Hi there,

Has anyone driven or owned the Seat? Obviously there a lot of common parts with the Fabia. How does it compare? Not sure what sort of deals are available on a 5 dr TDi 130.

All the best.

Martin.

Briefly the Ibiza is generally cheaper and has a better spec but the Fabia has a better quality interior.

Briefly the Ibiza is generally cheaper and has a better spec but the Fabia has a better quality interior.

Isnt the Insurance group higher too?

I found after driving one the quality of the plastics seemed cheap compared to the fabia. Fabia has a higher insurance rating 9 to 7. Suspension seemed stiffer. Performance nothing in it.

I've (Well our Household) Got both..............

The Ibiza is the Sport Version, It seems a lot pokier than the Fab, probably due to it having done 45K miles compared to the Fab's 10K! The driving postion is awful in the Ibiza........the seat will not go as low as the Fab and it gives me back ache! IMHO the Fab has a nigh on perfect driving postion!

The Interior in the Ibiza is a lot more plasticky, don't like the red illumination and the stereo controls are more fiddly, plus all the fuel and temp guages run in the opposite direction:confused: On the plus side it does have an oil temp gauge and voltmeter too, quite cool! Cup holder also as Std on the Ibiza!!!

The Seats in the Fab hold you better than the Ibiza's also!

The Ibiza does have full climate control which is miles better than the rubbish that is fitted in the Fab! It clears the windscreen alot faster!

I like the cool boot release in the "S" embelem on the ibiza and a proper grab handle inside the boot instead of a cheap piece of nylon rope on the Fab!!!!!

On our '03 Ibiza there is no "Flip Key" either and so no remote boot release, dunno if you get a "Flip Key" on the newer cars??????

Also the Ibiza wing mirrors are a bit crap! They are an odd shape and coming from the Fab to the Ibiza they miss out on lots of visability!!!!

Driving/Handling wise The Ibiza is alot more sure footed in the wet than the Fab! That maybe down to the Ibiza having Eagle F1 front boots and the Fab having crappy std Bridgestones!!!! Once I get my summer wheels on the Fab with Eagle F1's fitted I'll know more!!!!!

Looking at Seat UK's Website it seems that the Current Ibiza Sport TDi is

Myself and a mate drove the Fabia vRS and the Ibiza FR back to back. I went for the vRS, he went for the Ibiza. The Ibiza costs about £700 more as 3dr (or about 1.2k as 5 door) but has better headline spec - climatronic and side airbags. The Ibiza misses out on a few of the vRS fripperies like the flip out key with the remote boot release and apparently has no heated mirrors according to my mate. The prefer the Fabia interior - bits of the Ibiza use cheap plastics - check out the door cards. I find the Fabia seats much more comfortable too.

They are very similar to drive, but the Ibiza has much harder suspension. The Ibiza rolls less and gives slightly better feedback when pushing on but I couldn't really live with the ride quality and road noise day to day. The windowline is higher on the Ibiza and the door mirrors are pretty useless.

Deals? When I went shopping in March/April the Seat dealers locally were more prepared to discount, typically £500-600. Skoda initially wouldn't budge but I haggled a lot to get free metallic and a couple of hundred quid increase on my trade in. This was before the Autofinders deals were around.

Anything else - the Ibiza FR is an insurance group lower. Go figure...

no contest IMO...having owned an Ibiza TDi130 Sport back in 2002 (before the VRs came out:( ) the Fabia is a much better car in so many respects....much better seats, far far better build quality/choice of plastics, nicer looking (obv personal thing), ride quality/comfort, better quality/finish of alloy wheels & also dealer service...the Seat does have a couple of things already mentioned like cupholder, climate control, & additional dials but im not sure how much these actually matter to most people??..also i found the stereo to be quite fiddly day2day...the worst thing for me and the main reason that i got rid of it was the ride..perhaps the muppets on the production line didnt see fit to put suspension on my car because thats how it felt!...absolutely terrible:thumbdwn:

If the VRs had been out @ the time when i purchased the Ibiza then i would already be driving a Skoda:) ...recommend driving both though as you may disagree;)

umm, the skoda lost out for me as it had 2 too many doors to start off with and i just could'nt put up with the light interior. What also annoyed me on the skoda was there seem to be a few bits missing. Why are the door handles not colour coded, cheapens the look, why do they not come with climate as standard, and why oh why did they never put a black in fill between the front and rear windows

I am pretty sure the FR comes with a lower ratio gearbox than the VRS too, think the VRS has the old ibiza sport one,

Interior wise i would say the ibiza is no more plasticy than the Skoda, i know my uncles fabia has had a lot more items of trim replaced than my previous Ibiza, you can see the audi roots in the SEAT and the VW roots in the Skoda in design.

although i would have to say the facelifted ibiza FR Tdi is just as mean looking as the VRS and comes with even more standard kit tha the VRS.

