10 Things I Love and Loathe about my Car

(Inspired by Ben Anderson)

The Seat Ibiza 1.4 TSI ACT FR Edition…a name that doesn’t roll straight off the tongue and also a car which isn’t regularly spoken about or even widely known about by even the most dedicated of petrol heads. The whole FR range of Seats is usually just seen as a mildly quick hatchback with nothing underneath to get excited about (engine and handling wise). But this may or may not change your mind about it just being nothing more than a badge.

I got the car literally just a year ago give or take 2-3 weeks to replace a old 1.6 Peugeot making this my first performance car (and not the last). It was a good introduction into the hot hatch segment but not perfect which will hopefully be explained in the blogpost but then again it has it’s charms and surprises which weren’t in the journalist reviews that I’ve found from living with it.

1) Love: It’s a sleeper

Ok sure it has parts of it which clearly show it’s not just a standard Ibiza such as the red callipers, sporty exhaust pipes, 17” titanium coloured alloys and grey wing mirrors (a favourite of Audi). But in a world where cars like the Vauxhall Corsa come with so much customisation, these touches don’t mean as much in the small car segment as they used to. For example anyone with a 1.2 n/a Corsa can have most of these touches added on. So to a lot of normal people and even petrol heads it could easily be mistaken for a ‘factory riced,’ 1.2 Ibiza. But it’s certainly isn’t.

You don't want to disturb a sleeper

2) Loathe: External sound

Sure it crackles a very small bit and starts up with a cheeky rasp but other than that it’s nothing special (video below).

Secondly the engine clicks like a cricket at idle and when your moving at any speed it just doesn’t make a special noise. Might sound harsh on a 1.4 4 pot Turbo and maybe it is, but the overwhelming external noise is just a slight fuzzy/fizzing noise.

(It does sound very good off the line though seen in the video below but make your own judgments on that. I know it’s a Cupra but it’s the exact same noise)

3) Love: It’s quick!

It’s supposedly only meant to do the 60mph sprint in 7.8 seconds which isn’t impressive in this day and age but I’ve clocked it doing it in more like 7 seconds. This might be down to the tyres I’ve put on or maybe I’m freakishly fast at changing gears. To do this launch isn’t very kind on the car either as it includes holding it at the biting point with the handbrake to prepare for the launch then using a bit of clutch slip to stop the wheels spinning off the line. (Mimicking a launch control of an auto car) but it works if you occasionally want to show up that Astra VXR or even that E46 M3 that CT so dearly loves, next to you at the lights.

However even a scientist would be confused at that final statement, so I will explain.

A E46 M3 can do the 60mph sprint in 5.1 seconds…but coming up is what pleasantly surprised me. As according to Seat it only has 138bhp and 250nm of torque but with a bit of research I found out that it’s more like 160hp and 280nm of torque (Revo Technik Dyno tested -> graphs below). This is more torque than the Fiesta ST, Clio RS and 208 GTI! And then looking further into the curves, look how early the full torque kicks in.

This to me explains why to 45 mph this car is a pocket rocket and beats full on naturally aspirated sports cars off the line. Because TORQUE CURVES BRO… and it weights only 1069kg (more like 1155 with me though #gains). Of course after 50mph the higher powered cars pull on me but I love glancing to the right/left and seeing the BMW drivers think I’ve got something very naughty under the hood.

There’s also the ‘tings,’ it makes when you turn it off or drive around town, gets a lot of looks when you park it up because of it and especially in the petrol stations as the hot metal gently cools down. People think it again must have something special under the hood because only sports cars really make that noise.

Brakes well too, I have access to the latest 2016 Jaguar XF which drives very well and stops just as good but the FR brake feel is perfect, you know the second you gain or lose grip through the pedal and where every car I’ve driven fast gets a very smelly brakes the Seat smells mighty fine.

Look at the grey line (not the remap)

Look at grey line (not the remap)

4) Loathe: No high rev power!

The above graphs again will back this up. This car feels like it has 250hp if the power builds at the same rate it does from 1500rpm to 3500rpm, until you get to the higher parts of the rev range and realise there’s nothing else to give. It’s very disappointing in that respect and you’ll end up driving it like a diesel. It also got me into a lot of trouble when learning how to take advantage of the power band on the first few weeks of ownership.

For a hot hatch this is not what you want, however this is just becoming an industry standard because if you drive these modern hot hatches with turbo’s they’re all the same. For example the Golf R feels like it has 500hp until you rev that 2.0 TSI to 4500rpm then your realise it really doesn’t.

However this can easily be fixed to some extent with a stage 1 remap, which although isn’t perfect will make it feel less like diesel power.

