Niche

Was it you? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-26010192

I was aware of the common faults related to the car...I just wasn't expecting the whole car to fall apart. Lol.

and VW's are quality compared to a 206? my sport was a complete and utter failure... 60k with shagged pistons, shagged valve seals, broken pedal box, leaking shock absorbers, shagged wishbone bushes, broken gearbox, broken catalytic converter, broken thermostat, broken electric sunroof, broken clutch cable and clutch, broken door check straps, broken door locking mechanism, broken button for electric windows and the stupid valve in the backbox rusted away and fell off inside making the car sound like a lawnmower. Even when I traded it into VW the starter motor packed up. Also premature water pump failure. i couldn't care less if the interior on a french car falls apart, that's fixable...at least the rest of it won't die. newer vw's aren't any better either. polo mk6 2002-2005 which has failed wishbone bushes, broken ARB bush carriers, weak timing chain tensioner, broken windscreen wiper mechanisms, burnt out EGR valves, premature ignition coil failures. The only reliable VW I've ever owned was my 20 year old Polo mk2, nothing went wrong with that in the year I had it. I've test driven many GTI180's and I have to say it puts the underpowered Lupo GTI to shame. Don't think I am a French Peugeot fan because I am not, I've only ever owned VW's in my life.

you topped up your gearbox oil on a Lupo 1.4 AFK? bahahhahhhahahaa. yeah i done that on my AFK. then decided to change the oil completely...when i drained it the new oil hadn't mixed with the old black sludge that was in there before... sorry but your gearbox oil will have to be changed like...now. you can only top up gearbox oil on the newer revised gearboxes such as those found in the Polo (2002 onwards). I drained the oil in that and it looked brand new.

Lupo GTI's are great cars but if you want more power for less bite the bullet and buy a 206GTI 180 or get a Honda Integra 98 spec (though they are a little old now) and genuine parts take months to come through from dealers.

Mirrors on the Lupo are weak. The ones on the Polo 9N (2002-2005) are tough, I've had two incidents in two years with them and they still work 100%. One was I got too confident with the diameters of my car and ended up smashing into a bollard at 20mph on a restricted width road. The plastic cover came off but there was no damage, it just popped back on, tough as you like. Electric mirrors and heaters still worked. Another incident included a van driver thinking he had the right of way, he decided to floor it, his wing mirror smashed into my wing mirror. His one fell off and mine didn't budge, I laughed for the rest of the day. You really need plastic covers these days in London. The newer Polo (2006-2009) have gone back to weak, who's bright idea was it to stick the signal light on the mirror instead of the wing.

I had this on my Sport, though in my case it was throwing out tiny chunks of black dirt. The standard backbox has a section which stores dirty oil which has passed through the exhaust system, perhaps this section is simply full and dirty oil is being passed through this section and out the back. After 4 oil changes with Quantum Gold and an engine cleaner (once) in 10k miles and a new stainless steel backbox which doesn't have this stupid oil section, all was fine. The only build up after that was just light black dusting on the tip which built up a little bit after two weeks. My Sport does use oil but thinking about it logically they designed the backbox like that knowing these engines pass through oil. It does say in the book that they can consume up to a litre of oil per 1,000km or something silly like that depending on how you drive the car. Nothing to worry about.

The only modification I done to the suspension of my Lupo Sport was to fit KYB gas shocks on the front. After that the boat feeling disappeared and it handled like a dream with the right set of tyres. If I had had the money back then I would have put KYB shocks on the rear and lowered the car 30-40mm. KYB shocks aren't hard, they are firm and the end result is a comfortable car to drive with all the handling of a supermini. KYB do different variants of their shocks, go for the slightly better ones if you can. Great shocks, never had anything like them.

I think that justifies itself. And what exactly do you intend on breaking with your left foot?

I only pointed out that it's not safe to practice racing techniques on public roads which we pay to drive on and in my case pay to park on. I haven't insulted anyone but if other people want to take something to heart for no reason I can think of then please do lock this thread. Thanks.

hardly good practice and i wouldn't recommend it as "1 Litre Screamer" pointed it out if you haven't done it before. practising driving techniques in any situation isn't something you should be suggesting to do on a forum regardless as to whether if it is good or not. Public roads are not test tracks. None the less that didn't stop me from trying it whilst doing 60mph down my private road. I think I almost went through the windscreen.

If your after just the sound, the long life guarantee and the cheapness of an exhaust then I'd be going for a Jetex aluminised steel exhaust system. If your after just the sound and long life then the same as above but a stainless steel version. If you just want a cheap back box then visit a scrap yard.

