Faults:

Alternator belt snapped, got sucked under the cam belt cover and demolished the valves.

Power steering rack failed - needed replacing.

Electric windows switch failed, replaced then failed again!

Started motor starting to go.

General Comments:

Very very fast car, in fact the fastest non turbo hot hatch ever made with a 0-60 of 7.2 seconds. The engine is one of the best 4 cylinder normally aspirated engines around.

In standard form the handling is a little scary, so it is recommended that the springs and shocks be upgraded.

The interior is good for the age. Includes digital dash, check control, leather steering wheel / gear knob, Recaro seats, tilt and slide sunroof... the list goes on.

For a 1990 car it is surprising that it has a CAT, ABS and PAS.

Faults:

Usual wear and tear. Such as brake pads and discs, new tyres etc.

Nothing else at all.

General Comments:

Great performance, good, powerful and capable engine with plenty of torque.

Goes through tyres really quickly.

Can be quite demanding to drive in wet conditions as the wheels will spin in almost any gear at almost any speed!

Attracts the wrong kind of attention. The kind that leaves you walking home with a large insurance claim to make. So get an alarm and immobiliser straight away.

Faults:

Quite a few small intermittent electrical faults - electric aerial, wipers, stereo.

So far so good though, nothing major... touch wood!

General Comments:

Bought the car in excellent condition even for its age, and I love it to bits!

Appears to be fairly rare, don't see so many of these on the roads as SRI's & GTE's. Maybe not as quick as a GTE, but can certainly hold its own against many other hot hatches.

Faults:

Steering rack came off the bulkhead.

Starter motor locked up - constantly engaged and caught fire!

General Comments:

A great car that is now quite affordable with prices around 1000-2000.

Insurance is reasonable for this type of car (mine is about 450 Third Party, Fire and Theft).

Blistering performance if you keep the engine well serviced and maintained. I have found it best to tune the engine every 4500 miles and use Mobil 1 oil and BOSCH 4's. It can get a bit wheelspinney due to the power going to the wheels but if you can control this there are not many cars that can beat it!!

There is plenty of cabin space and the LCD dash is brill but can be a bit of a bugger when the sun is behind you and then you can't register a thing!

Faults:

Clutch went.

Welding to the back sills.

Suspension bushes and ball joints.

Track rod ends and starter motor.

They all went at the same time.

Goes through tyres like nobody's business.

General Comments:

Good overall car, handling is crap round corners, at speed the back end goes.

Lowered 30mm which gave it a better feel for the road and a K&N filter gave a slight improvement in top end speed plus a nice sound.

I found the car to be pretty quick, but nothing compared to a turbo. It's a good car to try as it's cheap speed.