What's outside today 23 - Seat Altea 2.0TDI DSG

Outside my brother's place in South London, which I am using as a base for this week's Verdict test with southern readers.


By far the most impressive thing about this car is the combination of VW's 2.0 litre TDI engine - a lot less rowdy than the 1.9 - and the DSG gearbox.


I'm a bit less convinced by the Altea's styling - the best looking of Seat's current mid-range models is the Leon, the least attractive is its mid-sized MPV, the Toledo, with its dumpy rear. These two cars and the Altea all have similar frontal styling, and the Altea lies between the Leon and Toledo both in terms of size and attractiveness. Very roomy and practical, though

DSG goes seven speed

Volkswagen has just announced a new seven-speed version of the marvellous DSG gearbox. There's a fair amount of technical detail to this but the headline seems to be that this is a simpler, lighter version of the DSG for cars with up to 170 horsepower; VW says that it will first be paired with the 1.4 litre TSI petrol and 1.9 litre TDI diesel engines.

The first-generation DSG is so good it will have been hard to improve upon - the main benefit seems to be that this should extend the benefits of DSG to a wider range of cars.