Seat Arona review

The Arona's starting weight is usefully under 1,200kg without a driver, so the pokier three-cylinder combined with its standard six-speed manual can make a good impression on shoving an unladen Arona down the road. Plenty of torque (148lb ft in this case) comes out to play from 2,000rpm too.

Drive one back to back with an Ibiza, as we did, and you’ll struggle to find too much difference between the two. The wheel is a good size and it steers well; the engine is quiet unless pushed hard. There’s a slightly softer ride and more roll in the corners here, which is to be expected. 

The ride is smooth enough, soaking up potholes, speed bumps and surface changes with suppleness. It’s fairly composed for a crossover in the twisty stuff too and FR trim levels come with four different drive modes that can firm up the steering and sharpen the throttle response. The former is most welcome.

That all sounds fairly positive?

It’s not bad at all, although as an Ibiza on stilts, it isn’t exactly the last word in driving dynamics, and speccing the 94bhp three-cylinder - with its 11.1s 0-62mph time and five-speed 'box - certainly doesn't help that. Compared to rivals it copes rather well with a bit of spirited driving, though. The brakes offer decent feel and the six-speed manual in the 113bhp three is tight enough. 

The 1.5-litre four pot can only be had with the auto and drops the 0-62mph time to a much more respectable 8.3s. That said, the seven-speed DSG isn’t the smoothest and it upshifts at every possible opportunity. You can override the system using the paddleshifters, but even then it’s fairly sluggish, and most owners will likely leave well alone.

Is there much difference in running costs?

The larger engine doesn’t affect fuel economy as much as you’d expect. The 1.0-litre turbo three cylinder claims up to 54.3mpg in 94bhp guise and only marginally less in 113bhp tune, while the 1.5-litre four cylinder claims up to 50.4mpg.

In the 1.0-litre in upper tune we managed 44.4mpg on a 50-mile run, around 10 miles of which was spent in stop-start city traffic, and the remainder mainly on the motorway. In the 1.5-litre we saw bang-on 41mpg on a mixed run.