Seat dealers eager to snap up used Ibizas

Seat dealers across the country have been busy snapping up the first examples of Approved Used new-shape Ibiza 5dr models.

Representatives from around 30 SEAT dealerships nationwide made a beeline for SEAT UK’s first closed auction featuring used Ibiza 5dr models at Fleet Auction Group in Leicester. There they had the opportunity to bid on the first 28 Approved Used cars as part of a larger sale of almost 140 vehicles.

And the buyers were clearly desperate to get their hands on the stylish supermini, with fast and furious bidding on all 28 cars. In fact competition for the models drove prices way above their predicted levels, with the Ibizas averaging an astonishing 115% of the trade bible CAP ‘clean’ prediction.

Conventionally, 105% of a CAP clean valuation is seen as a strong performance in the trade, and with some of the cars at the recent SEAT auction achieving as much as 118% of their predicted figure the pent up demand for used Ibiza 5drs is clear.

Typical of the dealers keen to get their hands on the car is Richard Bartlett, of Bartletts SEAT in St Leonards-on-Sea, near Hastings. He said: ‘The availability of Approved Used Ibiza 5dr has come at a good time, as we’re finding Ibiza sales generally are performing very well.

‘Adding the option of these cars to our stock means, simply, that we now have an offering for people who don’t consider themselves ‘new car’ buyers.

‘I fully expected bidding at the SEAT UK auction to be brisk!’

David Ardern, Used Car Manager at SEAT UK, said of the remarkable auction result: ‘We were expecting a busy auction at Leicester, but the competition for these Ibizas took us all a little by surprise.

‘There’s clearly massive demand for the Ibiza 5dr, in both new and used form, and that’s great news not just for us but for buyers who can reasonably look forward to a robust residual value when they come to trade in their car for their next new or Approved Used SEAT.’

Brand new SEAT Ibiza 5dr and Ibiza SC models, currently offered with 1.2-, 1.4- and 1.6-litre petrol engines and soon to be joined by both common rail diesel and Ecomotive versions, are available from £8,605 RRP.