Yahoo News Seat Tarraco on long-term test: is this large, seven-seat SUV just the ticket?
Three years ago, Seat didn’t have any SUVs or crossover-style vehicles, now it has three. Our Tarraco, the big brother to the Arona and Ateca, is the latest. Let’s see how the largest model in Seat’s range performs.
Our car:Tarraco Xcellence First Edition Plus 2.0 TDI 4Drive 190PS DSG
List price when new: £40,090 OTR
Price as tested: £40,090
Official fuel economy: 50.4mpg (EU Combined)
Our latest long-term test car is also the newest model in the Seat range. It’s going to be spending the next six months in the hands of the Foxall family, finding out if, as Seat’s marketing suggests, “big dreams lead to great things”.
Talking of dreams, no one in their right mind would dream of buying a large Seat saloon. It doesn’t fit with the brand’s profile and would be worthless within a couple of years. However, a large SUV is a completely different proposition and that’s exactly the thinking behind the Tarraco.
Not only is this Seat’s first large SUV, it’s also the company’s first seven-seat car, replacing the long-in-the-tooth Alhambra MPV with a much more ‘lifestyle’ package than a people-carrier.
Showing just how new our Tarraco is, it’s one of the launch models. Not only that, it’s also the most lavish Tarraco available. And as ours has the 2.0-litre TDI diesel engine, at £40,090, it’s the most expensive standard-specification Seat money can buy.
Great level of equipment as standard
I discovered a major benefit of this early: there’s no messing about ticking boxes for this pack and that option. Quite simply it’s all included. And for your money there is all of the ‘big-car kit’ you could possibly want. We’ll go into that in more detail in later reports.
Equally, we’ll be covering what it’s like to drive, fuel economy and so on. Initial first impressions are healthy although the styling doesn’t exactly light up your life. That said, it’s definitely not helped by the dreary colour palette. Our model is called Dark Camouflage, a sort of greeny-grey nothing of a colour. But then aside from Atlantic Blue, you could say much the same about every other Tarraco colour.
No matter, there’s nothing offensive about the Tarraco inside or out. The boot appears to be cavernous and I’m going to enjoy experimenting with the gymnastics the interior will doubtless be capable of.
I’m looking forward to giving it a few long-distance workouts. Currently the fuel readout is showing a 36.8mpg average, significantly less than the claimed EU Combined economy. And the seats appear rather utilitarian so I’ll be interested to see how comfortable they are after a couple of hours at the wheel.
When the Ateca was launched a couple of years ago, we spent six months with it and came away distinctly impressed. It’ll be fascinating to see how the Tarraco fares during its similar tenure.
Comprehensive safety systems to the fore
Of course there’s no such thing as an unsafe car these days, at least in Europe. It’s hardly surprising then that the Tarraco is rated as five stars by EuroNCAP. These days it’s pretty much a given that cars perform satisfactorily in crash tests. What determines how they’re rated is largely down to their standard safety equipment. The Tarraco doesn’t disappoint.
It features front assist in three forms. This is Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) City (low speed), Inter Urban (20-50mph), and Cyclist. So far there’s been no reason for it to deploy. And I haven’t yet had a false alarm.
In previous cars with similar systems, there are certain corners I regularly take where the car has seemed to think we were going to collide with a brick wall. The car seems to have forgotten the part of the driving process where the human turns the steering wheel to avoid crashing into brick walls. The system in the Tarraco appears to incorporate greater tolerance for the vagaries of real-life driving.
Lane Assist, where the car keeps to its lane and torques up the steering wheel to prevent you drifting out of that lane unless you indicate, is another standard feature. On previous Seats I’ve driven, the system has been so intrusive it’s become annoying and I’ve eventually switched it off. Not so with the Tarraco. And as the system reads road markings, and in my part of West Sussex these aren’t exactly in tip-top shape, it spends most of its time redundant anyway.
The adaptive cruise control is a useful feature too and one that we’ve come to expect on this size of car. It employs the AEB radar located beneath the grille to scan the road ahead for obstacles. If it detects a vehicle ahead, it adjusts the Tarraco’s speed to maintain a safe distance.
The system works impeccably but I’ve found the control for this takes a bit of getting used to. It’s a stalk on the steering column behind the windscreen wiper controls. It’s a bit fiddly and it’s a bit irritating that pushing up to increase the speed only allows you to go up in 5mph increments. To do individual units of speed you need to go to a higher speed than the one you want then pull the lever towards you to drop down.
What about those seven seats?
More practically speaking, all seven seats have three-point seatbelts. And each has pre-tensioners and load limiters. In addition, there are Isofix points for the front passenger seat and outer pair of second row chairs. And there are seatbelt reminders for all seats.
Finally, should you have a serious accident, the Tarraco will anticipate it and while pre-tensioning the seatbelts it’ll also close the sunroof and any open windows in preparation. Once you come to rest, if the car has rolled over, it’ll notify the emergency services automatically.
