SEAT Ibiza 1.9 TDi Sport
Sitting opposite my colleague who was into his SEATs meant I was aware of these little diesel hot hatches; I'd browsed for one previously but they were a little outside of my 'daily' budget. One lunchtime though, looking through my 'local cheapies' this came up for a price I immediately knew was good! It was only a few minutes from work so I arranged to see it that evening.
It was cheap because it had a few issue; the bodywork had some knocks, it was slightly higher mileage than your average and best of all, it was 'overheating'...the temperature gauge would peg past the max mark as soon as the ignition was on. I happened to know that the dials on these models were temperamental and that was likely to be the problem. The seller was convinced the engine was fine but most people got put off when they were told the temperature gauge goes into the red.
It drove brilliantly, went brilliantly and had one of the best service histories I'd ever seen. It was mine.
The next day, I took great pleasure in walking up to my colleague and dangling some 'SEAT' keys at him. Like I say, it was perfect but it was a great little car! For the money they are these days (2018), they are an absolute bargain in my opinion. Practical, economical, fun to drive, well specced (in the right trim level) and not just quick for a diesel, genuinely quick little cars. The first thing I did was re-solder the temperature gauge pins so that worked properly, but more on that later.
At it was at around 140k, the suspension was making some noises and I suspected the OSF shock was bent as the camber was all off. While I gathered parts, I set about tidying up some of the underside; they're not known for rust but I wanted it to last. The undertray was also cracked in places so I repaired that with some fibreglass.
When I was pricing up new shocks, I thought I'd price up a whole set of lowered, uprated suspension, I'd got the car cheap enough and thought I'd splash out. The ride as standard is pretty harsh so I figured it may as well look good while it's at it. You can't lower a car on standard wheels so I found some Leon Cupra wheels, already refurbished in anthracite.
Once I'd fitted it all, I noticed the rear end still sat high so I bought some different rear springs to level things out. I also noticed the original shock wasn't bent and the camber was still off. Turned out it was the upright so a second hand unit was bought and fitted as well.
At the same time as the suspension upgrade, I also replaced various parts such as brakes, drop links, ball joints and wheel bearings. The 'I got it cheap! I can afford to do this' mentality was in full swing by this point.
One of the bodywork issues it had when I bought it was a heavily rusted portion of the bonnet. I couldn't find another one in the same colour so thought I'd try repairing it and spraying the whole front edge of the bonnet in satin black.
Well one thing led to another and I ended up buying a used intercooler and pipework. The trouble was it was rather large and required some hefty modifications to fit it under the standard bumper. As you can see, there was a change of plans mid-way through where I ditched the original intercooler and bought a twin pass so the pipework routed closer to the factory location. This basically meant all the used parts I'd bought were on no use. Oh well, lesson learned.
I didn't want to get rid of the crash bar and still wanted it to be as subtle as possible. Somehow I'd also got my hands on a Fabia VRS exhaust tip which I welded to the original Ibiza backbox which I thought fit really well with the style of the rear lights.
The next few jobs are in no particular order but I'll cover them for completeness. The washer pipe burst as it had fatigued at the hinge so that was replaced with a rubber hose. Also wiper related, the mechanism popped apart on the motorway in heavy rain, again, where it had just worn out. I drilled through the centre re-made the pivot point.
The electric power steering pump packed up so a used item was fitted. Rear wheel bearings started grumbling so both were replaced. One of the coolant pipes was looking particularly crusty, although not actually leaking, I thought it was only a matter of time so cleaned it up, smeared JB Weld over any questionable looking bits and painted. Again, some might consider that a bodge but I think of it as testing.
So, remember the whole reason I got this car cheap in the first place? For a small window of time, SEAT made a '6 dial' version of the Ibiza 1.9 TDI's with 2 additional gauges. Well, these clusters weren't the best quality and tend to fail. I'd fixed the temperature gauge but there were still gemlins that I lived with for a while. Slowly but surely more things went wrong to the point I had to replace various LEDs, the small speaker responsible for the indicator 'tick' and re-solder various other parts. Oh and did I mention that getting the dials out and dismantling them is a royal faff?
The cruise control had also never worked since buying it and it turned out the wired were fractured, so again, these were repaired.
Some of the jobs above were done while the car was SORN; I'd bought my Honda Civic as a newer, more comfortable daily but never got around to selling the Ibiza. What can I say? I'd grown attached to it.
So the car was off the road for a while and I'd start it periodically and clean it. Once I'd decided to sell the Civic, I figured that would recoup more cash and I'd use the Ibiza again while I found the next 'proper' daily. With that in mind, I set about doing a few jobs to recommission it, so to speak.
During one of the warm ups a coolant hose burst, but it was fairly easy to spot which one and replace. I happened to have another piece of hose that worked perfectly once trimmed down.
Once the Honda sold, I switched insurers and started using the Ibiza daily. I'd had the car MOT'd a few months prior but only insured it to drive to and from the station, so it hadn't had a proper run in a while. Before using it in anger, I gave it a service using the correct grade 505.01 oil which is very important on these engines and something I've been religious about.
