29th Aug 2016, 16:17

(Original Reviewer Update III)

I still have the same car after almost 10 full years of ownership. The odometer is currently showing 113000 miles, although it has been running on 205/45 tyres since 2008, and under-reads distance (compared to Google Maps) by about 5% (over an example 140 mile journey).

I added a rear anti roll bar which removed some of the cornering issues the car had: when braking into a roundabout the car would tend to drift wide. Also, when entering some corners, the initially feeling was that nothing was happening 'up front'.

There have been no major malfunctions, and the car has never left me stranded anywhere. The one failure was a broken driver's side front coil spring.

The clutch still appears to take the remapped 'maximum boost' of 315 lbs-ft of torque without any signs of slipping, although the stock dual-mass flywheel responds violently if too much torque is transmitted. This is noticeable in 4th/5th/6th gear as a violent wobbling.

It has returned about 50 MPG over more than 100,000 miles of travel. The previous set of tyres (Avon ZZ3) last about 23,000 miles. It's currently on ZZ5s and they appear to be wearing similarly.

The front brakes lasted until about 85,000 miles. The rear brakes have never been changed, although both front and rear discs are now wearing a little.

There is a slight 'pinging' noise in the driver's seat whenever I sit in the car.

The plastic moulded mounts for the tailgate's rear light clusters sheared off, making removal to change a bulb challenging -- the mounts were drilled out after removing the lining of the tailgate (breaking several of its own plastic mounts and snapping several metal spring clips in the process -- I subsequently snapped it back into place and it seems OK.)