Seat Leon FR TDI Daily
Discussion
Evening,
At the beginning of the year I sold my E39 530i due to it costing me an arm and a leg to run. I swore to buy something cheap and cheerful and to not spend money on cars this year. With that I went out and bought a £300 BMW 1 Series to knock about it. It was battered but ran ok(ish). After using it for a month or so I just haven’t been able to get on with it. I can’t find a comfortable seating position no matter how much I piss around with the seat. I don’t like the way it drives and a really silly thing but I absolutely hate the whole slotting the key into the dashboard nonsense!
With all that hate towards the BMW I started looking around for another replacement. I wanted something that wasn’t knackered in the first place, that looked respectable and that ideally could be easily sorted at work (Skoda main dealer) if something went wrong. I looked at Octavias, Golfs, Jettas, Leons, A3’s and A4’s but unsurprisingly my max price of £2000 didn’t stretch to much. After searching for two or three weeks, looking at a handful of high mileage sheds and pretty much giving up all hope of finding something nice I stumbled across an ad on eBay for a 2007 Seat Leon FR TDI 170. The mileage wasn’t stupidly high at 138,000 (actually one of the lower mileages of my recent cars), it had full Seat service history and looked pretty well looked after. I gave the guy a call on Wednesday while I was in Warwickshire for a work thing and found out a bit more about the car. After quizzing him for a bit it still sounded promising so I arranged to drive down on Sunday to have a look around it. Today my Daughter and I drove to Putney, collected my Brother and headed off to Kent to go car shopping
As I’m sure you’ve gathered by the title of the thread I ended up buying the car. It was exactly as described. Good condition inside and out. A small amount of lacquer peel on the bonnet from stone chips and the A/C needs regassing (hopefully that’s all it needs!). I’m really happy with it. It drives very nicely and instantly felt like home as oppose to the 1 Series which I have spent all my time trying to warm to. Anyway it’s home now and it will be going into work tomorrow for a good check over by one of my technicians. Fingers crossed they don’t find anything!
I forgot to take any pictures so here’s a couple from the advert.
At the beginning of the year I sold my E39 530i due to it costing me an arm and a leg to run. I swore to buy something cheap and cheerful and to not spend money on cars this year. With that I went out and bought a £300 BMW 1 Series to knock about it. It was battered but ran ok(ish). After using it for a month or so I just haven’t been able to get on with it. I can’t find a comfortable seating position no matter how much I piss around with the seat. I don’t like the way it drives and a really silly thing but I absolutely hate the whole slotting the key into the dashboard nonsense!
With all that hate towards the BMW I started looking around for another replacement. I wanted something that wasn’t knackered in the first place, that looked respectable and that ideally could be easily sorted at work (Skoda main dealer) if something went wrong. I looked at Octavias, Golfs, Jettas, Leons, A3’s and A4’s but unsurprisingly my max price of £2000 didn’t stretch to much. After searching for two or three weeks, looking at a handful of high mileage sheds and pretty much giving up all hope of finding something nice I stumbled across an ad on eBay for a 2007 Seat Leon FR TDI 170. The mileage wasn’t stupidly high at 138,000 (actually one of the lower mileages of my recent cars), it had full Seat service history and looked pretty well looked after. I gave the guy a call on Wednesday while I was in Warwickshire for a work thing and found out a bit more about the car. After quizzing him for a bit it still sounded promising so I arranged to drive down on Sunday to have a look around it. Today my Daughter and I drove to Putney, collected my Brother and headed off to Kent to go car shopping
As I’m sure you’ve gathered by the title of the thread I ended up buying the car. It was exactly as described. Good condition inside and out. A small amount of lacquer peel on the bonnet from stone chips and the A/C needs regassing (hopefully that’s all it needs!). I’m really happy with it. It drives very nicely and instantly felt like home as oppose to the 1 Series which I have spent all my time trying to warm to. Anyway it’s home now and it will be going into work tomorrow for a good check over by one of my technicians. Fingers crossed they don’t find anything!
I forgot to take any pictures so here’s a couple from the advert.
Nice car. My dad has an ‘09 one of these with the 170bhp tdi engine. Was a pretty decent car. Quick enough and could easily do 45 mpg without trying. I normally don’t like 5 door cars but these looked pretty decent with the stealth door handles. It did struggle to put the power down in the wet though. Wonder if a cupra LSD would fit?
Got it on the ramp this afternoon and the good news is there’s not much that needs looking at. The rear exhaust box isn’t looking it’s best but still has some life left in it. The centre pipe bracket has nearly corroded off so that will need sorting eventually. That’s about it mechanically.
