SEAT Mii (2011 - 2023) review
The SEAT Mii is a practical and cheap-to-run city car with an added splash of Spanish style
A good city car needs to cope with the rigours of urban life but also deliver comfort on the motorway. The SEAT Mii does just that, and will be cheap to buy and run, not to mention practical. It's not the fastest city car, but it's still more fun to drive and offers surprising refinement when compared to rivals.
Along with its Skoda Citigo and Volkswagen up! sister models, it’s fair to say the car has redefined standards in this hard-fought class.
All three stablemates have the same basic architecture and lively three-cylinder engine, but the SEAT Mii is a little cheaper than its Volkswagen counterpart, and gets a dose of Spanish style thrown into the deal.
That’s why it's one of the best city cars currently on sale – although we tend to like the Skoda Citigo better for its even greater value.
Like its predecessor the SEAT Arosa, the latest SEAT Mii city car is a rebadged VW. It’s a version of the VW up! which also shares (almost) everything but the badges with Skoda’s version, the Citigo.
The three models are built alongside each other in VW’s Bratislava factory. Between them, they provide a pretty good argument against a wide variety of city car rivals, that includes the Citroen C1, Hyundai i10, Kia Picanto, Peugeot 108, Renault Twingo, Suzuki Celerio, Toyota Aygo and Vauxhall Viva.
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Cash £19,697By offering the SEAT Mii for sale alongside VW and Skoda versions, the VW group offers a range of price and equipment levels in the city car sector. The SEAT version is cheapest of the trio, but like its sister-models is available in three and five-door body styles. The engine line-up is shared too, but while the Spanish brand’s version gets 59bhp and 74bhp versions of the VW Group’s 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol power unit, SEAT doesn’t offer the up!’s punchier turbocharged version. Likewise, SEAT doesn’t offer the Mii with an auto transmission, whereas the Citigo and up! both come with that option.
SEAT Mii trim levels start with the Mii SE, which doesn’t have a bad list of spec as an entry-model. The haul includes alloy wheels, air conditioning, electric front windows, split-fold rear seat, six-speaker sound system and body colour mirrors and door handles.
Next up is the Mii Design which comes with LED daytime running lights and trim upgrades, while the sporty Mii FR has graphics and a sat-nav to go with its special alloy wheels and uprated suspension.
The range-topper is as special edition called the Mii Cosmopolitan, named after the magazine of the same name. You can have it in Violetto or Candy White, and as well as various style upgrades it comes with the bigger 74bhp engine only.
Engines, performance and drive
The Mii is great fun to drive, thanks to its nimble handling and direct steering.
Excellent visibility and light controls make the Mii a breeze to drive around town, while the low levels of road and wind noise mean it's equally as good on motorways – and that’s quite unusual for a city car. City cars sometimes struggle on ride quality, but even on larger 16-inch wheels with firmer springs and dampers, the Mii FR Line feels busy but never crashy or too unsettled.
The Mii's ride is also very comfortable, but the soft suspension means the little SEAT has a tendency to lean quite heavily into turns – something the FR Line model’s slightly firmer suspension is designed to address, though you'll hardly notice the difference most of the time. The FR Line version feels sharp on the road and responds well to inputs, but firmer dampers also offer plenty of comfort.
The precise steering makes the most of the sharper suspension, so with the more powerful engine the Mii is surprisingly good fun to drive, with a precise five-speed manual to tap into that 74bhp power output.
Engines
There are no diesels available in the Mii range, but that’s no problem, as the 1.0-litre petrol line-up offers surprisingly punchy performance (especially the 74bhp engine), as well as decent efficiency.
The 74bhp Mii has a 0-62mph time of 13.2 seconds. This doesn't sound very fast, but given the Mii's minuscule dimensions, it feels much quicker around town and rarely seems underpowered. It does, however, need to be revved hard to get the best out of it, but either way, we like this particular engine's lively, off-beat warble as the revs increase - another aspect of the Mii that gives it a real sense of character.
On test, the SEAT sprinted from 0-60mph in 12.1 seconds – faster than the official claims. The downsized, naturally aspirated engine produces only 95Nm of torque relatively high up the rev range at 3,000rpm, yet thanks to the five-speed manual’s short gearing the Mii FR Line’s in-gear times were respectable; it took 15.1 seconds to cover 50-70mph in fifth.
Performance from the 59bhp engine is even less impressive on paper, but in reality it still feels surprisingly lively on the road – and that’s in spite of a claimed 0-62mph time of 14.4 seconds.
MPG, CO2 and Running Costs
While the Mii is only available with petrol engines, its 1.0-litre, three cylinder unit is remarkable efficient.
The smallest 59bhp models offer a claimed average economy of 62.8mpg and emit just 105g/km of CO2, whilst the 74bhp version of the same 1.0-litre engine manages 60.1mpg, and kicks out 108g/km of CO2.
The Mii Ecomotive is a variation on the SE trim-level that uses the 59bhp engine, and is the only model to squeeze under the 100g/km of CO2 threshold, thanks to its fuel-saving stop-start system and tiny weight-saving steel wheels. As a result, the Ecomotive returns a combined economy of 68.9mpg and CO2 emissions of 96g/km to make it the most efficient model in the range.
However, the Ecomotive's increased efficiency over the regular Mii SE seems pretty marginal given the low mileages most city cars run to, so it’s not necessarily the best buy from a purely economic perspective.
Other running costs such as insurance, parts and servicing should be minimal, which make the Mii is a perfect car for first-time buyers.
