• Surprisingly spacious
• Flexible, well-shaped boot
• Not the brightest interior, though

How much space is there?

The Ibiza is a roomy small car. There’s enough space for four adults to fit in comfort, with a generous amount of headroom unless you’re really tall. Most will be perfectly comfortable, though, however a passenger in the middle seat might feel the squeeze slightly. Best left for the kids, that one.

It’s easy to access due to the five-door body style. There’s decreasing demand for three-door superminis, so the Ibiza is only available in this form, which is useful for small families regularly using the rear doors. Even opting for the sunroof doesn’t eat into roof space, plus it adds some extra light into the cabin, which is very welcome, as the interior can feel quite dark.

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Boot space and storage

Boot space is a very generous 355 litres, which can be expanded to 823 litres by folding the rear seats down. Only the Skoda Fabia, the automotive answer to cargo-trousers can boast more space with the rear seats in place at 380 litres.

With the seats in place, its a square and usable size, hampered only by a high loading lip. The height can be adjusted on cars fitted with a variable boot floor, which gives a level loading area when the rear seats are folded down.

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The Ibiza comes as standard with a 60:40 split for the rear seats, like almost every other supermini in this class. The seats don’t fold completely flat, and you’ll need to mount the boot floor at its highest setting to avoid the dreaded seat lump, but space is generous.   

Inside there’s a decent amount of storage space. Each door pocket will easily accommodate a water bottle and there’s a central storage tray to store a mobile phone, complete with an anti-slip texture. There’s no wireless charging option though.

The centrally mounted cup holders are a tad too close to the manual handbrake and we found takeaway coffee cups would end up catching our fingers when using the handbrake, not ideal.

Is it easy to park?

If you’re used to the virtues of standard-fit parking sensors and cameras, you’ll be in for a world of disappointment. You’ll need a mid-range Ibiza to even get sensors and the top-of-the-line for a camera. Thankfully visibility is good, and the steering is light enough to manoeuvre in and out of tight spaces with ease.

The Ibiza is a compact car, so very few drivers will feel daunted by its size. On the road, it’s very easy to place with good visibility, while parking is a doddle as well due to flat sides, generous mirror sizing and plenty of windows.

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Safety

• Plenty of safety equipment as standard
• Five stars from Euro NCAP
• Extra assistance tech can be added

Euro NCAP awarded the SEAT Ibiza with a top five-star rating when it was tested in 2022. As standard, it comes with a suite of airbags, electronic stability control and emergency brake assist, tyre pressure monitoring, hill hold control and Front Assist. That’s SEAT’s name for autonomous emergency braking.

There’s also a multi-collision braking system which holds on the brakes in the event of a rear-end impact, while automatic warning lights flash under hard braking or an incident. The only safety extra that can be added is adaptive cruise control on top-spec models.