Advise on buying 2000 Ibiza 1.4

Barr

Hi

A friend of mine is interested in buying a Seat Ibiza.Its her first car and I went went with her for a test drive tonight and found two things very noticable about the car

1) the clutch was really heavy more akin to driving an italian supercar than a city car
2)the engine on idle sounded like a diesel at cold but gradually got queiter but still noiser than many cars i have driven.

The seller says all Ibiza have the the above features

Anybody else with experience of these cars knows if thats right ??

Is there anything else specific about these cars that I need to watch out for?

The car is a year 2000 ,1.4( with MPI) wrote on it if thats any relevance with 40k on the clock

colm_mcm

AFAIK the 1.4 is the 60bhp one from the Fabia and MK3 Golf (?) I find the clutch on the 1.0 Ibiza heavy, not that much experience of the 1.4. The engines are usually smooth, but a slight clatter at idle isn't unheard of.

alias no.9

I was looking at one for my girlfriend before and the clutch was unbelievably stiff, definitely needed a new cable at the very least but the bearing could have been shot too. I just walked away.

Barr

I had another drive off the car today - took it to my mechanic - turns out a thing called the pedal box is gone.Appartently these all go in ibizas of this type.
The way you can tell is the clutch pedal is lower than the brake pedal

I'm glad to escape from this one !

crosstownk

Barr wrote:

I had another drive off the car today - took it to my mechanic - turns out a thing called the pedal box is gone.Appartently these all go in ibizas of this type.
The way you can tell is the clutch pedal is lower than the brake pedal

I'm glad to escape from this one !

Same thing happens in VW Caddy / Seat Inca. AFAIK the replacement part has been modified. If the seller will get it fixed before selling then it should be OK. Watch out for dodgy HT leads (assuming it's petrol). Gearbox can be troublesome too. Rear brakes (shoes) can squeal - this is not a problem and regular cleaning will prevent the squeal.

Supercell

I test drove a bunch of Ibiza 1.4's before eventually buying a 2002 Fabia a few weeks ago.

All the Ibiza's I test drove had a very heavy sticky clutch, didn't like it at all to be honest. The Fabia I bought eventually has the same engine??, maybe someone can correct me on this, it also has Mpi written on the back too. The clutch is nothing like the Ibiza's - its nice and smooth.