Disclaimer: This is my Wife’s car. When I started writing this, ten seconds ago, she told me that I better not say anything negative about her precious little Seat. I was pressured, dare I say, forced, to only say nice things about it. I’m not sure what the consequences of my disobedience will be. My safety may be at stake… Although I value my life, I’m prepared to take a leap of faith and say what I truly think about her car.
We were in Brussels yesterday. My wife and I had never been there before, but now that we live closer to the Belgians, we decided to pay them a little visit.
While exploring, we stumbled on two wonderful-looking buildings – the Hotel De Ville Of Brussels and the City Museum of Brussels – facing each other in a staring contest that started in 1444. Fascinated, we stopped and gazed. While we were drooling in front of this architectural feat, a little girl, no older than 10, was talking about the Hotel De Ville with her family. She knew the height, the age, and the origin of the Hotel. I’m not sure if what she was saying was correct or not. But she spoke with so much confidence that I believed every word that came out of her mouth. Her mother didn’t seem surprised that she was a walking encyclopedia, which made me believe this little girl even more. From the top of her 10 years of age, I thought it was very impressive.
Talking about impressive, the Seat Ibiza has 95bhp, and 175Nm of torque. Not bad considering this is produced by a little 1L engine. I pushed that motor to its limits up a few mountain roads and I was pleasantly surprised by the power it could put to the ground. Peak torque is just above 1500rpm – perfect for tight corners in second gear – floor it and you will be exiting the apex much faster than you’d expect a three-banger could do.
When we camped in the car, we took the back seat out so that we could lay down flat. That also meant we had less sound insulation where the exhaust is. You’ll be surprised to know that it actually sounded good. I know you’re not going to believe me because you probably haven’t driven this car flat out with no back seats, but if you did, you’d hear a faint, metallic, retro, three-cylinder sound. Once again, I was surprisingly happy. Although, it must be said that with the back seats in place, you will just hear engine noise. And it’s nothing exciting.
Steering is electric, obviously, but it’s not as bad and uncommunicative as my 2020 Subaru Impreza was. This one feels attached to the wheels, somewhat. It communicates the bare minimum, but that’s better than nothing and, coming from an economy car, that’s something I welcome with open arms.
After racking up 5000 kilometres driving through 4 different countries, camping in the car, driving up one of the highest pass in Europe, and many other adventures, all in the space of 4 months, a couple of things started bugging me.
I know we live in a world where we need to bubble-wrap people from birth to make sure nothing happens to them, but Seat has crossed the line. How dare they turn the volume of my music down when I put the car in reverse?! Music is a very important part of my life, and they think they have the right to lower the volume level I chose, for my music, in my car? Additionally, how is lowering the volume going to help me see better out of the car? That logic is used only by fathers who wear the same white Skechers every day.
Those fathers, by the way, probably don’t care about the loading time of the GPS because “you have to be patient in life”. And while that is a good life lesson, I think it’s justified that I get frustrated when the GPS takes 8 to 10 minutes to load my trip.
Needless to say that if I’m using the GPS, it’s because I don’t know where I’m going or where I am. Meaning I have to sit in the car like a dummy staring at the pavement, waiting for the navigation system to calculate the route so I can get on my way. But because I’m fashionably late, I don’t have time to wait for the GPS, so I will use Google Maps, thank you very much.
Talking about slowness, the windshield wipers are nearly as slow as the loading time for the GPS. The fastest setting is the same speed as the slowest one. That means they are basically useless under heavy rain. If you do encounter a big storm while driving, might as well pull over and wait for the sun to come out because the windshield wipers won’t help you see if there are more than a couple raindrops.
The infotainment system is not intuitive and is frustrating to use. It recognizes when your hand gets close to the screen, so it will display four big buttons, that were not previously there, on each corner of the screen because it thinks you’re trying to use one of the gazillion commands. So if you’re trying to show something on the map to the passenger, or the altitude you’re driving at (when driving on one of the highest pass in Europe for example) you will point at the screen and the info you want to show will be covered. Brilliant.
That little girl in Brussels isn’t a civil engineer, a scientist, or a historian. I wouldn’t hire her to do any of those jobs today. But like the 2018 Seat Ibiza, she’s on the right track. She needs to keep going, focus on what’s lacking to make it better and work on what’s already good to make it great. With a bit of luck, I’ll get to drive the brand new 2022 Ibiza, to see if Seat exploited the potential the 2018 model has. And I’ll be checking who writes the history books I’ll read from now on, to see if the little girl in Brussels did what I want Seat to do with the Ibiza: exploit its potential.
Max
PS: It took only five seconds to find a location on the GPS today. That’s good stuff.
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