Review
And company car drivers should be cautioned that they are only likely to see their prized fleet wheels one weekend in four, on the basis that colleagues will be borrowing it for the other three weekends. These warnings are linked by one factor - the tremendous flexibility of the seven-seater Alhambra.
During its year on the Fleet News fleet, the Alhambra has covered in excess of 25,000 miles, few of them easy journeys. With seven seats it has taken journalists to meetings, briefings and events. With five seats it has transported families to the south of France, team-mates to cricket matches and friends on cycling weekends - with the bikes inside the car.
And with two seats it has carried a full-sized American pool table, helped new reporter Steve Moody to relocate from Wiltshire in one move, and been over to Calais once or twice to refill the Peterborough wine lake.
Despite its tinted windows and alloy wheels, it is safe to say that our test fleet has more glamorous and sportier models than the Alhambra, but the SEAT has been the most requested vehicle over the past year by a huge margin. And it finished the year in pretty good shape.
The dark interior has helped to hide a multitude of muck and debris from the passengers and loads it has carried, and only slightly scuffed plastic armrests give the game away that this has been a well used vehicle.
The TDI engine is a well proven unit from the Volkswagen Group stable, and has run faultlessly, returning consumption close to 45mpg, despite several urban trips and heavy loads.
But there is no escaping the diesel's lack of refinement - its replacement on our fleet, the petrol-powered SEAT Toledo V5, shows just how quiet petrol technology has become - although a sixth gear cuts engine noise to a degree on motorway runs.
Looking back through the long term road tests, one colleague praised the Alhambra for its heated windscreen - a boon in the cold snap when the prospect of scraping acres of ice off glass was extremely unappealing. Another colleague was grateful for the reversing aid, a godsend in a vehicle with awkward low-down rear visibility and many have agreed that the Alhambra's sports suspension provides surprisingly respectable handling for a car of this size and height.
At £21,290 our test car is not cheap, but it will incur a benefit charge of just 19% (including the three point penalty for diesel) of list price next April - a useful six point saving for the heartland of company car drivers currently paying benefit-in-kind tax based on 25% of the list price.
Competitive running costs and strong driver appeal saw the Alhambra secure the Fleet News Award for Best MPV in March, and it deserves a place on any user-chooser fleet choice list. Its flexibility also makes a strong case for any company thinking of running a pool car - but watch out for excess mileage charges, because it won't spend much time at standstill!
