Looking at Cordobas

[hugh.venables]

Hi Guys, my 17 YO daughter likes the look of a manual Seat Cordoba but doesn't have much money. We looked at a red one in Burnside on Car Sales/Car Point for $2800. The rego expired in mid Jan. It's pretty clean, could do with the spoiler repainting, rear bumper small repair and repaint and a bit of cut and polish. The glove box has broken hinges (plastic moulded hooks). There is a missing stiffening panel at the bottom of the right front guard.

It has done almost 250,000 km. The biggest problem is it is a bit smokey. Does anyone know how worn the bores and ring grooves might be at that? Could it be re-ringable?

I was a bit surprised it didn't have much grunt for a 1.8 in a small car. Sound normal?

We have tried without sucess to contact the other one for $2200 in Nth. Caulfield that needs a clutch and front brakes and the rego is due. Anyone know what happened to it?

Any comments on any of this very welcome. Thanks Guys.
Hugh Venables.

[sunjet]

I recently bought a 1.8 cordy for ~3000$ with 115 000km's with rego for a couple more months. It's been driving great, fuel efficient and looks great. also seems to have quite a lot of grunt compared to the lancer i drove previously.

although i need to get it serviced now and fix a problem so that will add on a couple of hundred.

[rodrocco]

Buy One - but I'm biased

I bought my latest Cordoba in Sydney 12 months ago for $3k and trucked it to Perth +$1k - a clean, straight manual '97 with 185K klm. Still sweet and going strong.

[h100vw]

In my experience, smoky VW motors are generally down to worn valve guides and stem seals.

You have the cost of a head gasket kit and fitting of the guides. After that they run like new again.

Plenty of these engine run to a couple of hundred thousand miles in Europe without problems.

You could get a replacement engine for sensible money, which would probably make more sense if you are handy yourself.

Gavin

[DVR68U]

yeah the cordy is a good car and when the motor is runing well they have plenty of power, they have gone up in value lately due to the crazy fuel prices. watch out for the cheap paint that they used to paint it with , the clear coat always comes off. the body is prob the most expensive part to fix as they are seat but most of the mech parts are a straight swap for vw bits . so get one with out 2 much panel damage.
cheers brenton

[Mischa]

has matt sold his? see the for sale section on here his has the abf code motor which is by far the best one to have. 150hp it would go hard hehehe.

[hugh.venables]

Yippee, bought a really nice one.

Thanks for your encouragement guys.

We sent two messages to the Nth Caulfield one via the internet site but got no reply for a couple of weeks. We were just about ready to make a ridiculous offer on the Burnside car and try it out for valve stem seals or more likely rings but were reluctant to give up on Nth. Caulfield. So we scanned Nth Caulfield from the four page corners in the Melway and made up a map of Nth. Caulfield, circled every intersection that was a possibility from the photos of the car on the site, about 120 of them and drove around for a couple of hours until we found it, on about the tenth last corner. Knocked on a couple of doors and showed a photo of the car from the site until we found out where they lived. Wrote a message on the back of the photo, tucked it in the front door and hoped like hell they wouldn't freak out at being stalked. And bingo, a couple of days later they came back from holidays and rang us. Imagine my daughters excitement.

So was it worth it? You bet! This 1995 red manual is not far from immaculate. The paint is all very good. There is a light paint scrape on the left rear wheel arch and a deeper one on the right corner of the rear bumper. The front skirt is not new any more. The interior is excellent except for a couple of tiny holes in the drivers carpet just in front of the mat. It has done 191,000 km. It was supposed to need a clutch but only because of gear selection problems which are actually due to a couple of shot gear shift bushes. The clutch does release a bit high and is a bit shuddery so it's getting there but it doesn't slip so there's a bit left yet. It was also supposed to need front brakes but only because of a bit of occasional squeal. There is a reciept for pads and rotors 20,000 km ago and the pads still look new so I think we can put up with a bit of squeal. The rego is due in a couple of weeks and the roadworthy is up to us. I didn't argue with the $2200 asked.

It has a noisy rear wheel bearing, there's a rattle in the exhaust and a strange irregular rattle in the front suspension when accelerating and decelerating like a loose bit of sheet metal. It tends to idle on three cylinders. We'll try it out for a roadworthy in the next couple of days.

Anybody know what's involved in the two gearshift bushes? One is a bush on the connecting shaft from the shift box to the linkages at the transmission end and the other is a wheel inside a u-shaped bracket. How about the three cylinder idle?
Hugh.

[Mischa]

cool congrats. tell her to join the site