As an owner of the (now) previous generation I feel relieved the changes were insignificant after all.
No padded door pockets on the facelift is a shock, the economy must be really hurting to this day!
The passenger seat is now electric as standard, good!
New part microfibre seats, very good! I would definitely spec that, if I bought it again.
Don't get matte paints ever, unrepairable. But would be interested in any new metallic colour choices.
Pure engine sound mode, possibly removing the need to buy
OBD11, good. But CUPRA mode will presumably keep the soundaktor on anyway, so therefore not as good as a RS1 / RS2 style mode with customisation on both that Audi provides - say if I wanted just to jump between 2 modes, like I do frequently, and don't want the fake sound in CUPRA mode either, probably locked down.
Obviously the infotainment is updated to be faster, but still no climate control knobs, no fan / volume knobs. Essentially the original has just been fixed, yay I guess!? Never used the wireless phone charging pad, but they look to have fixed the overheating
problem. I'm aware most of these wireless charging pads of last generation vehicles have issues with that though.
Could just be the PHEV model but I noticed the convenience rear seat fold handles have been removed - lost a good feature here, oh dear.
Subjectively; the design changes have made the
Formentor look more flat and generic, like a Chinese knock-off as one commenter said, which I understand.
The new lights don't save it for me. As I've said before, only the VZ5 would interest me - but there's no news about this from CUPRA yet, even if they do it again, UK customers would potentially get shafted again. RS3 time I feel.
Lastly, the performance bumps carried over from the facelift Audi S3: Torque splitter is a desirable bonus for sure, but just 333hp? Probably necessary to
help people like me, sway me from the previous generation as a new purchase, but then again people like me already on the 310hp model are just going to tune it to 390hp with an exceptional TCU tune for under £1300 that will beat it easily for less money than whatever this new facelift is going to cost. The TCU tune in particular will be worth way more for daily driveability than a torque splitter will provide.