NEW Seat Arona and Ibiza 2021 review: is now the time to buy?

[@jamiep61]

I enjoyed watching the Video. My favourite Seat Trim Is FR

[@georgewalker7061]

So what were the tyre pressures of the Arona & Ibiza as you got the car and what did you set them at before commenting on the steering? Where did SEAT go to find a better manual box for the new car that VW / Skoda do not have for the Polo or Mk4 Fabia?

[@BossMan-yj6fi]

I'm confused - Steering is precise with instant inputs allowing the car to change direction quickly - However in the next breath not that engaging to drive??

[@NedNew]

The two autos make happy moment for me.

[@dcross3514]

Any tyre noise with Arona and 3 cylinders? 1.5ltr could be a thought with automatic

[@alperutkuceylan520]

There is only tire noise coming from the car, there is nothing else besides this.

[@alperutkuceylan520]

i bought it in 2021 Style and my biggest problem with this vehicle is that the trim sounds come from everywhere. Other than that, everything is perfect.

[@eoleite]

The new Ibiza lost the FR badge on the grill. Although this change was done somewhere during 2019 even in the pre-facelift, now all the Ibizas have the same matte dark plastic foglight covers. If you check older FRs from 2017/8 they have gloss black trims with a different and IMO more sporty pattern. Perhaps those are what they consider "bumper changes"? Might be worth mentioning that although LED is now standard they are 2 different types of LED headlights. The more basic trims come with what SEAT calls "EcoLED" which kinda look like a tinted LED version of the old halogen headlights. The LEDs shown in the video are an upgrade like the old LED were. The new EcoLED is a direct swap in pre-facelift in cars with halogen, they just need coding. The Ibiza might be firmer than the Polo because the review unit is an FR. FR comes with a stiffer and lower suspension as standard (-15mm IIRC), something that's an option in the Polo even for the R-Line I believe.

[@camtait]

Great insight, thanks for commenting!

[@eoleite]

@@camtait No worries, I'm more than glad to help. Thanks for such a detailed and clear insight in the video as well. Unfortunately this type of details are not properly documented, when I ordered mine I had to spend several hours in owner groups to better understand the options and the finer details since the dealers I went through were not very useful and even yet I had some surprises when I took delivery of my car. To better understand how SEAT really does mess the equipment quite a bit I'll list some of the equipment quirks I've discovered that aren't documented (I'm not sure how this still holds up on the facelift): - The full LED cars are not really "full" LED as the rear lights always have halogen indicators and reverse light plus front halogen fog lights - even the old Leon (5F) equipped with full LED was not "full" since it's reverse light was halogen; - Pre-facelift cars with halogen headlamps use their fogs as cornering lights but cars equipped with front LEDs don't. There's no physical/eletronic limitation as that feature can be enabled in LED cars via coding and works perfectly fine. I suppose SEAT though the LED headlights were bright enough and, to be fair, the LED lights turn ever so slightly to match your trajectory when you turn the steering wheel; - Later pre-facelift cars (at least MY2020.5 onwards) come with halogen reading lights if they don't have the sun roof but with LED reading lights if they do, not sure why. I think they have fixed that in the facelift but still bothers me to have white LED footwell lights and yellow-ish reading lights; - SEAT has written in very small print in the catalogue that Ibizas up to 100hp come with a 5 speed gearbox and rear drumb brakes but cars that have more than 100hp come with 6 speed gearboxes and rear disk brakes. What they don't tell you is that they sold both a 1.0 TSI 95 and 115 (replaced with a 110hp variant in MY2021 with a new layout and ECU) that could be mapped to precisely the same power, meaning both powerplants were pretty much the same, the difference in cost was to pretty much cover the different geabox and brakes; - Xcelence cars with the Luxe interior (fake leather + Alcantara) have white stitching in the front seats, steering wheel, dash and gear knob; FR cars get red. However the back seats on both have black stitching so they be can shared across without the need of having 2 different variants of the rear seats as well. VW cost cutting after dieselgate can sometimes be ridiculous; - Early pre-facelift FRs (2017/8) had different fog light covers which made them look meaner but were later changed to be the same as all the other Ibiza trims, probably in order to reduce costs even more. Funny enough you can still buy new replacement old-style fog light covers and replace them yourself, you just can't get them from factory - although they are quite expensive, about 100GBP for a pair; - To use the online services (such as Tidal and Internet Radio) in the new infotainment system you have to pay an annual subscription for "connected multimedia", but the data is not included in the subscription. This means that in order to use Tidal in the new radio unit you have to pay a service subscription to SEAT, a service subscription to Tidal and an internet plan to SEAT as well (or connect the car to an wiki hotspot). Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with my choice and I 100% agree with you that the Ibiza is the most appealing choice B-segment from VAG. The facelift has been an upgrade in the right direction since they managed to fix the only thing I dislike in my car which is the material quality of the top part of the dash. Compared to the rest of the plastics used in the combine it used to leave a lot to be desired. If only they didn't ruin the side air vents...

[@theprov]

@@eoleite re the difference between the 95 and 110/115 hp engines, it's not just a ECU map, there are sodium-filled exhaust valves and a more heat-resistant cast steel housing for the turbocharger on the higher power version.

[@paperoga79]

Bought Arona tgi.

[@BeSafe20]

TT