SEAT also offers a range of deals on the Mii, such as a free servicing and competitive finance rates, but it's a shame that entry-level cars are so poorly equipped.
Insurance groups
You can’t get cheaper insurance than group 1, which is the rating applied to the entry-level SEAT Mii. And you can’t get a higher rating in the Mii range than the group 4 applied to the Cosmopolitan range-topper – which means premiums will be low whatever model you choose.
The Hyundai i10 falls into the same 1-4 group bracket, but many city cars are a little more expensive to insure.
Depreciation
Current predictions suggest the Mii FR Line model will be the best at holding its value on the used market, but all the Mii models should do comparatively well.
The FR could retain up to 52 per cent of its original purchase value after three years and 30,000 miles though, which would be a very creditable performance.
Interior, design and technology
Given that the SEAT Mii shares its basic architecture with the Volkswagen up! and Skoda Citigo, you'd expect all three cars to look very similar in profile – and they do.
The little SEAT, however, has a character that sets it apart from its siblings.
Design cues from SEAT's Ibiza and Leon are clearly visible at the front of the Mii, where a much narrower 'arrowhead' grille is flanked by a pair of oversized headlights. While the Mii doesn't get the Volkswagen up!'s glass tailgate finish, it does benefit from a set of neat zig-zag taillights.
SE models get 14-inch alloys, electric front windows, tinted glass and air conditioning as standard – as well as a leather-trimmed steering wheel which helps lift the ambience a little.
Design Mii and FR Line cars get bigger wheels, a glossy finish across the dashboard and steering wheel, plus lower suspension on the FR Line.
SEAT also offers a choice of styling packs as options which are designed to help customers personalise their Mii, inside and out.
Sat-nav, stereo and infotainment
The Mii gets a six-speaker stereo, as well as many other desirable extras. Using SEAT’s Drive Mii phone app, you can link your device with the car for TomTom-based sat-nav, phone and media control on the move and even an Eco Trainer function. This uses a dashtop cradle in the same place as the Portable System, but employs your phone’s superior graphics.
FR Line models, and the range-topping Cosmopolitan, come with the five-inch touchscreen SEAT Portable System as standard. As the name suggests, this feature is detachable but sits atop the dashboard when in use, and includes sat-nav, Bluetooth phone and audio streaming functions, as well as a Micro SD card slot for music storage.
You can add the sat-nav to the lesser models as an option, and DAB digital radio is available on some versions too.
Practicality, comfort and boot space
SEAT has made good use of space with the Mii and overall, it's a surprisingly practical little hatchback in either three- or five-door guise.
Although it measures just three-and-a-half meters long, the Mii is far more practical than similarly sized rivals such as the Fiat 500, and at times, feels as big as cars in the class above such as the Volkswagen Polo.
All models in the Mii range get practical touches such as big storage bins in the doors for water bottles or other personal items, and the Mii’s evident build quality and refinement helps make it comfortable on long journeys too.
Size
At 3,557mm long, 1,641mm wide and 1,478mm tall, the Mii shares its boxy profile with its sister cars from the VW Group stable. It’s a little shorter than the Hyundai i10 and Fiat Panda, which are 3,665mm long and 3,653mm respectively, but a shade longer than the 3,466mm Citroen C1.
Leg room, head room & passenger space
Most city cars end up with their rear seats being used as a dumping ground for shopping – and the modest boots on offer here demonstrate why – but if you do need to get people into the back of the Mii, they’ll be more comfortable than some rivals. Then again, if you regularly do need to go four up, you’d be better served looking for a monthly deal on a cheap supermini than a relatively high-end version of a city car.
Four adults can easily sit in comfort in the Mii, where passengers and the driver alike get excellent visibility and headroom. That said, it is still a city car so legroom isn’t the greatest in the back seats, which are far more suited to children.
The five-door model obviously makes getting into the back easier than the three-door variant, but it's a shame that rear passengers have to make do with pop-out windows.
ISOFIX child seat mounts with top tethers are standard on the rear seats.
Boot
The Mii's boot space is also a big plus, and the 251-litre boot can be expanded to create a cave-like 951-litre load area, which is considerably more than the Fiat 500's 185 and 550 litres.
All versions of the Mii gets a clever double-layered floor, which means you can choose between extra capacity or a flat loading bay. 60:40 split rear seats are standard across the range, too.
Reliability and Safety
Small cars often miss out on safety aids, but the Mii gets four airbags and stability control as standard, which was enough to earn it a five-star Euro NCAP rating when it was tested in 2011. The littlest SEAT also received 89 per cent for adult occupant protection and a score of 86 per cent in the safety assist category.
SEAT fits driver, front passenger, side and curtain airbag as standard, plus ABS and ISOFIX child seat fixings. Electronic stability control as standard across the range, while buyers of any model can select the Safety Assist System, which automatically applies the brakes at low speeds if it thinks a collision is imminent.
Unfortunately for SEAT as a manufacturer, it has recently struggled in customer satisfaction surveys, although the Mii itself hasn’t yet made it into our Driver Power survey.
As recently as the 2016 Driver Power results, the SEAT brand finished a middling 18th out of 30, meaning it had tumbled 3 places in 12 months and found itself behind the likes of Peugeot and Toyota in the rankings.
However, on a more positive note the Mii uses the same simple mechanicals as the Volkswagen up! and Skoda Citigo, and the trio are built on the same production line in Bratislava. The Citigo has appeared in the 2016 Driver Power rankings for Skoda, coming 11th out of 150 cars for overall satisfaction, with an excellent 8th for reliability and a 18th for build quality. It's fair to assume that the SEAT Mii should perform as well.
