my new leonr fr tdi.. first impressions !!!

[harveee]

hi all, had luna grey fr tdi delivered yesterday . had cleaned my focus st3 for 4 hours as it was being driven back to direct seat in newcastle in part ex.
The sun came out just as I finished polishing my st3 and it looked stunning in performance blue, 30 mins later the leon pulled up outside my house all dirty from its 330 mile drive and I was thinking ...what have I done !!!
Did the paper work with the driver and 30 mins later he jumped into my focus and drove off, the 5 cylinder engine growling nicely as he accelerated up the hill. Felt really sad now and not at all excited as I should be , cheered myself up with the thought that he would never make it to newcastle without a fuel up !!!

I now had a good look over the leon,

exterior

liked the 18 inch wheels and the rear doors and overall modern shape, not sure about colour, really wish had gone for red, black or white...liked the front grill and bumper, little disapointed that direct seat had fitted the rear sensors along the length of the bumper and not in the black apron area as I had expected !! they had also used BLACK sensors !!!!!!!!!!!
Overalll very impressed even more if I had ordered a diff colour. [did try..too late though]

interior

Seats feel ok but I was spoiled with the leather racarros in the st, also feels very low down [some like this i dont] so raised seat and found that I had to bend down to see out of the side windows as my eye level was now above the top of the very narrow windows. So have now dropped the seat back down so I can see out properly.
I love the steering wheel, nice and chunky and good grip, easy to reach radio controls though it cant be raised high enough for my liking and I brush my legs against it as i get in [ I do have big legs as Im a bodybuilder but little dissapointed that it wont go higher.
Clocks are nice and clear, and the gear knob feels fine. [dont intend to change it] . Not sure about cd player/radio looks a little cheap to me and the sound is ok [st3 had excellent sony 6 disc player with 8 speakers so not fair to compare it really] still.... happy with mp3 playback.
Glovebox...well its good for gloves , trip computer seems good if a little confusing at first. I dont like the location of the hazard button and at night it glows bright red and is very distracting. I also have a habit of driving with my elbow resting on the top of the door panel, I cant do this in the leon due to the high doors and narrow door panel.
The car is fitted with the auto dimming mirror and I find this too large and low down and tends to obstruct my view quite often, this coupled with the high doors/narrow windows gives a slightly claustrophobic feeling....I might have a sunroof fitted to counter this.
The boot area is quite deep if not long and slightly marred by the narrowed access.
Overall, not a bad interior but cant help feeling that i have stepped down alot further than I thought I would. I was not expecting it to be as nice as a top of the range st3 but thought it wouldnt be far behind.

Driving

This is my first diesel car after only test driving the FR for 15 mins, so was all quite new to me...
The power is very impressive after getting used to changing down more often to exploit it, found I was still driving it like the st and leaving it too high a gear to accelerate quickly.
The noise levels are not too bad, very quiet when cruising at 70 [love cruise control] and not too loud on town driving for a diesel virgin like me to bear.
Fuel economy is very good, averaging 39 mpg today on town/ A roads and is the reason I bought the car, so am abosolutely delighted.!!! keep looking at the trip comp stating 490 miles till empty and smiling [ st said 280 ! and lied !!!]
The road holding/cornering is also very good.

Now...for the not so good bits .... the ride can be a little unsettling over uneven roads, if you have a series of dips and rises it tends to cause the car to bounce for a while till it settles, the steering is way too light but I have read that u can have it altered, I also had to brake hard from a high speed and was not that impressed with the brakes [thought this might improve].
I also found the seat padding left a little bit to be desired as i could clearly feel the metal frame where the seat hugs your thighs....

Taking everything into consideration [ only two days driving, st3 to tdi FR, petrol to diesel] my initial impression is more positive than negative, I know I will get used to the car and will enjoy it more, but .....at this very early stage I still find myself thinking..... hmmm wonder what a gt tdi golf is like or wish ford did a 170 bhp st tdi......
This is only my first opinion and I am anoyingly hard to please [I found plenty of faults with the ST3 and only kept it for 10 months ffs]. So all u happy leon owners please dont take any of this personally, I hope to report back it a months time and be completely happy with it......
regards to all..

 

[mhill]

Wow that's a through honest review, so are you a journalist?

 

[mklock]

HAving recently driven the golf, i can tell you that it is nice, but "Nice" sums it up, wher as with the leon you get a bit more fun.

