2005 Seat Ibiza Cupra from UK and Ireland - Comments

The only minor fault I've had is condensation inside one of the front headlights. This is a known manufacturers fault, and is very common. It only happened for a short period during the winter, and has now completely dried out.

The car is seriously underrated as a performance car. It's supposed to have 160bhp, but every report I've seen of rolling-road tests show at least 180bhp. This equates to the petrol Cupra equivalent.

It's biggest trump card is the enormous low to mid-range torque (330Nm) which gives tremendous overtaking ability.

Furthermore there are countless tuning companies offering ECU chips or upgrades to dramatically increase power even more.

The braking ability is amazing, having huge front discs with 4-pot calipers, usually found only on motor sport cars.

On the downside, cabin interior is very dark and looks like a basic model (apart from the leather steering wheel and red stitching).

The other annoyance for true sports car fans is of course the diesel rattle when stationary.

I agree. The PD160 is a real hot hatch. It does sound like a tractor, but it is so quick midrange. My 160 now has a revo remap, and now will pull and pull to the redline. It's an amazing little car, although does eat its front tyres extremely quickly :)

It's a diesel, slow pace.

And slow dealers.

Yeah, a diesel with more power and torque than most boy-racer mobiles. With a 0-60 time of 7.6 seconds (as quoted by most official reviews) I would buy one if I could afford one, but for now I'll have to live with my 309 GLD, a diesel from the slow era!

Seat dealers and so called customer services are from a slower era.

I just bought an ibiza cupra in black.

I've had it 3 days and I've nearly killed myself 14 times.. This marks the end of my mates scoffing at me for desiring a diesel sports car sooo bad. It takes my mates 306 gti6 to the cleaners, and with more torque than a nissan x-trail, but less body weight than an almera the kick from 40 to 70 is enough to leave the big hot hatch boys wiping the diesel fumes off their windscreens. Combine this with 45 mpg and while we cupra boys are still ripping up the motorways the petrol powered ponces are pratting about at the petrol stations!

I am the happiest person in the world! HOY!

R*

Lucky sod!

Will be lucky if its ever out of the shoddy dealers being fixed, or is that returned with all faults.

I am considering buying an Ibiza cupra TDI and was wondering whether it is worth buying one brand new or second hand. I here that the engines on the diesels perform more efficiently once run in, is this true? In addition, could someone comment on the engine noise when various gears are held to a high rev count? Thanks.

I've had a cupra tdi for 9 months. Swifter than all, but the super hot hatches and capable of giving almost anything a good scare at motorway speed, yet still manages 45-50mpg.

The car decided it wanted serviced at 6000mls which was a concern, but as the dealer couldn't see exactly why, they did it for free. No probs since.

So personally I've never had any trouble with SEAT and found them pretty helpful, my girlfriend also has a SEAT and that had some minor ecu problems, but these were also fixed quickly.

I drove the petrol engined version of this car recently, and felt the diesel engine would be the better option. The petrol engine does not have the pulling power of the diesel, nor does it have the revving ability of a naturally aspirated hot hatch. It also sounds boring.

The handling was poor and brakes were excellent. Overall, it was not satisfying to drive, and the interior was not good even compared to a Skoda.

They could have done so much better than this car.

To the person who keeps mentioning naff dealers etc... Well don't go to a dealer. My advice is find to a good local specialist. I did for my Ibiza Cupra and my current car. I changed my Cupra for a Cordoba 130 SE only because I wanted a big boot, although I do like the smaller bhp engine because it has virtually instant pick up, my Cupra had a bit of lag. I think they are great value for money and although can feel cheap inside are well put together and offer fantastic grin factor.

It's alright going to a specialist once the car is out of warranty, but unless you want to pay for work that should be covered under the warranty, you're forced to use the dealers. And that goes for all cars.

I'm currently considering getting a Seat Ibiza, but all this talk of poor dealers is pushing me towards getting a Fabia VRS instead.

Skoda dealers are well up the customer satisfaction survey, looks like seat dealers show no intrest to repair cars in warranty, especially if the car was not purchased off them, seat uk have said they can be teretorial!! and there product is cheap so there will be problems with the cars.

As long as the specialist uses genuine Seat parts and services per schedule your car is covered under the warranty. That has all changed quite recently. Personally I don't think Skoda dealers are any better than Seat. If you must use a Seat dealer it is quite easy to find the good from bad, just log on to the Seat forums if you can and there's a wealth of info there.