They checked the A/C for me and it’s the pressure sensor that has died. I’ve ordered a new one which I’ll fit next weekend and then get it gassed during the week
All in all I’m very happy with it and everyone at work is impressed with my purchase
They checked the A/C for me and it’s the pressure sensor that has died. I’ve ordered a new one which I’ll fit next weekend and then get it gassed during the week
All in all I’m very happy with it and everyone at work is impressed with my purchase
Nice! I bought my partner one in December similar to yours as a run around - 07 plate, black, TDI 170, and it has the factory fitted BTCC kit and BBS wheels. actually a properly nice looking car. the previous owner retrofitted an RNS510 VW sat nav along with a full screen multifunction display too and coded it all, works great.
Its plenty powerful and economical for every day use, I just cant get my head around why the ride is so hard. It is properly harsh and I believe this is a general Leon Fr trait when I looked on forums just before I bough it.. do you find that with yours? we had a bizarre problem last week where the interior light stays on, I believe its a faulty ceiling switch. so for the time being I just removed the bulbs lol.
Its plenty powerful and economical for every day use, I just cant get my head around why the ride is so hard. It is properly harsh and I believe this is a general Leon Fr trait when I looked on forums just before I bough it.. do you find that with yours? we had a bizarre problem last week where the interior light stays on, I believe its a faulty ceiling switch. so for the time being I just removed the bulbs lol.
irfan1712 said:
Nice! I bought my partner one in December similar to yours as a run around - 07 plate, black, TDI 170, and it has the factory fitted BTCC kit and BBS wheels. actually a properly nice looking car. the previous owner retrofitted an RNS510 VW sat nav along with a full screen multifunction display too and coded it all, works great.
Its plenty powerful and economical for every day use, I just cant get my head around why the ride is so hard. It is properly harsh and I believe this is a general Leon Fr trait when I looked on forums just before I bough it.. do you find that with yours? we had a bizarre problem last week where the interior light stays on, I believe its a faulty ceiling switch. so for the time being I just removed the bulbs lol.
I had a derv 170bhp 2012 FR+ Supercopa and it was a pretty decent steer but certainly not harsh. Given the sat nav upgrade the previous owners wasn't afraid to play a little so I'd look to see if it has poly bushes rather than rubber. I upgraded by PD150 FR that I had prior to poly bushes and in my view, it trashed the ride making every lump and bump transmit into the car. Its plenty powerful and economical for every day use, I just cant get my head around why the ride is so hard. It is properly harsh and I believe this is a general Leon Fr trait when I looked on forums just before I bough it.. do you find that with yours? we had a bizarre problem last week where the interior light stays on, I believe its a faulty ceiling switch. so for the time being I just removed the bulbs lol.
Although the 170 Supercopa could have done with more go in it, I didn't bother but my neighbour did his 62 plate FR+ and IIRC the remap takes them to a little over 200 and brings the torque up somewhat so that's a worthwhile upgrade that needs little else (although it will be the start of what becomes a list of stuff to just eek out that ittle bit more each time as exhausts need changing you determine that you might as well go Milltek,, and air filters become cheaper in the long run to use a K&N, etc etc !!! )
irfan1712 said:
Nice! I bought my partner one in December similar to yours as a run around - 07 plate, black, TDI 170, and it has the factory fitted BTCC kit and BBS wheels. actually a properly nice looking car. the previous owner retrofitted an RNS510 VW sat nav along with a full screen multifunction display too and coded it all, works great.
Its plenty powerful and economical for every day use, I just cant get my head around why the ride is so hard. It is properly harsh and I believe this is a general Leon Fr trait when I looked on forums just before I bough it.. do you find that with yours? we had a bizarre problem last week where the interior light stays on, I believe its a faulty ceiling switch. so for the time being I just removed the bulbs lol.
Agree with your thoughts on the harsh ride. The one I used to drive was on 17 inch wheels and it still felt pretty rough on bumpy roads. Its plenty powerful and economical for every day use, I just cant get my head around why the ride is so hard. It is properly harsh and I believe this is a general Leon Fr trait when I looked on forums just before I bough it.. do you find that with yours? we had a bizarre problem last week where the interior light stays on, I believe its a faulty ceiling switch. so for the time being I just removed the bulbs lol.
irfan1712 said:
The previous owner retrofitted an RNS510 VW sat nav along with a full screen multifunction display too and coded it all, works great.
