Any Seat owners on here ?

[dave12335]

Hi Jazz friends

I have an opportunity to buy a Seat Leon 1.2 SE 63 plate from my parents (although would need to sell our Jazz 1.4 07 plate to fund it  ).

Does anyone have any experience of owning a Seat ? They seem to have a good reputation but not sure what they’re like compared to the Jazz in the medium term.

Cheers

[Rory]

We (oldest daughter) have had a couple. Not much to say really, they're pretty standard VAG pieces of kit.  SEAT dealers seem to be universally useless - altough our Honda dealer are excelling themselves in that department too.

I'm not familiar with the 1.2 Leon, but some of those engines had timing chain issues, so you might want to do a bit of research.  I think particularly you have to be careful parking on a slope in gear to not let the engine take the strain.

More generally, you're buying a 7 yr old car - if your parents owned it from new and looked after it they probably haven't had any issues but now is good time to be getting rid of it for them!   Above daughter had a 2011 Golf for 7 years between the Ibiza and Ateca - the Golf had been faultless but the garage looking after it was starting to murmur about sticking brakes and shock absorbers leaking.  Then it got written off after being rear-ended by a big van!

[Jocko]

My daughter has had a fleet of SEATs. Leon, Cupra and Ibiza. She loves them. Currently doing 110 mile a day, to and from work.

[123Drive!]

I m a driving instructor and uses a Jazz 09 i-shift with 97k miles. My other car is a Seat Ibiza 1.4 SE manual 09 with 101000 miles. The Jazz had its gearbox actuator changed at 88k miles and that's it. The Ibiza had its alternator, sensors, abs pump, oil leakage, springs, cat, exhaust... Basically Seat is VW and it's not great on reliability. The engineering is also not as good as Honda. However, the styling is really nice and that's why I brought it! My pupil brought a 1.2 TSI Leon few months ago and it does look good and nice car to drive. So far he is happy with it.

[dave12335]

Thanks all.

Interesting read about timing chains, there does indeed seem to be an issue. Eg here:   

https://www.adamlewin.co.uk/vw-mk5-golf-tsi-engine-timing-chain-problem/

My dad has an extended seat warranty but it’s not transferable - so he would need to stay as registered keeper to maintain that.

Our Jazz has had almost nothing go wrong with it in 50000 miles ! I wonder if an aged Jazz even beats a newer car for reliability.

[culzean]

Our Jazz has had almost nothing go wrong with it in 50000 miles ! I wonder if an aged Jazz even beats a newer car for reliability.

VW group have definitely lost the plot on reliability - I have several relatives that have tried Skoda recently ( arguably the best of the VW group ) and got rid of them fairly quickly and went back to Japanese.

And the answer is yes, the Jazz will beat newer cars for reliability....

[RichardA]

I looked at buying a Seat Leon a few years back, 1.4 or 1.8L FR.

The 1.4 engine is belt-driven which apparently will last the life the engine. I believe the 1.2 in the Leon at this time (but not the Ibiza) was also the later belt-driven engine - if it's the EA211 engine then it's belt and not chain.

[Jocko]

Of all my daughters SEATs, this was not her favourite. He husband got it through a contact in SEAT, complete with Jason Plato graphics!



She later got a top spec Cupra K1 and that she did like. They always buy new (contacts in the business).