Hi,

 

I currently drive a SEAT Ibiza FR 1.2TSI (2013). My work commute is around 12 miles daily in total on purely A roads with heavy stop-start traffic.

 

My FR is suffering currently. I'm trying my best to drive economically and by the time I pull up to work, or on to the drive at home, the trip computer is showing a journey average usually of around 30-33mpg (and I bet that's being optimistic!). The reason it's so bad is I literally sit in a queue of traffic for half an hour so I'm watching the trip computer MPG display slowly go down!

 

I've been researching the Citigo/Mii/UP! recently and went to test drive a Citigo at the weekend. I was impressed!

The model I drove was a 2014 Citigo Elegance Greentech. I found it very refined, very low road noise and like a 'home from home' compared to my FR as it included the PID, leather steering wheel etc.

 

In my FR i usually get about 250-300 miles out of a full tank of fuel unless we go on a long trip in it (very rare as we also have a Mini Countryman Cooper D. The FR is literally just being used for my commute)

 

I'd like to downgrade but not sure I'm doing the right thing. I guess I just need a bit of reassurance. I absolutely love my FR for its looks and 'poke' but the fuel consumption is really getting to me.

 

Skoda reckoned I'm in negative equity at the moment (18 months into a 42 month PCP 'Solutions' deal) so the best they could offer was £180 for an Elegance Greentech (I pay £188 for my Ibiza FR with Xenon lights & 17" alloy upgrade, 10k miles) or £148 for an SE with a £500 deposit from me.

 

I'm tempted to go and look at the Mii but the Ecomotive is the only model that comes with Start-Stop (which I think i REALLY need) and you don't get a PID or any nice extras such as a leather steering wheel or alloy wheels. Overall I think the Mii comes out a little cheaper than the Citigo and I'm hoping SEAT may give me a little more for my car, or at least pay off the full settlement amount.

 

I'm looking forward to your thoughts , be nice - it's my first post and I'm confused! 

Edited 14 January, 201511 yr by 13TSI

If you are spending plenty of times in the car, I would recommend specifying the upgraded speaker option. If cost is a key reason for buying, the Citigo is one of the lowest running cost cars on the market.

I'd also second the sound pack. I'd also try another dealer some on the deals people have mentioned on here have shown that there can be huge differences on price between dealers. 

 

My old commute was 20miles quiet dual carriage way and I got 55+mpg. Now its a 2 mile hop and the engine never gets warm but I still get mid to high 40s mpg. That equates to about 365 miles ish from  35litres.

 

What I would say you aren't going to save much a month on the cost of the car, maybe £10-20pm. Work out how much you'd save on fuel. It may be better for you keeping the Ibiza until you have paid more of it off, maybe another 6 months or so and then looking to change. Then you should be able to get an elegance for £130ish p/m.

This is something similar to my own experience. I traded in a Mk2 vRS early (18 months in) and was broadly in negative equity. However, I struck a deal where payments came down by £80+ per month, and a £250 deposit was waived as there was an incentive mail-out for the same amount I had never used which they took as the deposit.

 

In all honesty, I've never looked back, even while dropping over 100bhp in the process. I save nearly £100 in petrol each month. The sport model came with everything I need (PID, speaker upgrade etc) and everything I want (smart sporty cabin and looks (love the front splitter), red trimmed wheel etc). My commute is about 18 miles each way, mostly fast A roads, and the Citigo is plenty enough car to deal with this. It makes up for its lack of grunt and outright speed with bang-on handling and agility, and for every time a more powerful car leaves me for dust there is a gap that I can get through easily where bigger cars are forced to wait. Did I also mention how the snappy gear-change is an absolute dream?

 

Regarding longer journeys; I've taken it over to Wales a couple of times now on 3 hour plus journeys and don't feel fatigued in any way. Certainly no more than you'd expect from a hot hatch (not sure what the suspension set-up on the FR is like, but the vRS was a fairly "sporty" ride. On longer journeys I enjoy watching the MPG readout on the PID hitting low 70s!

Just to give you an impression re "downsizing" I went from a Skoda Superb 3.6 V6 DSG to a Citigo Elegance 75 start/stop and it's been far less of a drop than I feared. In some areas it outperforms much 'bigger' cars. It is quiet, nippy, with great steering and the seats are really comfy.  With its generous standard specification and some well chosen options you'll get all the toys you need - leather wheel, cruise, aircon, PID, bluetooth etc etc.

I get well into the mid 60mpgs - never below 55mpg around town and easily over 400 miles per tank so financially (compared to the Ibiza) when you consider fuel, road tax and insurance, the Citigo is hard to beat.

much the same I traded in my Polo GT PD130. the polo was remapped to 175bhp so ive dropped a lot of power, but in all honesty the citigo gets to 60-70 quick enough and has enough power to overtake without feeling like its struggling. the extra power on the polo was nice but not really needed in the real world imho.

 

insurance is £100 cheaper for me and I save £145 in tax + the citigo is only a year old so a lot less in theory is likely to go wrong the polo by contrast at 10 years old was starting to show its age, seized rear callipers, power steering issues and some rust on one of the wings. 

 

sad to see the polo go, as I think you might be with the FR but all in the citigo is a good solid little car that should serve well, so no regrets from me.

 

 

This is something similar to my own experience. I traded in a Mk2 vRS early (18 months in) and was broadly in negative equity. However, I struck a deal where payments came down by £80+ per month, and a £250 deposit was waived as there was an incentive mail-out for the same amount I had never used which they took as the deposit.

