2003 Seat Toledo SE from UK and Ireland - Comments

Climate control display failed.

Needles on dashboard failed to light (required whole replacement)

Armrest failed to lock in position.

The car is comfortable on long motorway drives.

The specification is very good (cruise control, climate control, alarm, full electrics) but does not have everything that my 4 year older Peugeot 406 had.

The handling is very good. The car is very grippy and can be thrown into corners without worry. If you push the car too hard then the traction control wakes up and settles things down for you.

Seat's standard Pirelli P6000 trres don't work well with this car, so replace them for anything else once they wear out after a measly 10,000 miles.

The VW TDi engine is fantastic (better then the newer PD model for several reasons) This model has the VVT turbocharger and thus you get surging boost with no lag at all right down from just above idle. The PD engines although quicker do not feel as powerful as you don't get as much boost so early on. The car is superb at motorway cruising, but equally as good in town traffic as it is able to pick up a reasonable pace from standstill very quickly with no effort.

The fuel economy is the best in its class. On long distance motorway driving I get 62-67mpg, and on daily commuting (50% motorway 50% town) I get 50-55mpg, and if I am misbehaving and putting my right foot down a lot I see mpg figures of 40-43mpg. Very very impressive.

Build quality could be better. I would say it just falls short of VW.

Overall the car is nice to drive, cheap to run (well fuel wise as dealer servicing is expensive) and comfortable. As long as the car stays reliable then It will be with me to about 125,000 miles.

Dealer service is poor.

Follow up on the review :-

Current mileage : 31,000.

No new problems yet (please please please stay reliable)

Still unresolved problems with the damage caused by the dealer.

The car is wearing in nicely, it is quite strange (although common) how the car becomes better with age up to an extent.

The drive is nice and smooth, the gearbox has a very soft 'clean' feel to it. The engine sounds nice (more wooosh then diesel rattle)

The fuel economy is down by about 5mpg over the winter months, but then this is to be expected due to winter grade fuel and cold starts. I do find the engine is very noisey at idle on cold starts, but it quickly quietens up, just not used to it as my old HDi peugeot was pretty much quiet all the time.

The steering was noisey when I got the car (which I was a little worried about, but this has quietened down a lot now, and I don't notice it anymore)

I find the ride is quite hard compare to other cars I have driven, but then again it has a very sporty handling and much more grip then my 406 did, you can't have both.

Quite surprising for only a 110bhp diesel it is great fun to floor the pedal in 2nd/3rd gear as it wooooshes off down the road. Slightly worrying is the fact that the car chucks out a cloud of grey smoke for the first second, although I am told this is common and can be cured by making some adjustments to the EGR valve timing by hooking the car up on a VAG-COM.

Controls are very well laid out, simple to use and well illuminated. The cruise control was a little awkward to get used to at first, but I use it all the time now and it is a godsend.

Although I have been quite critical (as I want to give a full and honest long term review of this car) I do actually really like the car and think I have got a bargain. There is no other German quality car at this spec for the money I paid (except maybe an Octavia) The car is a pleasure to own, hopefully I won't have many more problems with the car in the 125,000 miles I intend to do before I change it.

Good effort to Seat! just need to give your dealers a whipping! :)

42,000 mile update.

The air conditioning has recently failed bringing the total faults list up as follows :-

Instrument Cluster failed and replaced

Climate Control failed and replaced

Drivers door window switches failed and replaced 3 times

Arm-rest failed and replaced

Air Conditioning - awaiting repair

Rough Starting in cold - no resolved.

Not looking too good I am afraid and so after 42k miles I would like to change my response to "Would you buy another Seat" to NO.

50,000 mile update. MOT recently done. Just the tracking needed sorting out which was miles out.

Just also replaced the rear brake pads, they were not completely gone yet, but rather now then never. The discs looked to be in good condition still.

66,000 mile update :

Just had a big service, front discs and pads, timing belt and MOT all done recently.

The MOT was another easy pass (except for 2 indicator bulbs were not orange enough) But having all the above done cost over £600 in one go.

Still driving fine, infact I enjoy the car more now than when I first got it.

One BIG problem I have is that with heavy rain the car fills up with water.

I've had it leak checked at an independent vw garage and it is leaking through all 4 door ancillary panel seals and under the windscreen AND through the pollen filter housing AND through the cable gromit in the bulkhead : (

It will cost too much to pay someone to fix all those leaks, so I am going to have a go at sorting it out myself.

Do a search on the net for water leaking seat's and you will see this is a very common problem : (

80,000 mile update :-

I fixed all the leaks, except for the drivers door, which seems to keep on leaking no matter what I do.

Engine running fine. Clutch pedal is getting quite stiff now, so maybe a new clutch will be needed in a few thousand miles (which is surprising as I have always had the habit of setting off from idle, rather than revving in diesel cars)