I was initially torn between the vRS and the FR. The thing I can't get out of my head though, is the FR reminds me of my 1989 G Reg Fiesta 1.6S. It just looks so dated. :(

I was initially torn between the vRS and the FR. The thing I can't get out of my head though, is the FR reminds me of my 1989 G Reg Fiesta 1.6S. It just looks so dated.[/i'] :(

What car car of the year 2003 and What car super mini group winer for 3 years in a row. Each tim priased for its cutting edge and modern shape. Some what contradicting of your opinions really.

Top gear left it at the best looking small hatch of the VAG group. oh well

What car car of the year 2003 and What car super mini group winer for 3 years in a row. Each tim priased for its cutting edge and modern shape. Some what contradicting of your opinions really.

Top gear left it at the best looking small hatch of the VAG group. oh well

I think I related it to a Fiesta shape because......well, IMHO its not a million miles from a Fiesta shape. As for 'cutting edge' and 'modern shape', I personally wouldn't say it makes inroads into futuristic design. The Audi TT and Ford KA are both good examples of cars which did that.

If that's contradicting the opinions of a couple of Car Mags..........oh well.

I'm not that keen on the look of the beeza. I can think of many words to describe it, but "mean" is not one of them. It looks like any other bubble car supermini of the late 90's / early 21st century. The Cupra looks the part, the FR and Sport look plain.

I agree with ANT FR in some respects though, it should have had colour coded mirrors and strips and really should have had a 3 door option. Other than that, Istill think its a much better looking than the beeza. The interior looks a lot better in the Skoda, much classier, and the seats are far more comfortable.

Also the VRS has the short ratios which i think you'll find the FR stole from the VRS :P it was the very early VRS that had the old sport box.

I've had a '98 Ibiza TDI, a '00 Ibiza TDI and also a '03 Ibiza TDI Sport, as my Sport was a 5 door it's directly comparable to the vRS. I bought the Beezer TDI Sport because I wanted a vRS but got a good deal on the Ibiza, I kept it for about three months because no matter how much I tried to like it I couldn't for some reason, it was devoid of character like so many modern cars. I kept saying to myself that it was the same car underneath as the vRS but still doesn't have the same charisma. I really liked my earlier Beezer TDIs but this mk4 model just didn't gel it with me. I p/x'ed it after a few months against a Golf because I fancied one and got offered a reasonable deal on a nice GTI which I modified subtly. Nine months later I was in a vRS! I get bored of cars very quickly which is probably because I spend too much time on forums, but I do like the vRS still three or four months into ownership so it must have something there to hold my attention!

Main plus point between the Fabia and Ibiza is the better visibility of the Fabia, it has significantly bigger side windows which may be a bit out of fashion now but don't half help when lane changing. I drive quite a few trucks in the course of my work and boy do I appreciate good visibility! Ibiza has a very high waist and silly shaped mirrors that obliterate whole vehicles sometimes.

I dont like the Ibiza!!

Why are the door handles not colour coded' date=' cheapens the look, why do they not come with climate as standard, and why oh why did they never put a black in fill between the front and rear windows

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The body coloured handles were one of the things that put me off the Ibiza actually; not so much because they were there, but because the handles were body coloured, but the rubbing strips were still black. It just looked inconsistent. At the time, before the FR facelift, the bumpers had body coloured rubbing strips in them too, and I really didn't like the fact that some bits WERE body coloured, and some bits WEREN'T. I'd have liked to have got a car where everything was body coloured, but as I didn't have that option, I went for the one that was consistently black, rather than a mish-mash that IMO makes it look like they ran out of paint before they finished the car...

As for the AC, the semi-auto system in the Fabia is fine - I think the choice of that instead of full climate control is as much to do with where the two companies are based, and what their brand images are as anything else (i.e. Seat from hothothot Spain, with [slightly] blingy brand image; Skoda from notsohot [most of the time] Czech Republic, with value-for-money brand image [mostly])

I guess the lack of black between the windows is just company styling policy - I'm not particularly fussed either way - works on some cars, but not on others. Not haveing seen a Fabia with it done, I couldn't say what I'd think...