Well, 4 years down the line, and this post gets a final bump.
The Altea has hit 140k miles of virtually trouble free motoring. It's had a rear wheel bearing, the intake manifold flap, a broken wire to one of the wipers somehow, and just had the rear springs and shocks replaced to pass the MOT.
I'll be rather sad to see it go in a way, as it's been ultimately reliable, very comfortable, reasonably economical, and has done us over 70k miles with ease. But it's just getting to the point where it's worth very little, and the right car has just come up as a replacement, so I just sold it, in part exchange for this.
So I've got a week now to remove all the little extras I fitted before it gets exchanged, and then we're back in the VW camp.
I'll still be on here though, so don't think you can get rid of me that easily.