift one with the exception of the addition of the tile menu. The carousel is still there as an option. So why is it a downgrade? They have removed the direct access buttons for the functions. This makes the system slower and more difficult to use. Instead we get a fractionally larger screen which in practice makes no difference at all.
It's our own stupid fault! Our love of screens means they impress the heck out of us when we see them in cars. Manufacturers can load more functions into the screen, which is in the car anyway, and get get rid of physical buttons. Saves them money, makes the dash look cleaner and actually applaud this slight of hand without realizing ergonomics are now worse.
They used to use black gloss trim on the SE and grey on the FR. I did wonder about that at the time because I thought the black looked better. Nice that they fixed it but it's not a huge deal is it? It didn't cost anything and doesn't alter functionality at all. Better though.
The trick LED lights is interesting. Do you realize how little that will cost to put into the car? How much does it cost for a strip of colour changing LED lights out of Home Bargains? Again, this smoke and mirrors trick impresses the gullible. Oh, sparkly! We are so feckin dumb!
I'll spare you my thoughts on the electric handbrake! They're here somewhere if you can be bothered searching but, in my opinion, the electric handbrake is considerably worse than a cable handbrake. I can't prove it but I also suspect it's cheaper too.
Interesting you mention the lever on the wrong side as that always infuriated me. It's like European manufacturers sticking their fingers up at the stupid British buyers. It was an insult, and we just took it. If a UK manufacturer did that t the French I can tell you right now they would not buy the car.
On the ST they have removed the boot wheel well/floor carpet, it's now bare metal. And the cover for the steel cross-member behind the rear seats. They have also swapped the inside section of the leather seat trim for cloth. At first glance the seats look the same but half of the leather is missing.
I can't find anything on the facelift that's really better or costs more. Everything is either just different or is cost cutting. It's a very poor fascelift. Compare it to the 2016 facelift of the
Ibiza. It got a whole new, much nicer dash, much better infotainment system, better suspension, better steering wheel and stalks. You got a lot of cool stuff. The Leon facelift was tricking you into thinking you were getting new stuff but actually giving you bugger all.