I’ve been reading up about this during lunch. Seems pretty simple to do, however if I’m going to be changing the radio I want DAB as well. I’ll need to dig a little deeper and see what can be done I forgot I’d started this 
I’ve been slowly collecting a few bits to make this car my own. Today one of the techs came into work to get everything fitted for me Those bits were a set of 30mm Eibach lowering springs
Since I bought this car I’ve felt the brakes have been rather lacklustre and not really had any bite. I did some reading and found I could fit 345mm front discs using calipers from a Cupra R. So I bought a second hand set, got one of the techs to clean them up and paint them and then he fitted them today
These are the original crap brakes.
Then the shiny new ones
And with my (rather knackered looking) 18 inch alloys back on.
While he was there he fitted a set of HEL braided brake hoses front and rear.
With that lot fitted he got on with bleeding the braking system. There wasn’t a massive amount of air in there and the pedal felt good, until the engine was started at which point the pedal dropped to the floor. If it was pumped up then it was fine but it would drop again very quickly. He bled the brakes three more times but still the pedal was no better. So the car is currently sitting at work so we can have another look at it on Monday and try to figure out why the pedal has vanished!
I’ve been slowly collecting a few bits to make this car my own. Today one of the techs came into work to get everything fitted for me
Those bits were a set of 30mm Eibach lowering springs
Since I bought this car I’ve felt the brakes have been rather lacklustre and not really had any bite. I did some reading and found I could fit 345mm front discs using calipers from a Cupra R. So I bought a second hand set, got one of the techs to clean them up and paint them and then he fitted them today
These are the original crap brakes.
Then the shiny new ones
And with my (rather knackered looking) 18 inch alloys back on.
While he was there he fitted a set of HEL braided brake hoses front and rear.
With that lot fitted he got on with bleeding the braking system. There wasn’t a massive amount of air in there and the pedal felt good, until the engine was started at which point the pedal dropped to the floor. If it was pumped up then it was fine but it would drop again very quickly. He bled the brakes three more times but still the pedal was no better. So the car is currently sitting at work so we can have another look at it on Monday and try to figure out why the pedal has vanished!
Once again I forgot about this thread!
Anyway, we sorted the brakes eventually. Air had got into the ABS unit so we have to purge the ABS unit multiple times before we managed to get a decent brake pedal.
Since then I’ve just been using the car as my daily driver as intended. It’s done it’s job perfectly apart from a blocked DPF which I’ve sorted. Recently though the rear suspension has been looking a bit saggy and the front has started knocking. It was time to replace the shocks. I decided to splash out on the shortened Bilstein B8’s which are a perfect match for the Eibach springs that have already been fitted.
I got one of my technicians to fit them today and the difference is like night and day! It just goes to show how knackered the old shocks must have been! It’s also raised the ride height to a slightly more sensible level which is great.
Anyway here’s a couple of pics of the shocks and springs fitted. I’ll take one of the car when it’s light tomorrow.
Next on the list is to replace the rear track control arms because the bushes are looking rather worn and all four tyres because they’re s
t! Then it’s a front anti-lift kit and possibly a whiteline rear anti-roll bar.
I also want to get the car mapped soon, however the company that I’m speaking to have advised that the clutch will likely start slipping once they’re done with it due to the increase in torque so I’m waiting until I can afford a clutch kit so I can get it all done at once
Anyway, we sorted the brakes eventually. Air had got into the ABS unit so we have to purge the ABS unit multiple times before we managed to get a decent brake pedal.
Since then I’ve just been using the car as my daily driver as intended. It’s done it’s job perfectly apart from a blocked DPF which I’ve sorted. Recently though the rear suspension has been looking a bit saggy and the front has started knocking. It was time to replace the shocks. I decided to splash out on the shortened Bilstein B8’s which are a perfect match for the Eibach springs that have already been fitted.
I got one of my technicians to fit them today and the difference is like night and day! It just goes to show how knackered the old shocks must have been! It’s also raised the ride height to a slightly more sensible level which is great.
Anyway here’s a couple of pics of the shocks and springs fitted. I’ll take one of the car when it’s light tomorrow.
Next on the list is to replace the rear track control arms because the bushes are looking rather worn and all four tyres because they’re s
t! Then it’s a front anti-lift kit and possibly a whiteline rear anti-roll bar. I also want to get the car mapped soon, however the company that I’m speaking to have advised that the clutch will likely start slipping once they’re done with it due to the increase in torque so I’m waiting until I can afford a clutch kit so I can get it all done at once
I've spent a long time modding MK-platform cars. I find they are a great compromise between fun and comfort. The PD170 is a funny one, what with the piezo injectors, but a DPF deleted Octavia made 230bhp and 155mph. Clutch etc. is all standard 6-speed Golf/Passat so cheap to replace, most stuff is very interchangeable and not pricey. Have a look at Darkside Developments...
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