Of this impressive list of standard features, this is probably the one function I’m really hoping I’ll never need.
Smart styling - and a dismal choice of paint colours
It probably won’t have escaped your attention that the Tarraco bears more than a passing resemblance to the Skoda Kodiaq. Underneath the pair are pretty much identical as both (along with the smaller Seat Ateca, Skoda Karoq and Volkswagen Tiguan among others) use VW’s modular MQB platform.
I’ve spent a long time pondering how successful the Tarraco’s design is. I think broadly speaking the answer is they’ve done a good job. Comparing the Tarraco next to a Kodiaq, the illusion from the back is that the Seat is slightly wider and therefore lower. And having round wheel arches rather than the Skoda’s squarer ones certainly lend it a sportier, less country bumpkin character.
Having a light strip joining the rear light units across the tailgate looks smart. And the rear valance of our First Edition Plus model gives the back a smart appearance, even if the apparent twin tail pipes are merely an illusion.
The front appears just as sharp too with the angular three-dimensional appearance of the radiator grille and slim headlights. However, I would take issue with Seat’s copywriters who describe it as ‘iconic’ (hugely overused word these days) and ‘distinctive’. At best, I’d like to think it inoffensive yet handsome, perhaps a bit like a slightly smaller Audi Q7. But, being brutal, if you took the badges off it would look like pretty much any other SUV on the road.
Part of the problem here is that, in my humble opinion, Seat has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by offering the Tarraco with an astonishingly anodyne selection of colours. On top of black and white, there are three shades of silvery grey – or grey-ey silver, depending on how you look at it. And the Dark Camouflage that our car is in might as well be a fourth grey, so low is the green content in the paint. Of its seven shades, only Atlantic Blue is vaguely uplifting.
That aside, the Tarraco isn’t short on visual appeal. This is a practical and versatile, seven-seat car that appears stylish and a darn sight more desirable than a van-based MPV. Throw in that it’s remarkably well equipped in our First Edition Plus specification and you have a car that makes a convincing case for itself.
The driving experience so far
So far, ‘our’ Tarraco has been put through the sort of paces most family cars enjoy. There have been trips to London to move the daughter, plus a car-full of her stuff, home from university for the long summer holiday. It’s stretched its legs on a 600-mile motorway jaunt to the French Alps. And it’s seen us through the normality of life: taking friends to the pub, lugging bags of compost back from the garden centre, doing the weekly shop and so on.
‘Our’ Tarraco has the 190hp 2.0-litre TDI turbo-diesel engine that powers so many VW Group products. But it is also available with the TSI petrol engine in 150hp and 190hp guises plus a 150hp TDI. I wouldn’t fancy the less powerful versions. The Tarraco is a big car and I think a less powerful engine might feel slightly lethargic.
As it is, the engine can feel a bit gutless when it’s in Normal mode. Thankfully that can be changed. Seat’s Drive Profile lets you switch between Normal, Eco, Comfort, Sport and Individual. Move it to Sport and the dead spot that appears to afflict the engine below 2,000rpm is eradicated. It makes overtaking easier and the engine feel power-appropriate for such a big car.
Putting Drive Profile in Sport also makes the steering firmer. In the other modes, the steering feels a bit too wishy washy, the engine not sprightly enough. So Eco mode it is for long motorway trips, Sport for the rest of the time. As our car is a 4Drive four-wheel drive model there are also Off-road and Snow modes. Probably understandably, I’ve tried neither.
It would be naïve to expect a 1.8-tonne SUV to drive like a sports car. And there are duly no surprises from the Tarraco. It’s not exactly a dynamic treat, although handling does feel nicely assured. The trade-off for this is that on our pock-marked carriageways, you feel each and every one of the multitude of potholes.
Granted this isn’t helped by the 20-inch rims our version is wearing. But even so, it does feel quite firmly sprung. On the plus side, although there’s a little bit of wind noise, the cabin feels very well insulated from the roar of the tyres on the road.
Once the engine has warmed up it’s so quiet you hardly hear it from inside. The drive is doubtless helped by the seven-speed Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG) which goes about its business smoothly and unobtrusively. Combined with the Tarraco’s many other attributes, it cements the feeling that you’re in a great all-rounder.
How it compares with the smaller Ateca, inside and out
A couple of years ago, Seat didn’t have any SUVs in its range. Then in 2016 after testing the water with a couple of concept cars, the Spanish manufacturer revealed the Ateca. The Telegraph was one of the first media outlets to be given one to run as a long-term test car and it instantly made a positive impression.
Despite their different sizes, the Ateca and Tarraco share the same underpinnings: the VW Group’s MQB platform. But in the Tarraco’s case, it’s a longer version. The Tarraco also takes Seat’s design to the next level in my humble opinion. The Ateca has a smaller, blander looking rectangular grille at the front. The Tarraco’s is a multi-faceted hexagon which gives the car a much more sophisticated, premium appearance.