Is the auto dimmming mirror that bad? i was thinking of having that option?

 

[harveee]

Wow that's a through honest review, so are you a journalist?

lol...no m8 Im a health and safety officer with way too much time on his hands....... was going to write alot more but was begining to bore myself at that point .

quick update tho.....took it out tonight first time in the dark and was pleasantly surprised with the red lighting to radio and buttons, thought they would be very garish.. also it doesnt mist up as much as the focus...big plus

 

[alnsaz]

Need to agree with you on the ride quality with the 18s - its the only thing that really annoys me about the car

I had a 55 plate old shape FRTDi 150 before and I'm sure it ha d a better ride on 17s

Agree the glove box is useless

I'm 6 foot 2 and find the new car much better for comfort than my old one

Not sure about the power difference between the 150 and 170 though - seemed to get a real kick from the 150 but the 170 seems more gradual and refined - no turbo whoosh either whch I miss!

Maybe I should change this to an old vs new, 150 vs 170 post!

 

[harveee]

HAving recently driven the golf, i can tell you that it is nice, but "Nice" sums it up, wher as with the leon you get a bit more fun.

Is the auto dimmming mirror that bad? i was thinking of having that option?

its just that the mirror is quite long and comes down quite low, I have my seat raised about 3 pumps with the lever and it tends to be right in my line of sight as the roof is quite low on the leon, I dare say others might be down low enough to see partially under it but I think they would have to be quite short to do so...
could anybody else please post as to if the mirror obstructs or not...

I dont know if the auto dimming mirror is much diff from the standard, again, any advice appreciated.

 

[BanziBarn]

I nearly bought an ST actually - really loved the car, mainly for the engine noise which is amazing. In the end we decided to keep my Type-r and replace my girlfriend’s Saxo with the Leon which then became the main car.

I felt able to do this because i was worried about loosing the performance I was used to with the civic, but keeping it took that worry away. However, in all honesty, most of the time the Leon is quicker than the civic and also the ST (IMO) which I drove a few times.

So I think I made the right choice, and hopefully you will feel the same way too harvee. It does depend on the kind of driving you do of course when it comes to the performance, if you get loads of chances to really open a car up on your daily drive then I think you may notice the Leon’s lack of acceleration, but if you drive around town, or even on windy country lanes where you can keep the car in 3rd most of the time the car will really satisfy.

Enjoy!

 

[k4ith]

i was going to get the ST3 in blue, i realy like them, but settled on the Leon.I think the ST is not too far away from the mk5 gti which i wanted too but in the end cost took me to the Seat, But i realy want an Edition30 GTi.

 

[Greytop]

Nice review harveee, for me the only real negative is the ride BUT hey it is a performance car so I will live with it. Most other things about the FR make me smile
Real world performance i.e. in gear roll-on acceleration is just so accessible and I'm pretty convinced that the SEAT claims for 0 to 'what ever' are pretty conservative anyway as pointed out in another thread.

 

[harveee]

Nice review harveee, for me the only real negative is the ride BUT hey it is a performance car so I will live with it. Most other things about the FR make me smile
Real world performance i.e. in gear roll-on acceleration is just so accessible and I'm pretty convinced that the SEAT claims for 0 to 'what ever' are pretty conservative anyway as pointed out in another thread.

hi greytop, regarding the ride quality, it is actually slightly more damped than the st3 so pot holes and ridges dont fell so hard when hit, what annoys me is more to do with the undulation caused when traveling along a road with dips and rises, it seems to keep bouncing when the shocks are called into play....[remember reading a review where a journo said this undulation would make u car sick !!!.....not that bad obviously and only notice it occasionally. I can live with it ]
although the focus felt worse on normal bumps it settled much quicker when it started to undulate...
put the dog in the boot to day for the first time and noticed in mirror that her head was bouncing up and down got my own real nodding dog !!!!!
she didnt budge in the st3 but has more room in the leon...
getting more used to the car every hour now and now know after the memory of the good points of the st3 have faded will be very happy with the FR.
Even starting to like the colour now, tho must say your fr is a lovely colour greytop.
To sum it up 4 me, when i weigh up the negatives [imho] against the performance and fuel economy they are hardly worth worrying about.... though I dont think I would have been happy to swop the st for a petrol FR ..no disrepect to the petrol boys as I only really changed the st due to fuel economy.