Faults:

The usual water leaks into the footwells (solved by completely removing the rubber strip from the bottom of the affected doors, and cutting a small V out of the rubber strip on the actual door sills, so the water simply drains away).

Note that there is > 110,000 miles on the car.

The starter motor is beginning to stick occasionally upon engine ignition.

Typical thirst for engine oil that these engines have with higher mileage.

Unsurprisingly, there is some wear on the clutch. (the car has a towing hitch fitted...)

Some thumping noises over rough roads.

The previous owner had to replace the exhaust and fitted a spurious one, which makes the car a little noisy.

General Comments:

A solid, stylish car that handles well and has given me very few problems.

Comfortable driving position.

The 1.4 engine is a little underpowered, and can be quite fuel thirsty if worked hard or at higher motorway speeds.

Easier to back into a parking space than they say, as the back of the car is almost straight down from the rear window.

The boot space is quite small.

The rear seats are low - you really sit down into the car. The driver's seat could be difficult for a person with reduced mobility to exit easily.

I put wind-deflectors on the front electric windows so that I can leave the windows open a crack, to ease window misting in the mornings.

Faults:

Fuel filter sprung a leak just before regular maintenance at about 80000km.

Temperature sensor broke at about 90000km leaving the car impossible to start when engine was warm. Cold start was fine however.

Integrated stereo broke down at about 95000km, replaced with a regular non-integrated stereo.

A front wheel bearing broke at about 95000km (only days after the stereo broke...)

The shop claimed the front doors were about to fall off at maintenance about 100000km as the bolts were comming loose.

Immobilizer broke at about 105000km, car towed to the Seat shop where it sat for a month. Very expensive to fix (about €1300), the shop had to replace the instrument cluster to get it running again.

Exhaust pipe mounting velded as it was coming loose from the car at 113000km.

Car unable to start at 115000km due to an electrical relay malfunction. Towed to the shop again...

Plus some minor faults I experienced witch seemed to have self-repaired:

- Low coolant / overheat warning when starting the car in low temperatures (in 2005).

- Uneven acceleration in hot weather, engine seemed to loose power when accelerating in highway speed, no problem in constant speed. Hasn't felt it so far this year...

General Comments:

The car felt very solid and comfortable. The seats however proved to be a bit to hard for longer journeys.

Handling was good overall. It feels like a bigger car and handles quite well on curvy roads. Unfortunately it tends to under-steer a bit to much to be really sporty. It seems to be optimized for fast highway transport, nothing wrong with that if it wasn't for the seats...

The reliability however is crap. The car could feel like new one day and totally refuse to start the next day. The lack of warnings before the breakdowns left me with a feeling of uncertainty as to if the car would actually start each time I used it.

The Seat mechanics doesn't really seem to know what to do if something breaks down and the computer can't tell them what to replace. That however doesn't mean that they won't charge you for scratching their heads.

All in all, I feel like Seat has learned how to build cars that feel solid, unfortunately the feel is deceptive. It seems as though the electronics of the car is the area where they should really focus. Personally I will stay away from Seat and the rest of VAG in the foreseeable future.