This month, my parents went on holiday and left me – and my Seat Ibiza long-termer – responsible for walking their dog.
It was a prospect that did not fill me altogether with joy as Glyn the cavapoo – despite being an all-around good bloke – has one major personality flaw, namely an ability to chew through all plastics in ten seconds flat. I was therefore a little apprehensive about what destruction he would cause when let loose in the back of my little Seat.
However, I am delighted to report that the Ibiza has stood up fantastically to trial by canine. The most damage that the furry menace has managed to inflict on the car’s interior has been a few slightly stubborn muddy pawprints, which were eventually removed with an £18 trip to the local car cleaners. It turns out that the Ibiza is built of stern stuff and its plastics and soft furnishings have been more than a match for an excitable pooch on his way to his favourite playing field.
With the parcel shelf removed, the boot itself has also provided more than enough room for Glyn to stretch out and enjoy himself in comfort, even with a few footballs and general detritus for company. In fact, you could probably fit another dog in there with him and still not have too many concerns about space. Sure, if you’re a great Dane owner then I wouldn’t be chopping in the Range Rover any time soon, but for most small and medium-sized pets, then the Ibiza is more than passable.
I write this, not to bore you all with my fairly mundane tales of walking a dog around an inner city patch of grass, but to demonstrate the Ibiza’s status as a genuinely good all-rounder. On a separate occasion this month, its boot also swallowed up two large suitcases during a trip to pick up my partner and sister-in-law from Gatwick Airport at an ungodly hour of the morning.
That trip, which consisted of a good mix of winding country roads and wide, mostly empty motorways, also highlighted the Ibiza’s main strength – its fantastic drive. On the narrow roads, it felt agile, nippy and responsive. When the highways opened up, it became smooth, comfortable and relaxing. I began my last long-term report by asking whether the Ibiza could step up and replace the recently deceased Ford Fiesta as the best car in this sector and in this area, it certainly runs the old favourite close.
Away from a world where carmakers very kindly drop vehicles at my front door free of charge, I do actually own a Fiesta ST line with my other half and perhaps its biggest strength is it is genuinely fun to drive. After just over two months of living with the Ibiza I honestly think it comes impressively close on the driving front but unfortunately in a few other areas, it still continues to fall short.
I wrote last time about a series of small annoyances which were slightly hampering my experiences of living with the Ibiza and I’m afraid to say that in the weeks since, a few more have reared their ugly head. The biggest issue, which is driving me slightly insane, is the erratic nature of the Seat’s onboard screen and infotainment system. I would say that the car’s onboard computer has a mind of its own but that would imply some level of thought and/or intelligence.
There have been times in the past month when I have wondered if the Ibiza actually has computers at all or whether the devices are actually being controlled by a tiny five-year-old living behind the dashboard. Selecting Apple CarPlay on the car’s touchscreen is a particularly risky game. When trying to do this, you have one of three options. 1: You get your CarPlay as desired. Brilliant. 2: Nothing happens at all and you are left to keep pressing the icon until it sparks into life and gives you what you want. Annoying but not the end of the world. 3: The screen completely blacks out.
The final scenario, which has happened on several occasions now, is enough to leave you pulling your hair out. What happens is whatever was already playing on the radio continues to blare from the speakers but the screen itself becomes completely disabled. Black. Nothing there. The only way to reboot the screen is to switch the engine off and restart the car – which is less than ideal when you’re doing 70mph on the M3!
This happened to me over the summer, as I was listening to England’s cricketers playing against the West Indies on the radio. With the game in something of a lull, I decided to switch to a podcast only to be greeted by the dreaded dark screen. This experience at least gave me the chance to think of how the West Indian side was providing me with a lovely metaphor to end this report on, so here goes….
For large spells of the game, the West Indians were very good and made me think they could be something special. Then, just as you start to believe in them, a batsman would get out doing something utterly avoidable and the whole thing would fall apart.
It’s the same story with the Ibiza. It has all the ingredients to be a genuinely brilliant little all-rounder (cricket pun very much intentional) but it just seems unable to put it all together. I would love nothing more than for the little annoyances to fade away, as the car really could be brilliant, but for the moment I just can’t shake the feeling that something is about to go wrong!
- Price as tested: £25,470
- Engine: 1.0 TSI
- Power: 115bhp
- Torque: 200Nm
- 0-60mph: 9.9 seconds
- Top speed: 123mph
- Fuel economy: 48.7-51.4mpg
- Emissions: 128g/km CO2
- Mileage: 1,334 miles
