Seat cars - reliable?

Tazni

I do both motorway driving and city driving... as well as country roads occasionally

Tobster86

It sounds like (and I'm not implying that you've done it) your Fiat has been ragged when cold and missed oil changes. I have a colleague who upgraded to a new Punto from an old Ibiza and prefers it. When it comes to little cars I'm pretty indifferent.

Whatever you get, make sure it's in good condition and well serviced; and keep it that way.

NickTay

Seat make decent cars for sure, but they do not match up the reliability of Skoda or VW.

Seat have however made leaps and bounds in manufacturing more fuel efficient vehicles, in particular the Leon Ecomotive which will help you save on fuel. I believe it's also exempt from London Congestion charge due to the low CO2 emissions.

redux

whatmichaelsays wrote: »

Now, if you're the sort of person who drives into congested city centres every rush hour, that's not completely horrific.

With that sort of driving, a diesel isn't going to save money in the long run - particularly if the car never really warms up.

A petrol engine has to be run a bit rich until it warms up, hence the use of a choke in the days before the advent of fuel injection systems

This doesn't apply to a diesel.

So perhaps those short trips might move the balance towards diesel, not away from it.

jase1

NickTay wrote: »

Seat make decent cars for sure, but they do not match up the reliability of Skoda or VW.

Seat have however made leaps and bounds in manufacturing more fuel efficient vehicles, in particular the Leon Ecomotive which will help you save on fuel. I believe it's also exempt from London Congestion charge due to the low CO2 emissions.

How can that be though when they are the same vehicles?

A lot of VWs are even made in the Seat factory.

Build quality at Skoda is better than Seat's, for sure.

AlexisV

NickTay wrote: »

Seat make decent cars for sure, but they do not match up the reliability of Skoda or VW.

Depends on the model really. The Mk1 Leon is very good, and VW Polos tend to be awful in my experience!

Tazni

To be honest once I've moved house my trips will be limited to short trips apart from the occasional longer trip... So it's just hard trying to decide which car to get

atrixblue.-MFR-.

the more i read you description of your cars faults the more i think theres a mechanical problem with it.

high fuel and oil consuption can be a number of things but my suspicions are that this car has not been broken in properly from new, not allowed to warm up to temp, the "automatic choke" would habe been on on your short trips and in this case i suspect that youve borewashed the cylinder linings, and now the piston rings have have scraped the cyclinder walls allowing fuel and oils to pass into the conbustion chanber, hence why your car eating oil and fuel and failing MOT emmisions.

mvteng

Wifes currently got a Seat Altea, & before that had an Ibiza for 4 years.

Both bought new. No major issues whatsoever on either car. Odd little problems here & there that were covered under warranty, but absolutely nothing major.

Before that we had 2 skoda fabias (again from new).

What I would say, is that the quality of the plastics / cabins, is a lot better in the skoda than the Seat.

But in summary, Seat & Skoda both good