Inside, the Tarraco takes things up a notch. The materials are similar, with a similar rather budget appearance in some areas. But it’s the small details where the Tarraco stands out. For example, the cupholder in its centre console has a sliding cover; the Ateca’s didn’t. And rather than having the screen incorporated in the dashboard, the Tarraco’s stands proud of the dash which means it can be significantly larger.
On the road, the Tarraco’s superior quality makes itself known too. It’s 37cm longer and nearly 20cm wider than the Ateca. While this means it isn’t as nimble as its smaller sibling, the Tarraco certainly feels a lot more grown up. It’s less fidgety over bumps and feels more refined.
Of course, the added space translates into two extra seats for the Tarraco. As well as being a new standalone model, this also makes it a replacement for the seven-seat Alhambra – albeit in a much trendier SUV body shape than the staid and van like silhouette of the MPV.
Tarraco boot space is significantly more generous than the Ateca’s too. When seats six and seven are folded away (standard set-up for Foxall family motoring) there’s a healthy 700 litres of boot space, 200-litres up on the Ateca.
But not all in the Tarraco garden is more rosy. The Ateca we had used VW’s 150hp TDI turbo diesel. Had we plumped for the 190hp model (DSG and four-wheel drive like our Tarraco), it would have returned a claimed 53.5mpg (NEDC). Using the same engine and on the same economy cycle, the Tarraco is only good for 50.4mpg. And while it takes the Ateca 7.5 seconds to hit 62mph from a standstill, the Tarraco does it in 8 seconds.
So, is the extra you pay for the Tarraco worth it? There’s a £6,865 difference in list price of the top level trim 190hp models. Spread that over a three-year finance deal and the Tarraco’s more grown-up and sophisticated driving experience begins to look even more attractive.
Practicality built in
The Tarraco has been built for family life. At 4.73m long and with a load capacity that’s 1775 litres when the rear seats are folded down, it is a very usable tool indeed. It coped easily with moving the teenage daughter out of year one university halls. And against the odds, swallowed in one go all that she needed for year two’s life in a house share.
The Tarraco’s middle row of seats split folds so we could collapse two thirds of the rear bench and keep a third seat so all three of us could move her and her copious kit in. As with many cars now, the Tarraco has levers in the boot that cause the rear seat backs to collapse forwards so no scrambling into the boot or twisting awkwardly to get at levers mounted on the tops of the seats.
At 700 litres when the rear seats are up, the boot has plenty of room for a family’s luggage beneath the roll-out luggage cover. But the boot is so big, if you’re not careful, the family shop can end up distributed around the car. There are tie-down rings but some form of divider or luggage hooks would be handy. There is what’s known as a curry hook in the boot – it folds out from the side – but it looks a tad flimsy and isn’t sufficient on its own.
But of course, the Tarraco isn’t all about boot space. It’s also a seven-seat car. As with any car with chairs that disappear beneath the boot floor, it’s an engineering marvel. Not only have the Seat engineers contrived to squeeze two folding seats into the space, there’s also still room for storage and a spare wheel, albeit a space saver, beneath.
Erecting the seats is the work of seconds and involves pulling a couple of chords. Once up, they’re like other cars of its ilk: fine if you have very short legs or don’t mind travelling with your knees around your ears. So, no adult will relish travelling in them but they’re fine for kids. That said, there are no Isofix mounts for child seats. And even the kids that can legally travel in them without a seat will struggle to get into them as it involves sliding and tilting the middle row of chairs to create a gap that is still on the small side.
Making the row-three seats disappear is remarkably simple. It takes longer working out which way round the remaining piece of removeable boot floor slots in to cover the spare wheel. Relocating the luggage cover is also fiddly and always seems to happen more by luck than judgement.
Occupants of the middle row of back seats have a much comfier time of it. For a start the rear of the seat is adjustable so you can recline if you so desire. There are acres of leg room and the chairs also move fore and aft so you can increase boot space or leg room depending on what’s required. The business class experience continues with a hefty centre arm rest featuring cup holders while the two outer chairs get a collapsible table that folds out of the back of the front seat. These have cupholders and there’s a USB charger in the back too.
Those in the front seat are treated equally well. There are wide door bins and in the centre console two cupholders with adjustable inserts. And there’s a modest storage space in the central arm rest. Finally, there’s a wireless charging plate in the centre console for mobile phones. However, my iPhone seems quite sensitive to the position it’s in and it does frequently move out of the area where it charges. But Seat have thought of that and a warning flashes up on the central screen.
As I’ve said before, Seat appear to have gone out of their way to make this a very useable tool indeed.
For all the latest news, advice and reviews from Telegraph Cars, sign up to our weekly newsletter by entering your email here
What do you think of the latest Ford Focus? Does it remain the strongest rival to the Volkswagen Golf? Join the conversation in the comments section and in Telegraph Motoring Club
