So my thoughts after six months and 3k miles. My circumstances changed dramatically about 2 years ago (you can guess why) and I have been working from home ever since. As a result, when it came to purchasing a new car last summer I simply needed something that would be reliable, would enable me to do the shopping, drive the Mrs to work and back and the occasional longer journey to visit family and/or take UK breaks.
I ended up choosing the 2021
Cupra Leon e-HYBRID DSG-auto 245 as it was cheap and the electric range, as pitiful as it is, was sufficient for 90% of my journeys.
As a tool to transport me and my fiancee from A to B in relative comfort, and cheaply, it achieves the task. We're on the Octopus Go tariff so it costs me about 50p to charge the car in the early hours of the morning. This charge is sufficient for me to take the Mrs to work and pick her up in the evening and do some daily shopping along the way.
That being said it's one of the most if not the most, frustrating cars I've ever owned. In the last six months, I've noted the following 'issues' - (There's maybe more I've simply forgot, note the comment about apathy at the end)
Heating Controls - The touch controls are a joke. Not only can you not see them in other dark but even during the day when you can see them they don't respond on occasions. On numerous occasions, I've been unable to change the temperature unless I power cycle the car. Sometimes the heating is synced between driver and passenger, sometimes it's not. Sometimes we'll go to the shops, park, come back to the car and the heating has been running the whole time, other times it doesn't.
Volume Controls - On several occasions, the volume controls (touch and on the steering wheel) fail to respond. If my fiancee takes a work call while I'm driving I'll do the courteous thing and mute the music but on numerous occasions, nothing happens and I have to pull over and power cycle the car.
Persistent Notification - Each and every time I get into the car it will prompt me, via the red dot, that I have a notification. This is simply a notification to inform me my data has expired (I took out a three-month data plan when I got the car mostly out of curiosity). However even if the "Delete" the notification or "Delete all" it will reappear every time I get into the car and I simply can't get rid of it. Cupra suggests it needs a dealer visit simply to clear the notification.
Driver Profile(s) - I'm the only driver so I only use one key. The other is safely stored away in the house and has never been used apart from the very first day where you need both in the car to set up the main driver profile. I just wanted to clarify that before someone suggests the "wrong key" is the culprit of the following.
90% of the time I'll unlock the car and when I get in it displays the "Hello Griff" message and it logs me into my profile. However, on numerous occasions, it's been "stuck" in the guest profile and refuses to switch to the primary profile. That's not the end of the world however on two or three occasions it's switched profiles as I'm driving the car.
On Saturday I was on a rare 'long' drive, using AndroidAuto/Google Maps for navigation and following directions. Without warning the car displayed a privacy notice on the infotainment system and switched me into the guest profile. This resulted in AndroidAuto/Google Maps disappearing at the very moment I was relying on it for directions.
Parking/Proximity Sensors and Reversing Camera - It is not uncommon for a message to appear saying something is temporarily unavailable. I can't correlate this to weather conditions, car conditions or road conditions. It just feels that on occasion the car will decide a sensor is unavailable before it works again. On a few occasions, the reversing camera hasn't appeared on the screen and/or the screen freezes albeit that's very rare.
Cupra Connect - It feels like I'm Beta testing this app. Issues with the app not storing credentials and it taking ages to open aside, once I'm in the app it's a lottery as to whether any given feature will work or not. With the frosty mornings we've been having I'll tend to open the app to remotely start heating. Sometimes this works, sometimes the app presents an error. Furthermore even if it "works" in the app sometimes I'll go out to the car 15 minutes later and the heating isn't on, sometimes it is on.
Car "Auto-Braking" - I'm probably somewhat unique in the sense that I garage my car overnight and have done for all my previous cars. I always reverse the car into the garage, to make charging and entry/exit of the car easier, and as a result, the car/proximity sensors will detect the opening of the garage door and warn me according. I've reversed into my garage over 1500 times (in this and previous cars) so I'm fairly confident I know what I'm doing but on four or five occasions the Leon has slammed the brakes on as I'm reversing. Obviously, I'm only travelling at low speed but when you're concentrating on your mirrors and reversing camera the car slamming the brakes on comes as quite a shock!
Battery/Hybrid Mode - Being a PHEV the car provides the option to manually choose between "Battery" or "Hybrid" mode. As most of my daily journeys are fairly local it makes sense for me to undertake these journeys in electric mode, just as I did this morning. However, and as others have documented on here, on occasions the car will switch to "Hybrid mode" and engage the engine. There are certain conditions where it will do this such as 'kick down' but seemingly at random without changing my driving style and regardless of battery percentage it sometimes engages the engine.
I assume this may be related to battery conditioning or some other reason but it's a bit frustrating that you have the option to select battery only mode for the car to then decide you know what, I'll engage the engine instead. Stopping the car, power cycling it "fixes" the issue but it's not always feasible to pull over and do this.
Weird Noises - There are weird noises emanating from the engine bay. I can only assume they may be PHEV and/or battery conditioning related but it's a bit odd and offputting to hear quite loud "whirring" and "clicking" noises. Several people have asked me what's broken but the car has done it since day one and I can't see anything moving/catching/loose so I assumed all PHEVs make these noises. Maybe not?!?
Conclusion - As I said at the outset it's a practical and cheap method of transport to get from A to B but, for me at least, that's all it is.
Unlike my previous cars which were more than just a tool, I have very little, if any, emotional attachment with the Cupra. The days of washing and detailing my cars at the weekends and driving them simply out of sheer pleasure have evaporated and I think I've washed the Cupra twice in six months such is the lack of engagement I have with the car.
I'm sure in time a lot of the 'issues' will be fixed with future software/firmware updates and maybe there are even updates to address some of them now but such is my apathy around the car I'm not rushing to take a day off work to take it to the nearest dealership.
It should be noted that the above are merely my own observations and they're certainly not intended as complaints or harsh criticism. It's also probably fair to say some of the issues may be unique to my car and other people may have experienced issues of their own I've not encountered. Ultimately if all of the issues were fixed overnight would that change how I feel about the car, probably not.
