The official CO2 rating for this particular León is 99g/km, and there was a time, not long ago, when that would have qualified it for SEAT's Ecomotive badge.
Not any more. Leóns have to do a lot better than that to be described as Ecomotives these days. If it's not an 87g/km car, forget it. Harsh, but true.
Still, 99g/km is still quite a good figure, if no longer a palpitation-inducing one for a small family diesel, and it does make the car exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty. (At least for now. That particular threshold isn't going to stay there forever.)
The other official "green" figure worth noting is the combined fuel economy of 74.3mpg. No doubt it would be possible to match that if you were concentrating on it at the expense of other matters such as journey time or the patience of other road users, but I didn't get anywhere near it myself, and I'm not at all sure - no offence - that you would either.
But, as we all know, this isn't a León-specific situation. In what I consider to be normal motoring, I could average 55mpg without thinking, unless weather conditions were particularly dismal, and 60mpg wasn't difficult to achieve, especially on a long though not especially quick motorway run. At night, on a flowing A-road without any traffic, it would have been hard to bring the economy below 60mpg.
This is good stuff. Three years ago I did only slightly better in a smaller and much less powerful Ibiza estate. How the world has moved on.
The engine that uses so little fuel in this León is the Volkswagen Group's very fine 1.6-litre turbo diesel. Its maxmimum power output is 104bhp, and it suits the car just perfectly. More performance would be more fun, but it wouldn't help otherwise.
More general comments about the León SC can be found in this review of the 1.4 TSI. Like that car, the diesel was fitted with the optional (£375) 17" wheels and 55-profile tyres, the latter not well-matched with the softly-sprung suspension. Smaller wheels and taller tyres for me every time.
Other options included dual-zone climate control at £350, front and rear parking sensors at £430, automatic lights and wipers and an auto-dimming interior mirror at £150, a Leather Upholstery Pack at £1195 and a Technology Pack which is available for free at the moment but has a retail price of £1075.
The Technology Pack includes LED headlights, DAB digital radio and a navigation system also used in other VW Group products. The navigation system is good, but after a week I was still finding it fiddly to read and use, and I hope that its first upgrade will include some method of making it feel that it's there to serve me and not the other way round.