 

In all honesty, I've never looked back, even while dropping over 100bhp in the process. I save nearly £100 in petrol each month. The sport model came with everything I need (PID, speaker upgrade etc) and everything I want (smart sporty cabin and looks (love the front splitter), red trimmed wheel etc). My commute is about 18 miles each way, mostly fast A roads, and the Citigo is plenty enough car to deal with this. It makes up for its lack of grunt and outright speed with bang-on handling and agility, and for every time a more powerful car leaves me for dust there is a gap that I can get through easily where bigger cars are forced to wait. Did I also mention how the snappy gear-change is an absolute dream?

 

Regarding longer journeys; I've taken it over to Wales a couple of times now on 3 hour plus journeys and don't feel fatigued in any way. Certainly no more than you'd expect from a hot hatch (not sure what the suspension set-up on the FR is like, but the vRS was a fairly "sporty" ride. On longer journeys I enjoy watching the MPG readout on the PID hitting low 70s!

If you get the Citigo you can always do a few bits to make it feel "special" to you but I downsized purely for economy reasons. I don't think you'd regret the car but think about what it costs you. Never looked back although I had a big deposit and only a couple of grand to put to the car, depends on your own finances but you will certainly put a dent in your fuel bill.

I reckon if I need to do any extra long journeys then the money I save on fuel will pay rental on a nice motorway cruiser for a weekend trip anyway. Good luck whatever you decide. 

Hi,

 

I currently drive a SEAT Ibiza FR 1.2TSI (2013). My work commute is around 12 miles daily in total on purely A roads with heavy stop-start traffic.

 

My FR is suffering currently. I'm trying my best to drive economically and by the time I pull up to work, or on to the drive at home, the trip computer is showing a journey average usually of around 30-33mpg (and I bet that's being optimistic!). The reason it's so bad is I literally sit in a queue of traffic for half an hour so I'm watching the trip computer MPG display slowly go down!

 

I've been researching the Citigo/Mii/UP! recently and went to test drive a Citigo at the weekend. I was impressed!

The model I drove was a 2014 Citigo Elegance Greentech. I found it very refined, very low road noise and like a 'home from home' compared to my FR as it included the PID, leather steering wheel etc.

 

In my FR i usually get about 250-300 miles out of a full tank of fuel unless we go on a long trip in it (very rare as we also have a Mini Countryman Cooper D. The FR is literally just being used for my commute)

 

I'd like to downgrade but not sure I'm doing the right thing. I guess I just need a bit of reassurance. I absolutely love my FR for its looks and 'poke' but the fuel consumption is really getting to me.

 

Skoda reckoned I'm in negative equity at the moment (18 months into a 42 month PCP 'Solutions' deal) so the best they could offer was £180 for an Elegance Greentech (I pay £188 for my Ibiza FR with Xenon lights & 17" alloy upgrade, 10k miles) or £148 for an SE with a £500 deposit from me.

 

I'm tempted to go and look at the Mii but the Ecomotive is the only model that comes with Start-Stop (which I think i REALLY need) and you don't get a PID or any nice extras such as a leather steering wheel or alloy wheels. Overall I think the Mii comes out a little cheaper than the Citigo and I'm hoping SEAT may give me a little more for my car, or at least pay off the full settlement amount.

 

I'm looking forward to your thoughts , be nice - it's my first post and I'm confused! 

Go for it! I borrow my wifes Mii Sport as often as she'll let me as it's such fun to drive. My Yeti has become a weekend car.

I know there's no sense in this (as they are all the same basic car) but my wife test drove the Up!,Citigo and the Mii. She didn't like the VW or the Skoda (we also own a Yeti so it wasn't badge snobbery) but as soon a she drove the Mii she was hooked!

 

Fred

Fred

I think this would one of those `sit down and work it out` issues! in reality the Citigo will probably achieve 10 to 15mpg more, if you want to change your car, fine, but I don`t think it will be worth doing to save so little money? Without a doubt the Citigo is a cracking little car, mine does a daily commute of 80 miles and currently averaging 55 mpg ( real life not pid ) which is about 10mpg less than it did in the summer.

Depreciation is the biggest cost of running any `new ish` car and not always felt in the pocket until you change cars, whereas putting petrol in the tank always hurts a little more! so my advice would be to hang on for a while!

I traded my fiat panda 1.2 pop for my Citigo SE. I was 1 year into a 3 year pcp. I wad about £900 in negative equity. The Citigo feels so much better quality, the engine in brilliant and goes really well and better than it as ought to on paper. Mpg is much better, more comfortable and the future value is better. I have another pcp at zero percent and I negotiated 460 of the car using carwow site add a comparison. Go for it.

I traded my fiat panda 1.2 pop for my Citigo SE. I was 1 year into a 3 year pcp. I wad about £900 in negative equity. The Citigo feels so much better quality, the engine in brilliant and goes really well and better than it as ought to on paper. Mpg is much better, more comfortable and the future value is better. I have another pcp at zero percent and I negotiated 460 of the car using carwow site add a comparison. Go for it.

Thanks everybody for your replies. All very valid and valued opinions!

Bigredbus, do you mind me asking how much you pay per month (as well as everyone else!) Skoda have quoted me £166pm for an Elegance Greenline on 0% pcp with £500 deposit whilst paying off my existing 'negative' pcp on the FR.

On another note. Here is the PID readout for my commute home this evening:

I was able to carry over my negative equity plus £460 off the SE. I financed £10500 at 0% over 41 months - £139.

 

Plus I got 3 years free servicing and they wash my car once a month.

Edited 16 January, 201511 yr by Bigredbus4468

Plus i put in £200.