Altea 170FR
Guest
Well actually my wife thinks that I've bought it for her 
Having had VAG cars for years, and my trusty Golf mk4 GTTDI, remapped to 165bhp, for the last five, we started looking for a suitable replacement for our 2004 Alhambra TDI.
Although I still have a love affair raging with my Golf I never really took to the Alhambra, even after having that re-mapped also, it always felt a bit like I was sat on it rather than sat in it, if you know what I mean. Cruelly I used to tell my wife, who loved it by the way, that I'd rather drive an old Ford Transit, it was maybe not quite that bad, I just couldn't get along with it!
Anyway we test drove a 2005 Altea 1.9TDI Stylance that had covered 68k on Saturday, it was at a dealers who specialises in selling main dealer PX's, he was asking £4,595 for it but the bonnet had been repainted poorly at some point and the passenger window would not go up, he pointed out that he would sort the window but just blanked me when I mentioned the poor paint, oh and there was no way he was going to budge on price
So, as we had not driven one of these, we decided to test drive it anyway, obviously at 105bhp or whatever they are it wasn't a very inspiring drive, certainly not after having being used to driving my Golf, however it was neat and tidy and did everything that was expected of it. My wife was sold and wanted me to hand over the cash immediately! I said no, she stamped her feet, I said I'll find you a nicer one, she stamped her feet some more, women eh
So, onto the search, I was looking for as high a spec, and as new, Altea TDI as I could possibly find within a budget of only circa £5k, I've gotta say that I must have searched every website relating to motors at least three times over the next couple of days, and then on Sunday night I found the dream car, it was over budget but still cheap for what it was, I had to have that car! It was a 2007 Altea 2.0TDI 170FR in a graphite grey metallic with ONLY 43k on the clock and full Seat history and, although it was a little over budget if it was everything that I thought it was it would be well worth it! There were only two concerns, (1) it was 3.5 hours away from me, (2) Surely at that price it would have already gone!
I called the owner at 07:45 the following morning, to my delight and amazement the car was still there, I told him how far away we were and he promised to reserve it until we got there, this was a company directors wife's car and sounded JUST what we wanted.
As we arrived he opened the drivers door and started her up, she looked and sounded sweet, so much so that I didn't even feel the need to test drive her, however not allowing my euphoria to get the better of me I decided to take her down the road for a quick run. All I could think was WOW, this car felt like brand new, it even smelled like brand new! The willingness in the power was blatantly obvious, I had fallen in love all over again and was on the verge of ditching my Golf when my wife nudged me and reminded me that the car was for her So I hopped out and she took the wheel, the smile on her face was all the confirmation that I needed, and this morning my new mistress (ssshhhhhh) is sat on my drive.
My next job is to book her into our local Seat dealership for service and a check to see if there are any outstanding recalls.
I'd love to post some pics but I don't think that I can until I've been a member for longer
Having had VAG cars for years, and my trusty Golf mk4 GTTDI, remapped to 165bhp, for the last five, we started looking for a suitable replacement for our 2004 Alhambra TDI.
Although I still have a love affair raging with my Golf I never really took to the Alhambra, even after having that re-mapped also, it always felt a bit like I was sat on it rather than sat in it, if you know what I mean. Cruelly I used to tell my wife, who loved it by the way, that I'd rather drive an old Ford Transit, it was maybe not quite that bad, I just couldn't get along with it!
Anyway we test drove a 2005 Altea 1.9TDI Stylance that had covered 68k on Saturday, it was at a dealers who specialises in selling main dealer PX's, he was asking £4,595 for it but the bonnet had been repainted poorly at some point and the passenger window would not go up, he pointed out that he would sort the window but just blanked me when I mentioned the poor paint, oh and there was no way he was going to budge on price
So, as we had not driven one of these, we decided to test drive it anyway, obviously at 105bhp or whatever they are it wasn't a very inspiring drive, certainly not after having being used to driving my Golf, however it was neat and tidy and did everything that was expected of it. My wife was sold and wanted me to hand over the cash immediately! I said no, she stamped her feet, I said I'll find you a nicer one, she stamped her feet some more, women eh
So, onto the search, I was looking for as high a spec, and as new, Altea TDI as I could possibly find within a budget of only circa £5k, I've gotta say that I must have searched every website relating to motors at least three times over the next couple of days, and then on Sunday night I found the dream car, it was over budget but still cheap for what it was, I had to have that car! It was a 2007 Altea 2.0TDI 170FR in a graphite grey metallic with ONLY 43k on the clock and full Seat history and, although it was a little over budget if it was everything that I thought it was it would be well worth it! There were only two concerns, (1) it was 3.5 hours away from me, (2) Surely at that price it would have already gone!
I called the owner at 07:45 the following morning, to my delight and amazement the car was still there, I told him how far away we were and he promised to reserve it until we got there, this was a company directors wife's car and sounded JUST what we wanted.
As we arrived he opened the drivers door and started her up, she looked and sounded sweet, so much so that I didn't even feel the need to test drive her, however not allowing my euphoria to get the better of me I decided to take her down the road for a quick run. All I could think was WOW, this car felt like brand new, it even smelled like brand new! The willingness in the power was blatantly obvious, I had fallen in love all over again and was on the verge of ditching my Golf when my wife nudged me and reminded me that the car was for her
So I hopped out and she took the wheel, the smile on her face was all the confirmation that I needed, and this morning my new mistress (ssshhhhhh) is sat on my drive.My next job is to book her into our local Seat dealership for service and a check to see if there are any outstanding recalls.
I'd love to post some pics but I don't think that I can until I've been a member for longer
