2005 Seat Cordoba SE 130 review from UK and Ireland

None to date.

This is the first diesel I've owned in nearly 28 years driving, and definitely won't be the last.

The acceleration and overall speed of the Cordoba 130 is unreal.

My mate at work drives a 3 year old ford focus 2 litre, and always trails behind me on the way home from work (on the motorway) unless I let him pass of course!

The cabin of the Cordoba is very solid and welcoming with a storage compartment in front of the driver and also a slide out tray under the drivers seat.

The six speed gearbox is slick and smooth with loads of torque, and your average motorway speed feels as if the engine is just ticking over.

Being a Ford driver for a number of years, I can't tell you how refreshing it is to drive at night with the Cordoba's glorious RED instrument panel lighting, compared to fords boring green.

As with all cars there are always some niggles, and even on the Cordoba there are a couple.

The first being that, the sun visor seems to be a bit small and when faced with full sunshine directly in front, I find myself having to stretch to compensate so that the visor can do it's job properly.

This is probably just a case of not having my drivers chair backrest upright enough or maybe I'm just not tall enough.

The only other so called niggle would be the vision from the rear window.

The Cordoba has a similar shape to the Alfa 156, and due to its high waistline, reversing can be a bit tricky, especially if your last 3 cars have been hatchbacks, like mine have!

SEAT claim an average of 54 mpg for the Cordoba tdi se 130 and that seems about right to me, once you get onto the motorways.