5 & 6) Love and Loathe: Oversteer

Lift off oversteer has a time and a place and very often the time and place is wrong but the Ibiza’s rear axle just wants to play! I love how adjustable this thing is around big roundabouts or some of the M25 exits but hit a bump round a bend of a country lane or a damp patch and you can get yourself in a world of shizzle. Luckily as a car guy I know the physics behind it and how to catch a slight fish tail but when it happens accidentally on the road it really can shake you up.

However, if your wide awake and concentrating you can use it to aid you to go faster and have some serious fun as it’s hugely ‘adjustable,’ in journalist speak. But even when you do a well executed piece of oversteer to everyone else, it’s explained best with the gif below.

This isn't drifting. It's losing control with style

7) Love: Running costs

60mpg is claimed thanks to the drip down of technology from Audi and Bentley in the form of the ACT engine. In the V8 VAG cars and even the V12 Lamborghini’s they have the ability to switch off half their cylinders. And the Ibiza has this, I’m not sure on how it’s engaged but at speeds under 80mph with small throttle inputs it runs on 2 cylinders. It should therefore be jumpy when running on 2 shouldn’t it? Well surprisingly it’s not, it’s very smooth and you can’t feel it from inside. The only time it can be annoying is when cruising through town you can hear the strange firing order reflecting off buildings which sounds like a old car on it’s final legs.

Of course it doesn’t reach 60mpg averages but more like 45-50mpg if you drive like a granny and it never drops below 30mpg average even on the hoon which is impressive. The servicing price is fixed, cheap to upgrade to a 5 year warranty, free tax for year one (£20 after that), low insurance group (they don’t know how fast it is), not in your face so people won’t vandalise it like they do on a Corsa VXR.

All these can only be a positive but to be honest for the first 6-8 months it was drinking petrol before the engine properly was broken in, which is to be expected in most cars but maybe not for that long.

8) Loathe: Reliability …

VAG = Unreliable right? Well possibly, but I haven’t had any engine troubles yet. However the electronics are another matter…next week it’s booked into the garage for a variety of problems. The coolant temp has never moved no matter how hard it’s pushed!

-Unreliable fan power up button
-Heating gets stuck on or freezing A/C gets stuck on which needs a restart to sort it out
-When phone plugged in the fm radio goes fuzzy
-Fan speed increases and decreases every 2 seconds.

Now I’m sure these are all related and it’s probably a miss wiring or a dodgy resistor but it’s a bit worrying.

Also oil! It drinks oil like a rotary, it’s not a huge problem since I always check my oil out of habit from having a Peugeot and also it’s a known side effect of having a TSI engine by VAG so it’s not too annoying especially as Seat throw in a bottle of oil with every service. And it’s still not as bad as what people have said about the twin charged Cupra on the forums.

9) Love: Holds it value and can be bought with a huge discount

This is a £17000 rrp car and I managed to get it down to just under £13000. (Probably because of the interior upgrade which was about to come out with the new Apple Car Play and the Android equivalent media system). But that’s a bargain especially when you consider right now on the market used ones with 20k on the clock are selling for around £12000, I could even have made myself a cheeky profit if I sold it right after buying it, that’s just how much I got off it.

This might be an isolated price but it just goes to show if your motivated enough and play your cards close to your chest and right then you can still get an absolute bargain!

10) Love and Loathe: Chassis

I loathe it in that it’s unrefined, flexes, clatters over speed bumps and feels like the wheel has fallen off in potholes all which make the daily commute harder than it really should be and can be scary if you don’t see a collection of rolls/bumps in the road on a corner. It also torque steers like a b** and tramlines like well a tram…

But I love it because it’s well sorted on the bends despite these as on quick corners I catch E46 330’s (Happened today for example…sorry CT) and my mates Fiesta ST. I feel that journalists haven’t explained the talents of this car fairly and have been blinded by the hard suspension, this is a very sorted chassis and gives huge inspiration. It’s not as fun as a Fiesta ST but it’s much much faster in the corners. And the flexes can be fixed by a rear anti roll bar which has been been described as a game changer as well as some good quality coilovers.

It’s a throw back to the old hot hatches such as the 205 GTI (which is one of the best hot hatches of all time according to many petrol heads). The Ibiza c*cks a wheel, oversteers, hasn’t got too much power, sleeper looks and has electrical problems which are all characteristics of the 80s hatches, just a shame the hot hatch crowd and motoring journalists seem to be forgetting about the good old days.

Overall you will see from this blogpost that this thing is a very surprising car with talents all around the place. Sure it has small problems keeping it from being the very best in the class but this makes the car better, it’s a throwback to the old hot hatches and it shouldn’t be messed with.

I will leave you with a short clip from Car Throttle Turbo.

Also guys make your own blogposts on 10 things you love and loathe of your car, will be hugely interesting!