Seat Leon Cupra R 225 - What do I need to know?

Vita

Vita

Vita

Soldato
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Tell me about the Seat Leon Cupra R 225. From my research, I have gathered that it's the same engine as in the old s3's. They can go through coil packs, water pumps can fail and most people fit one with the metal impaler. I also read leaky rear door seals and boost hoses splitting.

Anything else to look out for?
 
a lot will have been ragged all over after they became the new choice for a lot of 'boyracers'
 
What sort of budget are you looking at. For around £4k, you can can a newer Leon FR which shares much of the same platform as the Golf GTi with the same 200bhp engine.
 
ci_newman said:
What sort of budget are you looking at. For around £4k, you can can a newer Leon FR which shares much of the same platform as the Golf GTi with the same 200bhp engine.
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£5k. I've looked for the Leon FR 2.0TFSI, but can't find any below 5k. Plus I do like the older one.
 
Every attempt you've made to purchase a performance car of this type for £5k or less has ended for want of a better word in tears. I think quite a lot of this is because frankly most of these types of cars for this sort of budget are just trashed - most are very old and have been thrashed around by an increasingly less caring/able succession of owners are reaching the point at which you could argue they are simply life expired.

That's not to say you cannot enjoy a performance car for £5k or less, you quite obviously can, but in order to do so without the sort of trials and tribulations you encounter every single time you've bought a car with more than 200bhp you really do need to be into the mechanics side of things and at least be an enthusiastic DIYer - both to ensure you pick a good example *and* to ensure it's ongoing reliability. You cannot rely on dealer's at this end of the market as you've found. You need to be able to do it yourself.

Essentially, I'd be looking at downsizing your aspirations until such time as your budget extends beyond £5k otherwise given the problems you've had in the past it's hard to see them not repeating themselves over and over :(
 
My advice is to have a look at some of the forums which specialise in seats/leons/cupras and just keep checking the for sale sections. You can quite often find cars which have actually been cared for more than most. You'll often find they have some decent modifications to them too. Just an example I found in under 1m (already been sold but you get my point) :

http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=413320
 
Thanks for the reply Fox. I made 2 attempts, both failed miserably. I'm just putting it down to my luck and knowledge. You're right, I shouldn't be looking at hot hatches with the budget I have, I guess friends have been lucky in buying some bargains which have come out great!
 
[TW]Fox;27577979 said:
Every attempt you've made to purchase a performance car of this type for £5k or less has ended for want of a better word in tears. I think quite a lot of this is because frankly most of these types of cars for this sort of budget are just trashed - most are very old and have been thrashed around by an increasingly less caring/able succession of owners are reaching the point at which you could argue they are simply life expired.

That's not to say you cannot enjoy a performance car for £5k or less, you quite obviously can, but in order to do so without the sort of trials and tribulations you encounter every single time you've bought a car with more than 200bhp you really do need to be into the mechanics side of things and at least be an enthusiastic DIYer - both to ensure you pick a good example *and* to ensure it's ongoing reliability. You cannot rely on dealer's at this end of the market as you've found. You need to be able to do it yourself.

Essentially, I'd be looking at downsizing your aspirations until such time as your budget extends beyond £5k otherwise given the problems you've had in the past it's hard to see them not repeating themselves over and over :(
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I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think that's entirely true. Certainly, at this end of the market, you don't want to be simply handing your car over to the main dealer and saying "fix it", but nor do you need to have any real mechanical knowledge or special contacts - just a bit of common sense and willingness to do a bit of googling if/when a problem arises.

It would however be a good idea to bring along a reasonably knowledgeable friend with you when viewing cars, to ensure you don't simply buy the first car you like the look of without checking for any potential problems, which I suspect may have been the OP's issue in the past.

Plenty of good performance cars under £5k if you're willing to take your time and look hard enough.
 
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Nice and the 1.8T 150 model remap is to close to 200HP. Will be a proper little pocket rocket then. My Cupra 180 is fairly swift already and that's lighter.
 
Some MK4 Golf issues from years back when I had my 1.8T, similar things to check on the Leon along with the issues you mentioned in your OP.

http://www.illusional.co.uk/stuff/golfguide.doc

I've had a fair few hot hatches 2k to 5k and no bad issues at all. I know I'm getting good ones though. I go with massive check lists like the above. Don't care if it makes me look sad, I've not bought a dud yet. My Astra was £2150 for an 06 plate 72k and now it's 260BHP/270LBFT and still not exploded. Cheap stealthy fun :)
 
Vita, take a mechanic with you the next time you purchase a car.

You must have the worst luck ever when it comes to car purchasing.
 
It's just my honda purchases which I have had bad luck with. The rest have been fine.
 
Having bought and ran "performance" cars in the past, I've found that buying cars of the type driven generally by older types ( my 328, 325,528,728 and now 530) seems to result in cars that are on the whole better looked after and as a result a more enjoyable and pain free ownership experience.

I'm not saying rush out and buy any old BMW though, more why not consider something other than in the "performance" category maybe?

Not one of my BMW's I've owned has proved any more costly to run than the long line of performance Fords and Vauxhalls that preceded them, none have been the high performance end of the ranges, but all offered more than adequate (with maybe the exception of the 728) performance.

Just a thought. :)
 
Scania said:
Having bought and ran "performance" cars in the past, I've found that buying cars of the type driven generally by older types ( my 328, 325,528,728 and now 530) seems to result in cars that are on the whole better looked after and as a result a more enjoyable and pain free ownership experience.

I'm not saying rush out and buy any old BMW though, more why not consider something other than in the "performance" category maybe?

Not one of my BMW's I've owned has proved any more costly to run than the long line of performance Fords and Vauxhalls that preceded them, none have been the high performance end of the ranges, but all offered more than adequate (with maybe the exception of the 728) performance.

Just a thought. :)
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This is very true - I remember when I was lookng at buying an XJ for around 5K, there was no shortage of well cared for examples as they'd mostly been owned by older people. Of course, they're no sports car, even if they are pretty much as fast as most hot hatches in the real world.
 
Water Pump (plastic impellers do not last, make sure its got the replacement fitted)
Coil Packs (J type now replaced by K type which are ok, so have these checked)
Door seals (let water in!)

Although you should be able to get a good one for 4k, don't see any point spending 5k
 
Some good advice here, there's no guarantees but taking someone(in the know) with you and a checklist yourself should ensure you aren't surprised with any big bills all of a sudden.
 
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