Desperate help needed with seat leon 03 reg leak/s
Discussion
Hi everyone I am new to the forums and have owned a 2003 seat Leon 1.8 turbo car for around 8 months now. It has done 125,000 and had been a reliable car until I gave it to my brother as a first car as he passed his test.
It began leaking internally and we only realised in the morning of it happening, when the drivers side front and back areas were wet on the floor near the clutch. The car also needed its MOT and we noticed a red light was appearing on the dash and the car was eating coolant like no tomorrow.
I called out a mobile mechanic I found on Gumtree who said he was VOSA approved and had 10 years of mechanic experience and i looked on facebook, he had loads of reviews from people who had genuine accounts and his company was VAT registered, so he seemed legit. He took the car away and diagnosed the leak as coming from the sunroof and also said the cat needed a new roll bar and had a gearbox leak alongside some other parts. He charged £175 to fix these things including VAT/parts/labour everything and also get it through the MOT.
After a week of him returning the car, the leaks come back on the driver side/front back area in the same area and I’m pretty sure that there is patches near the front of the car engine area and my brother says its still eating coolant.
To be fair when he gave it us back the red light seems to have disappeared and the car steers better but apart from that problems still arise.
I contacted the mechanic but he went quiet on me despite 8 days of texts, phonecalls, emails and Facebook messages.
As I had paid for the work and had a receipt I was quite angry that he didn't do the job properly and on the 9th day of trying to ring him I got a text from him saying it was his 'garage manager' and the mechanic had been in a serious car accident and was in a & e.
I was unsure if i was being fobbed off or had been a complete idiot and hired a novice who did a botch job, so I asked a friend to pretend to contact him off gumtree who received no reply..
So today I went down to his ‘garage’ today or his 'unit' where his garage is and had just missed him by ten minutes, but the guys on his yard told me that he had been there and as far as they knew he'd not been in any car accident when they'd seen him earlier in the day and was fine, so I text him again letting him know that I was now fed up of chasing him and would involve trading standards and had visited his 'unit' of which his part was about as big as a garage shed lol (a small wooden one). Anyway shortly after that message got a phone call from him swearing at me for going to his 'unit' and saying I had put his reputation at question by going to where his unit is and I eventually got him to agree to a repair.. He’s told me now he’s adamant the leak was coming from the roof and he will only repair the car if I come along and watch the repair and him check for a leak and he’s adamant the prior issue was the sunroof and also the coolant was leaking from a hose/connection pipe, so he claims now the only reason the car could be eating coolant is if the head gasket is on the way out and he wants £300 to fix this if it is that .Since he returned the car the red light did disappear so am puzzled by why it still eats coolant..but could there be another issue separate to head gasket if he isn't lying about it being the pipe?
I’ve googled about the leak and apparently this is a common issue with the seat leon model and people said to check the pollen filter, which the mechanic is claiming if it was a leak would leak in a different area..and also people said its common to be the seals in the door..I just wondered if it could be the radiator causing it or any other things could be causing the problem?
Any help would be appreciated as I gave this car to my brother and as the mechanic wants me and my brother to go along with him on saturday to ‘prove he’s done the work’ after 10 days of pestering him, I wanted to go along with knowledge of the faults and not be fogged off.
It began leaking internally and we only realised in the morning of it happening, when the drivers side front and back areas were wet on the floor near the clutch. The car also needed its MOT and we noticed a red light was appearing on the dash and the car was eating coolant like no tomorrow.
I called out a mobile mechanic I found on Gumtree who said he was VOSA approved and had 10 years of mechanic experience and i looked on facebook, he had loads of reviews from people who had genuine accounts and his company was VAT registered, so he seemed legit. He took the car away and diagnosed the leak as coming from the sunroof and also said the cat needed a new roll bar and had a gearbox leak alongside some other parts. He charged £175 to fix these things including VAT/parts/labour everything and also get it through the MOT.
After a week of him returning the car, the leaks come back on the driver side/front back area in the same area and I’m pretty sure that there is patches near the front of the car engine area and my brother says its still eating coolant.
To be fair when he gave it us back the red light seems to have disappeared and the car steers better but apart from that problems still arise.
I contacted the mechanic but he went quiet on me despite 8 days of texts, phonecalls, emails and Facebook messages.
As I had paid for the work and had a receipt I was quite angry that he didn't do the job properly and on the 9th day of trying to ring him I got a text from him saying it was his 'garage manager' and the mechanic had been in a serious car accident and was in a & e.
I was unsure if i was being fobbed off or had been a complete idiot and hired a novice who did a botch job, so I asked a friend to pretend to contact him off gumtree who received no reply..
So today I went down to his ‘garage’ today or his 'unit' where his garage is and had just missed him by ten minutes, but the guys on his yard told me that he had been there and as far as they knew he'd not been in any car accident when they'd seen him earlier in the day and was fine, so I text him again letting him know that I was now fed up of chasing him and would involve trading standards and had visited his 'unit' of which his part was about as big as a garage shed lol (a small wooden one). Anyway shortly after that message got a phone call from him swearing at me for going to his 'unit' and saying I had put his reputation at question by going to where his unit is and I eventually got him to agree to a repair.. He’s told me now he’s adamant the leak was coming from the roof and he will only repair the car if I come along and watch the repair and him check for a leak and he’s adamant the prior issue was the sunroof and also the coolant was leaking from a hose/connection pipe, so he claims now the only reason the car could be eating coolant is if the head gasket is on the way out and he wants £300 to fix this if it is that .Since he returned the car the red light did disappear so am puzzled by why it still eats coolant..but could there be another issue separate to head gasket if he isn't lying about it being the pipe?
I’ve googled about the leak and apparently this is a common issue with the seat leon model and people said to check the pollen filter, which the mechanic is claiming if it was a leak would leak in a different area..and also people said its common to be the seals in the door..I just wondered if it could be the radiator causing it or any other things could be causing the problem?
Any help would be appreciated as I gave this car to my brother and as the mechanic wants me and my brother to go along with him on saturday to ‘prove he’s done the work’ after 10 days of pestering him, I wanted to go along with knowledge of the faults and not be fogged off.
The common leak on a Leon of that age is the membranes behind the door cards on the rear doors. The drain holes in the door bottoms block and the membranes detach with age. There's plenty of info and a picture guide on Seat Cupra net if you want to do it yourself.
The coolant leak should be easy for a decent mechanic to find either by eye or with a pressure test. The header tank on those is prone to cracking but a car of that age could easily suffer from a perished hose or dried/cracked plastic union.
The coolant leak should be easy for a decent mechanic to find either by eye or with a pressure test. The header tank on those is prone to cracking but a car of that age could easily suffer from a perished hose or dried/cracked plastic union.
I had an A3 of this age and the leak was coming from under the scuttle panel, where the loom passes through the firewall into the unstrument cluster. It's a plastic box that had gone brittle with age. Siliconed it up and that seemed to stop it.
I had checked the membranes of the door cards too, but they were ok, and I had no sunroof.
I used a hose on the scuttle pannel and could see the water dripping in behind the pedals after a minute or so.
Hope you get it sorted.
SL
I had checked the membranes of the door cards too, but they were ok, and I had no sunroof.
I used a hose on the scuttle pannel and could see the water dripping in behind the pedals after a minute or so.
Hope you get it sorted.
SL
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