Family triple test
Ateca vs Scenic vs Passat Alltrack. Fight!
It’s St Patrick’s Day and we’re in Ireland. Not the country, the hamlet in Bedfordshire. Three of TopGear’s most stalwart fgures are huddled round a table, with nothing more potent than a bottle of sparkling water for sustenance. Not unusually for one of our Lifer three-way summits, the mood is combative. You may think that arguing the merits of a Renault Scenic, Seat Ateca and VW Passat Alltrack would be an inherently polite afair, but you’d be wrong. This is war.
Esther Neve: So, did you actually choose that colour, Jason?
Jason Barlow: [mock indignation] You don’t like it?
EN: No. Andy Franklin: [smirking] We certainly knew when you’d arrived. EN: So, the Scenic is quirky and French, Andrew’s car is German and boring, mine is Spanish and emotional. I win.
AF: Mine’s also a proper workhorse. I’ve towed in it. It can pull up to 2,200kg.
EN: I’ve towed in mine [the Ateca can tow 2,000kg, prompting Esther to wibble on about how towing is a lost art. Andy and I discuss the new F1 season instead]… and so, basically I win. Again.
JB: Great. What about range? The Scenic 110dCi is so slow it’s practically going backwards while it’s accelerating, but it’ll do 525 miles on a full tank of diesel. EN: The Ateca does about 450. AF: [mumbling] 400. Well, actually 380. Depending on how I drive.
EN: [consulting spec sheet in professional fashion] The Scenic has a 52-litre tank, yours is 66, Andrew, and mine holds 50. From our notes I can see that the Seat is averaging 43mpg, the Scenic 46, and the VW… 35. AF: I think it’s time I tried Eco mode. JB: The Scenic has various drive modes too, but 110bhp isn’t enough to make any diference whichever one you’re in. Weirdly for an MPV, the Renault is basically a design statement. A very successful one.
AF: It looks great, and I’ve enjoyed driving fast Renaults in the past. I saw an original Espace the other day and it looked fantastic. But seriously, anything French is basically rubbish. I just don’t think the French do good cars. And they feel so cheap.
JB: You have a beard, Andy, and therefore you are welcome to your Passat. Perhaps you could attach it to a caravan. There is nothing objectively amiss with the VW, but the Passat is an ocean-going exercise in dullness. I aged 10 years driving it fve miles up the road.
AF: I hear you. But that’s where the Alltrack comes in. So many of my friends covet it, because it’s a more afordable Audi A6 Allroad. And it does work of-road, too. It’s also an estate car, which I like, and much more useful than your cars.
EN: [consulting spec sheet in professional fashion. Again] You have 639 litres of space, seats up, the Scenic has 506, the Seat 485. The Renault has the roomiest cabin and the panoramic roof. It’s the most obviously family-oriented of the three, and has the cleverest cubbies and storage. Maybe we should ask your kids to choose.
JB: Forget it. My daughter wants a McLaren 570S… The Scenic is a very bold-looking car, but the Ateca is arguably the best executed visually. Both your cars have that 2.0-litre, 148bhp TDI engine, right? It’s surprisingly thrummy under load, that unit, though the sound deadening is good. The Ateca is fun, but very frmly damped. Any other observations?
EN: Yes. My car obviously has magnetic wheels; I’ve had four punctures. [Andy and Jason briefy marvel at the concept of magnetic wheels] They’re not actually magnetic, you fools.