Our long-term Seat Ibiza is finally putting the little foibles to one side to become the dependable favourite it should be.
Good news for fans of bad trousers, pringle jumpers and freemasonry – this month, for the first time in my adult life, I played a round of golf.
Yes, that’s right, after years of mocking the game which famously ruins a good walk, I decided to give it a go and see what all the fuss is about. So, having learnt all the correct lingo, I promptly crammed a set of borrowed bats into the back of my Seat Ibiza and headed off to the local golf track with dreams of being the next Happy Gilmore floating around in my head.
Unfortunately, as it turned out, Happy was correct at the start of the film. Golf is a stupid game. It’s also really hard and I spent most of my afternoon slashing around bits of forest trying to locate the ball which I’d inevitably sprayed well away from where I was aiming.
However, the afternoon did at least give me my first (and probably last) opportunity to fulfil the road testers’ favourite cliche of reviewing a car’s boot space according to how well it can swallow up a set of golf clubs. In the Ibiza, the 355-litre boot was more than adequate for this beginner’s equipment, which lay down flat in the back with just enough space for another set to lay alongside. Getting them in there though was a little bit more of an issue. Due to the shape of the Ibiza’s boot opening, which bends a fair way inside the rear lights, the bag did require a fair bit of manoeuvring in order to squeeze in the gap. There also was no space for the clever trolley contraption that my playing partner had taken to push his equipment around, so that was consigned to the back seat.
Anyway, why am I dedicating so much time to this car review to tell you about my trip to play golf? Well, in honesty, it’s because life with the Ibiza has become rather boring in the last month. And while that may sound like a negative, I can assure you it is meant as very high praise indeed.
Let me explain. Last month, I wrote about the Ibiza’s moronic infotainment system which spent the majority of summer either ignoring what I asked of it or just shutting down completely. The month before that I complained about the endless bonging the car subjected me to on every journey. This month, for the first time since taking delivery of the Ibiza in July, I have no new complaints about living with it.
In my last report, I compared the car’s infotainment system to a disobedient four-year-old, never listening to basic commands. Well if that was the case then, now it has become a much more reliable middle-aged man. The kind who wears slippers and is called something dependable, like Martin or John. Looking back now, I would guess that the unreliability of the car’s computers was down to a touch of overheating in the hot summer sun, causing it to have an incredibly annoying funny spell – much like your mother on an all-inclusive trip to Benidorm. Now the weather has turned to its more familiar grey dreariness, the system has worked flawlessly. Yes, the car may be called the ‘Ibiza’ but I certainly wouldn’t recommend buying one if you’re planning on moving to the Balearic Island itself.
I’ve also got used to the bonging, which caused so much annoyance at first. Yes, it is less than ideal that all of the systems reset themselves whenever you switch the engine off but in practice setting the car to your own preferences just becomes part of your routine before beginning your journey.
With those issues put to one side, it’s given me the chance to enjoy the Ibiza for what it is, which is a genuinely fun little car to drive. Back to my trip to the golf course, and the journey involved driving down some fairly tight winding roads. After slipping the car into sport mode I noticed with some pleasure that my passenger – whose enormous ego just about squeezed into the Ibiza’s passenger seat after he won at golf – was not enjoying my ‘enthusiastic’ approach to driving. From my point of view, it was the most fun I’d had all day. The Ibiza stuck to the roads, zipped round corners and felt as responsive as I’ve come to expect over the last few months.
I’m now hoping that the teething troubles which hampered my early months with the Ibiza are a thing of the past and my biggest worry is what I’m going to write about next month if the car continues to deliver as it has done of late. Who knows, maybe I’ll hit another one of those road-test cliches. Trip to the tip anyone?
Facts at a glance
- Price as tested: £25,470
- Engine: 1.0 TSI
- Power: 115bhp
- Torque: 200Nm
- 0-60mph: 9.9 seconds
- Top speed: 123mph
- Fuel economy: 48.7-51.4mpg
- Emissions: 128g/km CO2
- Mileage: 1,830 miles
By Jack Williams