|
After hours of research, I have narrowed my choice of my next car and am trying to come to a decision about which 2007 1.4 16 valve petrol car to buy new. The Fabia would be the Ambiente 100 bhp. The Ibiza the 85 Sport. Does anyone have recent experience of them please? The price difference is not significant. In different ways, the drive seems to come out equal overall. The thing that worries me about the Fabia is that the seat won't go quite far enough back for me and it seems the rack can't be adjusted. On the other hand, its has the best service facility of the two locally and it seems better built. The Fabia seems all-new but the Ibiza is an old design.
|
|
No experience of either car but would have thought that if you cannot get comfortable in it then don't buy it.
|
I dont get "all new" cars untill they have been rolling off the prodcution line for at least a year to allow production bugs to be ironed out.
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
|
Good rule TVM and one which also applies to Microsoft operating systems!!!!!!!!
|
|
|
I dont get "all new" cars untill they have been rolling off the prodcution line for at least a year to allow production bugs to be ironed out.
I`ll second that!
|
|
|
If it's an Ambient, it's the old style Furby - the new model range is 1-3.
Our Elegance had a steering wheel that adjusted for reach and height, the seat for height and the backrest was infinitely adjustable (cf six/seven fixed angles). The seat itself went far enough back for me, I'm 6'2" and er....have had a few pies in my time so unless you're Peter Crouch or Shrek you should be able to get comfortable.
I really liked our Fabia, it was an excellent car - my Mum has one now, the Ambient, and it's a really nice setup.
Is the question not a case of 2 door (Ibiza) or 4 door (fabia) - I test drove an Ibiza and it felt to me like a smaller car and the interior (imho) wasn't as nice as the fabia - but they're likely to be 85% the same under the skin....it'll come down to your personal taste!
Good luck
-- Biggedy biggedy bong
|
|
I'm 6'1" and 15st and my old Fabia fitted me fine. I actually preferred the Ibiza interior, less black and boring especially the instruments and lighting but found the suspension set far too firm which made it uncomfortable around town and too noisy on motorways. Skoda dealers (only IMO) seem a nicer bunch than Seat and the servicing is cheaper.
|
|
|
>The thing that worries me about the Fabia is that the seat won't go quite far enough back for me...On the other hand, it has the best service facility of the two locally and it seems better built.
You'll visit the service facility, at most, twice a year; you'll sit in the thing every day and if you're cursing it because you can't get comfortable, a cup of nice coffee at the garage won't really make you feel much better.
On the other hand, if we're talking about the 2000-2007 Fabia, I'll be amazed if you don't fit. I'm 6'5" and can drive our early 2000 Fabia Comfort without using all the seat travel. I also find I can rack the seat well above its lowest position without running out of headroom. It has two-way steering adjustment too, so no problem getting the wheel where I want it.
The seats themselves in ours seem hard and rather shapeless, so I wouldn't rate it super-high for comfort, but I don't often take it more than half an hour from home anyway. If you're intending to use yours for long trips, you really ought to drive it for a good couple of hours before deciding. It's the only way to be sure.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Ibiza the 85 Sport.
I think there's a summer offer type thing on the Ibiza Sport so you get the 100bhp (and some other extra bits) anyway.
My daughter has had an Ibiza 1.2S for 3 yrs. I'm not a fan of the 1.2's 3cyl engine (although it seems better on the open road than around town). I did drive 1.4 Sport last year and I thought that was altogether better - it had the pretty good handing that our car has, but with a much nicer engine.
On the Ibiza generally, it's worn quite well, although it has developed a few rattles. Also, we have the 3 door, and the doors are huge, and very heavily sprung. Takes a lot of care getting in and out in tight spaces (I always avoid parking next to one!).
VAG do a quite reasonable service and maint package by the way - might be worth considering.
|
I've had my Ibiza for 2 months now and had my old one for a year. That was an 03 plate 1.2 which was perfectly reasonable for what it was- a base model supermini. My new one is a 1.4 tdi Reference Sport model and I love it- much better than my earlier one as it feels much more solid and the interior has nicer quality plastics in it.
Had a test drive in a 1.4 sport model and was quite surprised- very nippy and rorty for a 1.4 and was lovely to drive and I would have had one of those but the Reference Sport was on 0% finance for 3 years and you can only have the 1.2 or the 1.4 tdi in it.
Agree with Bill Payer about the doors- they're incredibly heavy and big and its really easy to open them into something.
You should be able to get comfy in it aswell- the seat goes back a long way ( I'm 6'2 and don't need it all the way back) and up and down, and the steering moves in and out and up and down aswell.
Any more questions don't hesitate/
Ben
|
I recently sold my 2003 Ibiza diesel. After 85,000 miles completely fault-free, suddenly it cost me £600 to have a pipe in the aircon, a fusebox fault and a starter motor wiring fault repaired within the space of not much more than a month... then the clutch started to show signs of slipping. Time to say bye-bye before anything else broke expensively.
Despite this I liked almost everything about the car. The only significant exceptions were the hard ride, paintwork that was very prone to stone chipping and lack of legroom in the back.
I was a bit sorry to see it go and considered buying another but the brand new Ibiza will be on sale within less than a year (I understand) and I did not fancy my car being an 'old' model while still fairly young, nor taking a depreciation hit for the same reason. If this is important to you, perhaps it would be better to go for the Fabia.
|
|
Many thanks for the various comments. On reflection, I doubt I could live with the Ibiza's suspension. It is worse than any of the 7 sports cars I have owned and even worse than my son 's apalling Evo.
|
|
Rubbish- I agree its quite firm but I find it very hard to believe its worse than an Evo's on rubber band tyres.
|
I must say I was surprised by the force of Bintang's comments - our (1.2S) Ibiza is on 14" wheels and not particularly (for these days) low profile tyres and it rides quite well, I would say.
I also don't remember the 1.4 Sport that I drove, which certainly had good looking alloys (and therefore I assume pretty low profile tyres) being noticeably uncomfortable.
|
|
I was going to add: Check the tyre pressures - I've had demo cars in the past (including a new Honda Jazz recently) that have had stupidly high (mid 40's on the Jazz) tyre pressures.
|
|
|
|
I have a January 2005 Fabia 1.4 16 valve petrol 4 door saloon.
The positives are: The engine isn't bad, reasonably economical, feels a solid car, there's a nice solid clunk when the doors shut, there's no air con to go wrong and it has steel wheels so there are no worries about them getting damaged if kerbed.
The negatives are: The seats are uncomfortable on a long run, you feel like you've done 8 hours heavy manual work when you get out of the car, the car looks ugly, a small 4 door saloon is not practical, my wife says it is an OAPs car and I agree with her and finally, it's boring, boring, boring.
I inherited the car last year due to a bereavement and the only reasons I am keeping it is that I was offered a derisory sum as a trade in againat a more practical car so it's worth more than that to me and it's an anonymous looking car that doesn't stand out
|
|
|
|
|
