SEAT Arona practicality and boot space

• Compact exterior hides spacious interior
• Lots of leg and headroom, front and rear
  
• Boot offers class-leading space, too
  

Passenger space is much more generous in the Arona than you might first think. To look at, and stand next to, the Arona isn’t a big car, but it’s been well packaged to allow for a spacious interior that’s also flexible. Two adults will comfortably fit in the front, and if they’re not too gangly, two six-footers will also fit in the rear seats. What’s most apparent is the boost in headroom over the Ibiza, and a more generous amount of legroom too. 

If there’s a tall driver behind the wheel, then an equally-tall passenger may struggle in the back, but for most average-sized adults and children, the Arona offers a generous amount of space inside. There are plenty of areas to store odds and ends throughout the cabin, thanks to big door bins, cubbies and pockets scattered throughout. 

During our six-month review of the Arona, our tester concluded: 'On the inside the Arona is large enough for four adults. You could fit five in, but it would be quite cosy, even with the increased SUV height. Four plus one child in the smaller centre seat is about the limit.

'The seats are comfortable, if not plush, being more functional than luxurious. I was surprised that a journey of 2-3 hours didn’t produce any rear-end ache often associated with some interiors. On the contrary – the seating did a good all-round job.'

Will the SEAT Arona fit in my garage?

The Arona doesn’t look like a big car, nor does it feel like one to drive and manoeuvre. It’s barely longer than a SEAT Ibiza, and the extra height is a boon to visibility when parking in a cramped car park. This makes it easy to thread around town, which is where most Arona buyers will be using the car. 

Useful touches such as parking sensors and a reversing camera aid with parking the Arona. 

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Will my luggage fit in it?

Considering its compact size, the SEAT Arona offers an impressively large boot with a good amount of flexibility thanks to a two-level boot floor and the ability to fold the seats down and free up a total of 823 litres.

At 400 litres with the seats in place, it offers 50 litres of extra capacity over a SEAT Ibiza, 20 litres more than a Volkswagen Golf, and 66 litres more than the Hyundai Kona. However, the Renault Captur, Peugeot 2008 and MINI Countryman all beat the Arona for boot space, with 455, 410 and 450 litres of space respectively. 

In practice, we lived with a SEAT Arona for half a year and rarely found ourselves needing a bigger boot. You can always flop the back seats down if you need to expand the loadbay (see picture above).

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SEAT Arona safety

• Plenty of airbags as standard
• Driver assistance tech available as optional extras
• Should be safe for small families

The Arona comes with the usual suite of airbags as standard, as well as a pair of Isofix childseat fittings in the rear of the car. Front Assist – SEAT’s name for autonomous emergency braking – comes fitted as standard to all Aronas, while more driver assistance technology becomes available as you move further up the range.

For example, luxurious Xcellence models add things like blindspot detection, rear cross-traffic alert and adaptive cruise control to the equipment tally, which all help make the Arona less likely to crash in the first place. When crash-tested by the experts at Euro NCAP towards the end of 2017, the Arona received a full five-star rating - so it should protect occupants well if the worst does happen.

Safety update: 2018 rear seatbelt recall

In May 2018, a recall was issued on SEAT Arona, SEAT Ibiza and Volkswagen Polo models regarding the left rear seatbelt releasing unintentionally. The problem was most likely to occur during events such as a high-speed lane change and resulted in the centre left rear seatbelt unlocking when both the centre rear and left rear seat are unoccupied. A technical fix was found and fitted to affected vehicles during recalls.

Euro NCAP crash test video