SEAT Alhambra (2010 - 2020) 2.0 TDI CR SE Lux (150bhp) 5d DSG Owner Review

Utterly dreadful. Maybe we had a bad one but I've never known a car like it.

It had full history, 1 owner, no body repairs, 2 year extended SEAT warranty & all work done by the dealer as I had premature newborn twins to deal with at the time. Only plus is it never actually failed to start. To drive it was ok for the size after sticking decent tyres on (£400) but the engine always seemed rattly, gearbox indecisive and for some reason after driving for more than 5 minutes, me and my wife separately found it made us very angry or aggressive, oddly, never had that in a car before. Not great mpg wise & the AdBlue refill is in the daftest place leading to easy spillage in the boot + having the AdBlue tank means no spare wheel. Rear seats are only really suitable for little ones.
We discovered that we had twins on the way and no combination of child seats for all the kids would work in our current car so took the plunge & went full size MPV (Hating SUVs with a passion, this seemed logical).
Picked the car up a week before the twins arrived about a month early. A week after buying it (newborns in hospital at this point) the sunroof leaked soaking the carpets leaving the car in the garage, forcing me to use my much smaller estate to cram everyone into & get them home. Garage couldn't fault the car so had it back, next time it rained I took photos of the water coming in. Another trip to the garage led to a £2500 sunroof being replaced which is common apparently, I was also told by one member of staff 'I dont think that'll be covered....' I chose my words very carefully, politely and firmly and, miraculously, it got covered. Fast forward a few months and we kept having issues with electric sliding doors, they'd stick half open, refuse to close and on one particularly stressful day one jammed then came off its runner leaving us stuck. Fortunately I'm fairly handy (Mercedes dealer technician) & cobbled it back together enough to send it back to the dealer who again, found nothing.
We kept the car just under a year and I'm ashamed to say we traded it in. It still had the balance of the warranty & service plan I paid for so the new owner hopefully had more luck getting it fixed. All in all with the warranty, service plan, tyres, timing belt & water pump + a years depreciation I think I lost around £4000. I traded it in against a 2016 E-Class we then fitted with a (secondhand from a friend) MultiMac bench child seat which is what I should have done in the first place. Avoid these unless you know why it was traded in or you know the previous owner and its history. You have been warned!