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SEAT Ateca review - strong start from sporty Spanish SUV - SEAT Ateca MPG and running costs

SEAT's first SUV is among the better cars of its type, but you'll have to wait for the Cupra for any real excitement

Evo rating
RRP
from £17,990
  • Good value, well-equipped, neat handling
  • Little to enthral or excite until the Cupra arrives

Most frugal of all Atecas is the 1.6 TDI, with combined economy of 65.7mpg and a CO2 figure of 113g/km. Not that you should expect to replicate such numbers in the real world of course, and particularly not if you start loading the car with people and objects. In fact, we’d expect the larger 2-litre TDI versions to get closer to their quoted figures in regular driving (55.4mpg for the 150PS car, 53.3mpg for the 190PS) and if driven gently, the 2.0 TDIs won’t be a great deal thirstier than the 1.6.

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Similar on paper is the 1.0 TSI, with a 54.3mpg combined number and 119g/km of CO2. Perhaps most impressive is the 1.4 EcoTSI, at 53.3mpg combined with as little as 120g/km of CO2 escaping from its exhaust pipe. The 60.1mpg “extra urban” figure, little more than 1mpg worse than the 1.0 TSI, hints at the benefits of cylinder deactivation while running at light throttle loads and constant speeds.

Typical Ateca driving is unlikely to chew through brakes or tyres at a significant rate and with insurance groups as low as 9E (for the 1.6 TDI) the Ateca probably won’t be too expensive to run in other ways either.

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