What’s it like?
The Formentor was the first standalone model from the relatively new car brand of Cupra. Cupra’s first two products were versions of the Ateca SUV and the Leon hatchback/estate, but both those cars were still sold as SEATs alongside their sportier derivatives. However, the Formentor was Cupra’s ‘own’ car, never being sold with a SEAT badge on its nose or boot lid, and the Formentor was a superb thing to drive.
It initially launched as a coupe-SUV based on some familiar Volkswagen Group building blocks – namely, the MQB chassis and the ‘EA888’ 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine. Later on, a smaller petrol engine and even plug-in hybrids were added, giving the Formentor some strength in depth. Happily, despite sharing much with many other SUVs in the wider Volkswagen family, the Cupra Formentor had an identity and sense of driver reward all of its own, making it an excellent second-hand choice in the mid-2020s.
Which model to go for?
If you’ve got deep pockets, the original 2.0-litre, four-wheel-drive model with the 310hp engine is a storming performance car. However, its CO2 output will make it less favourable from a tax point-of-view than the original plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), which were based on a 1.4-litre powertrain and came with either 204- or 245hp. Don’t discount the 1.5-litre TSI petrol engine, though; although it only produces 150hp, it’s a really sweet operator in the Formentor and is a popular choice on the used market as a result.
In 2024, Cupra enacted a pretty dramatic facelift on the Formentor that saw the front end of the vehicle take on a smoothed-off, beakier appearance than its grille-wearing predecessor. You can easily spot the facelifted cars from their light clusters too, which have three triangle lamps in each unit that are all arranged in a larger triangular formation. It’s suitably different from the pre-facelift cars.
There were some significant updates to both the PHEVs and the 2.0-litre TSI range-topper during the facelift. The former cars received a bigger battery approaching 20kWh in capacity, resulting in around 120km of quoted electric-driving range. The 245hp variant was also replaced by a more potent 272hp PHEV, so they’re a great balance of speed and parsimony. Meanwhile, the 310hp flagship went up to 333hp and borrowed chassis hardware from both the Audi S3 and Volkswagen Golf R, which made it even sharper to drive. Mind, with fuel consumption of 8.2 litres/100km and CO2 rated at 193g/km, the 333 TSI Formentor won’t be cheap to run.
Does anything go wrong?
Typically, the powertrains and components used in the Formentor have been soundly tried and tested elsewhere in the Volkswagen Group, so it should prove to be a dependable car. Most issues with it are reported around electrical glitches, sometimes manifesting as warning lights in the instrument cluster, but in the main a well-looked-after Formentor should be reliable.
There have been five recalls for the Cupra Formentor so far – one for possibly weak engine mounts, one for the rear-left wheel bearing housings, one for short circuits potentially caused by a failed fuse, one for loose engine covers and the final recall for a manufacturing error relating to the front-seat belt-mounting points.