Just come back from the test drive of the
SEAT Ibiza 1.2 TSI (105bhp) at Harlow CMC SEAT.
What can I say.... well only that I know what my next car will be!!
To expand on that, I had about 20-30mins in the showroom while I waited for the salesman to finish with another customer, while he did that I took a very good look at the 3DR 1.4 16v COPA edition they had in the showroom and checked out all my niggles that I have with my current Mk 4
Ibiza and whether they'd been fixed. There wasn't a long list as I do really like my current
ibiza but they were:
Door hinges on the old
ibiza had only one stop midway so it was hard to hold the door open partway without it either swinging out or swinging back and hitting you in the leg...
... new
ibiza = Fixed, the door by and large seemed to stay where you put it and had more "stops" on the hinges.
Old
Ibiza had NO boot light (blooming silly) - TICK bootlight present in new
Ibiza (as stated above)
Interior plastics on old
ibiza a little hard - interior seems uprated on new
ibiza.
THat was about it and in almost every way I was impressed with the new shape
Ibiza - more space than my old one (though according to Parkers it's actually similar in size though a bit longer wheelbase) and the boot is definitely a bit bigger. Getting into the rear of the 3 dr was quite easy and it had decent amounts of space inside.
Outside it looked very nice especially in the ice silver (very white silver) colour.
The only thing I could see that was worse was slightly more restricted diagonal rear vision because of wider pillars in the back - though the rear headrests (if present) sit further down so up down and general rear vision through the back window was actually better.
SO on to the test drive. Well I test drove the 5dr version and the first thing to get used to was having to put the clutch in to start the engine. Not sure whether that is a safety feature or something to do with the stop-start system fitted to them? Straight away I could tell the new little engine is far freer revving than my old 1.4 and very much more lively. First roundabout confirmed this and putting my foot down a bit to overtake on a dual carriageway the car just lifted it's skirts and went, no hesitation and no frustration like I get with my current car. In fact the acceleration was enough to actually give a slight push back into the seats, very impressive for a little 1.2 engine and I could tell this little car would simply be a hoot to drive.
What I liked about my
ibiza when I first bought it was it's "cocooning" feel, this isn't lost on the new version even though it's lost some weight to
help fuel economy and performance, it still feels solid and dependable
In all I like it very much, it's pretty much exactly how I'd have wanted my
ibiza to have been improved. And I will get one.... eventually.