Friday 14th October 2016

Shed Of The Week: Seat Leon Cupra 20VT

Yep, a Leon this good really is available for Shed money!

---

Shed ran a first-gen Leon Cupra R in red for a year and absolutely loved both the way it went and the way it looked. Based on the Mk4 Golf chassis, that first Leon came 7th in Autocar's 2010 'best hot hatch of all time' reader poll.

That was a twin-intercooler Cupra R with gorgeous 1-8inch wheels. This week's SOTW isn't. It's, well, a bit mysterious. It's being touted as a 'Leon 20V Turbo Cupra' with 210hp, but the 20VT was never that poky. That had a 180hp motor.

Still a handsome beast after all this time

The only other thing that may or may not be connected to the odd naming and horsepower issues on this ad is that there's nothing coming up for the car on the MoT history check site. That's odd considering it passed its last one only a couple of months ago, with no advisories. You can't trust the internet of course. If you could, Shed would never have picked Mrs Shed off that dating site. But the absence of info does give you pause. (Following later investigation, Shed has managed to cajole his Amstrad into providing MOT info - apologies for any confusion!).

Still, assuming it is the 180 rather than the 210, that's nevertheless enough to take you well into the 140mph range, with average mpg figures in the mid-30s rising to over 40mpg on a relaxed motorway cruise courtesy of the high-geared six-speed 'box. Boil it right down and you're looking a very practical FWD five-seater that weighed around 1,300kg and handled very neatly. If you're planning on trackdaying it they're a bit marginal on braking, but generally speaking they're fun little cars with a nice sense of solidity about them.

Could have shut the doors

So, a Leon 20VT in a smashing colour and with a long MOT - what's not to like?

Well, Leon rear doors have a nasty habit of not opening. It could be an errant cable behind the door card, but sometimes you can cajole them into action by using the same slapping technique as the Fonz used on the Happy Days jukebox. Or of course you could just go for the traditional PH method of smashing the back doors in.

Under the bonnet, coil packs were the first and most usual suspects for failure. There was a lot of argy-bargy about this between the Volkswagen group and its coil supplier at the time. Reduced turbo boost pressure was the clue. It's a historic problem, obviously, as any Leons from this era that are still successfully producing sparks today will be doing so thanks to coils that aren't made from Bakelite, asbestos or other dodgy retro materials.

Water gets in around the rear lamps and the door bottoms, and anyone who has had the problem of the rear washer pipe coming adrift on their Mk4 Golf will be delighted to hear that the Leon is similarly afflicted.

Tidy if a little dour inside

Some SEAT designer booby pointed the horn forwards with the result that they fill up with water in non-Spanish climes. Air mass sensors are known for going west and are not especially cheap to replace.

The current cambelt on this car is 36,000 miles old. This needs careful watching as a snap will comprehensively trash the motor. It's a four-year/60K replacement cycle and changing it (and the water pump plus associated belt drives) is a bit fiddly on these 1.8 20-valvers. That Extreme Blue paint is lovely but soft, not really an issue at the sub-£1K end of the market but worth mentioning if you're the fastidious sort.

The process of clarifying the MoT and power issues should knock a couple of hundred off the price, at which point you should be able to pull the trigger with a light heart.

Here's the ad.

Lovely car to drive, smooth and powerful with great acceleration.
MOT until August 2017, with the last MOT having no advisory notes
New cam belt fitted at 80503 miles. Excellent condition inside and out, lovely and clean.
Electric windows, mirrors, sunroof and front seats for adjustment, air conditioning, 6 x CD changer, leather trim, heated front seats, folding rear seats, child seat points (Isofix system), sports seats, power steering, steering wheel rake adjustment, steering wheel reach adjustment, traction control, central locking, alarm, drivers and passenger airbags, side airbags

[alock]

First new car I ever bought. £14200 in 2002 and I ran it for 6 years and 75k miles. The MOT history now shows mine was clocked a few months later to <40k miles.