Faults:

Some mayo under the oil cap, sold it on to a dealer. That was after a couple years of zero problems though.

General Comments:

Same car as the mk4 Golf, but looks better. These have weird problems with water getting in the doors, but mine just trapped water under the door and not in the car, plus no rust problems.

Although it was old when I bought it, it had very low mileage and a good history, so I looked after it. Best maintenance I did was to change the gearbox oil, was much better after that.

The 1.6 comes in 8v and 16v, this one was the latter with 105bhp. Seems feeble, but it was fine to drive. Got 30-35 mpg, which is about right for an older N/A petrol car.

Aircon was the best in any car I've ever had, oddly enough, maybe because Seat is Spanish?

Anyway parts etc are easy and cheap to get because they mostly all use Golf mk4 parts. Eg discs and pads super cheap. If you do your own maintenance and don't need high mpg, I'd advise looking for one of these. Because of the Cupra version still being popular with tuners, they look fairly cool still, which is good for a twenty year old car.

Faults:

All 4 coils have gone and had to be replaced.

Leaking door seals with 3 inches of water every time it rains in all four foot wells.

Engine management light constantly on.

EC warning light flashes on and off.

Starting problems.

Car stalls at stand still.

General Comments:

The car when first brought was a lovely car. Within 6 months and out of warranty, the first coil broke. From then on the car has been breaking down regularly.

I also then developed the issue with leaking doors, which Seat told me was the pollen filter, which has been rectified around 4 times now.

I told today that it's the doors seals and have been quoted £215 to repair along with a broken map sensor and AGR valve, which is causing the poor fuel consumption and running of this car.

My frustration is I have battled with Seat for the last 2.5 years on this, and nobody until now has dealt with the problems.

I have two young children who have to sit in the wet and stinky car daily. It's a disgrace.

Faults:

There is water leaking into the foot wells, neither myself or the dealer can get to the bottom of it.

General Comments:

The Leon is a great car, there have been no problems except the water leakage, which shouldn't be too much of a problem because the dealer is falling head over heels to get to the bottom of it.

It's a gorgeous looking car, with a coupe shaped body.

The interior is very classy, and the seats are very comfortable and hugging.

Its engine pulls very well and doesn't slouch around.

I'm going to keep mine for as long as it will last.

Faults:

Nothing - the only money I have had to spend in the 3 years of ownership and over 50,000 miles I have done, has been the cost of having the cam belt changed, a set of new tires, and a set of new brake pads.

VAG make EXCELLENT turbo diesels.

General Comments:

The car is fairly slow as standard (12.4 seconds to 60), however, shortly after purchasing I had angeltuning to do an ECU remap, which has reduced this figure to under 10 seconds.

This remap COMPLETELY transformed the car, the in-gear acceleration is phenomenal and the fuel economy is still in the region of 45-50mpg, even if you hoof it.

Remapping the ECU of a VAG diesel gives astonishing results, a rolling road confirmed that the power output had increased from 89bhp to 121bhp, and that torque was up by 60lb/ft!

In terms of comfort, the interior bears a close resemblance to the Audi A3 - I have driven over 22,000 miles per year in this car and I have never been uncomfortable. There is very little road noise when traveling at speed and the only time you can hear that it is a diesel power plant is when idling at traffic lights. Also worthy of note is that the speakers are phenomenal.

If I was to pick a niggle with this car, it would be the handling - the suspension is a bit too soft to handle the extra power from the remap, and as a result, it doesn't corner as well as a Golf.

Overall, I loved this car, however, I hate the look of the new model Leon and this was the main reason I have just bought a VW Golf GT TDi 170.

I would highly recommend Seat though, the dealer service was excellent and the car has been fantastically reliable and fun to drive (albeit after spending the £275 on a remap).