And this is a beauty I found at a garage. I found it after I got the tip from a friend. It has a few dents and, according to the garage, needs the following repairs:

  • Replacement of brake pads
  • Replacement of the hydraulic lines of the braking system
  • A set of new tires

Our list is just a bit longer. We found this after 1 hours of inspection. Everything marked with a red dot needs to be fixed ASAP, everything marked with an orange dot needs to be done to get a good car. The white dots mark the cosmetic work. Green dots mark point that already have bin fixed. Newly found points will be added in a seperate list below.

  • Heavy valve cover oil leakage. All oil inthere is gone as soon as the engine is hot.
  • broken right hand fog light glass.
  • ABS did not always reliably work on gravel. Will probably do better with non-rusty discs.
  • substantial steering rack play
  • worn left rear lower arm bushing, hub side. (wheel has a lot of play)
  • rear diff has some play but does not make noise
  • small amounts of oil leakage all over the gearbox. Valve cover is main suspect here.
  • motor leaks small amounts of oil, timing side (probably crank/cam seal or similar)
  • brake lines rusty near one of the clamps, but not leaking (yet).
  • fuel lines very rusty near one of the clamps, but not leaking (yet).
  • wheel alignment suspect.
  • needs tuneup
  • right hand door sideskirt missing
  • hatch is not mounted (aligned) correctly.
  • severe rust (holes) in LH rear fender lip
  • damaged left front fender.
  • scuff marks on bumper.
  • dent in bonnet.
  • very rusty sunroof panel
  • large speaker holes in messy homemade package tray.
  • rusty spare tire well reinforcement
  • left front ABS sensor mounted with a tiewrap
  • exhaust downpipe has a large leak. (replaced complete exhaust)
  • muffler & tailpipe have holes. (replaced complete exhaust)
  • Both fogs don't work. (loose wire)
  • rear window defroster doesn't work. (loose wire)
  • severe power steering belt slippage. (replaced belt)
  • left front parking light broken. (Bulb replaced)
  • corner light unit. (replaced)
  • right hand headlight cover. (replaced cover)
  • a bit of weird noise under the bonnet after cold start (solved itself after usage and oil change)
  • light intermittent idle misfire when cold (solved itself after usage and oil change)
  • needs new wiper blades. (fixed themselves, dirt)
  • a bit of play in right front steering tierod (Tightened bolts)
  • radiator is in pretty bad shape. (no problems, so keeping it this way)
  • differential cushion probably bad (diff hits floorpan with a large CLUNK when taking your foot off the throttle)
  • right hand power window does not work. (Cleaned switch)
  • right front outer CV joint boot torn in half. (replaced with one for a mazda 626)
  • front tires bald on outer edges.
    (replaced compleet with set of borbet T 7.5J16 wheels)
  • turbo to intercooler hose torn, bad hose clamp. (replaced both)
  • lots of oil in AFM-to-turbo hose, probably from the PCV system. (cleaned)
  • quite a bit of turbo shaft play, does not scrape the housing yet.
    (according to dealer this is normal, shaft is supposed to run completely in oil)
  • hatch won't close anymore. Probably needs adjustment. (fixed by garage)
  • rear licenseplate mountpoints unusable. (removed broken screws)
  • battery to small for mount. (replaced)
  • power steering fluid leckage. (replaced high pressure hose)
  • Headlight washers not working. (replaced pump)

After gutting the cat we now replaced the stock exhaust with a custom 2.5" exhaust. It took them 6.5 hours instead of the 4 hours they counted on. I love fixed price exhausts. :-) To bad we missed our appointment for the MOT that day. July 11th I went the second time and it passed with a minor adjustment (allignment was wrong) of the left headlight and some uncertainty about the CO value. No specs for this car, so it should have 1.5% or less. Measured 0.7, so no problem there.

We measured the power curves of the car with street dyno and found the following curves. We've found out that the europe models have a different final ratio (3.933) then the US models. These graphs make some sense, taking the 6 psi turbo pressure in account instead of the usual 9 psi. We're still not sure about the friction, so we added a graph with 25%, 20% and 0% (at the wheels).

Here are the graphs:


I've added a nice app to calculate all costs made for this car. Just folow the link.
If you want to take a look at all the pictures I've got online, take a look here, just click on the image to view the fullsize image.

Last update: 27 September 2005

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