I remember watching a Forumla One race sometime last year and there was mention of which foot should be used for braking. Some F1 drivers use their right foot for both. E.g. Jenson Button, this is why they say he's smooth on the throttle and smooth on the brakes. Other F1 drivers use their left foot for braking. The results were of particular interest because the digital screens showed that the drivers who used their left foot to brake and their right to accelerate often ended up overheating their brakes quicker because they had the tendancy to brake and accelerate partially at the same time. So the answer to this question is entirely dependant on the type of car you are racing. F1 drivers can do it if they want to because their clutch is on the steering wheel. If anything on a car with a clutch pedal you should be using your right foot to accelerate and brake "heel and toe" style. Take a look on YouTube at the Japanese drivers who race in the Honda Integra Type R's. It's quite effective but as I say...it doesn't suit all Sports. For road use just your right foot is sufficient to apply the throttle and brakes independantly rather than heel and toe.

Doesn't seem to matter whether if the Sports are ragged or not, high mileage or low mileage. The fact of the matter is that they used cheap parts. (valve stem seals, guides, piston rings etc.) When I part exchanged my Lupo Sport at VW for a Polo I spoke to a few of the mechanics and they all said the same thing. One of them bought a Lupo 3L in with a broken gearbox...ha! This is why they mention in the manual that engine oil consumption may be anywhere near 1 litre / 1,000km. Thanks god newer cars aren't like that! My 3 pot can run on either 5w-40 synta gold with the occasional minor top up every 3,000km or I can run it on 5w-30 synta longlife which is the most expensive oil ever since records began but it never needs to be topped up as it doesn't burn. I'm currently running the gold but I'm looking to change over to the longlife very shortly for the winter period.

could be a number of things, fuel filter, spark plugs, idle control valve, unsuccessful throttle body rebuild etc. Can't pinpoint a fault for you I'm afraid.

Yes. Both exhausts are identical and twin exit. GTI moulds a twin exit into a twin chrome tip where as the Sport moulds a twin exit into a single oval chrome tip. Only differences are that the GTI exhaust hangars may possibly be located in slightly different places...according to my local VW. Not sure on this to be fair.

I've been using Windows for years at home and at work. All workstations are using Service Pack 3 with the latest drivers installed and I haven't seen one BSOD for years. The only time I get a BSOD is when I overclock my quad core to the limits but I'm a stress tester, this is how we experiment. New hardware vendors aren't going to support Mac's. There going to support and produce drivers for the larger marketshare that is Microsoft. I reformatted my home PC a year ago and I've never had one issue since. As an IT Assitant to the IT Manager I know lots of things that a novice or amateur wouldn't know, I even surprise my boss sometimes. At work we have 80 computers, we changed the Anti-virus from NOD32 to Kaspersky 6.0. Upgraded all computers to Service Pack 3 and updated all the GeForce drivers for the graphic cards and I haven't had one complaint about a BSOD or slack performance. We had a few BSOD's in the past but this turned out to be outdated GeForce drivers. Windows works well but suffers with the terrible drivers that hardware vendors come up with.

so as i said in my earlier post...plastic impella's. "aro'sport".

Oh yeah, cupra bushes are solid. Would you be able to get hold of a part number or a vehicle reg from a seat cupra so I can order them?

Yes correct. IIRC 60mph is something like 3,000rpm in 5th gear. I tried a longer 5th gear and it didn't suit my car at all, might suit a GTI as it has more power to play with but still might not work. 60mph - 3k rpm 80mph - 4k rpm 100mph - 5k rpm 120mph - 6k rpm Just because the revs are higher doesn't mean your going to use more petrol, if anything fuel consumption would be identical because you shouldn't have to press the throttle as much to get up to speed and hold it.

Be careful when cleaning the throttle body. I have seen people use carb cleaner and make their idle issues worse. Usually it works but there is always the risk of getting more gunk clogged up inside as you are losening up the gunk when spraying carb cleaner so it's free to move around. Do it properly and take the throttle body off, strip it, soak it in carb cleaner, rebuild it and then put it back on.

Water pumps on the Lupo's have plastic impella's which tend to break off. If your heaters are working then the water pump is fine as water is circulating. Another way to tell if the water pump has gone is by squeezing the water pipes, if there is a build of of pressure the pipe leading to the top of the radiator will become very stiff. Generally speaking if your heaters stop because the water pump has failed you have a matter of minutes to pull over and switch the engine off before it starts to overheat to 130. If you've done these checks then you can try replacing your temp sender and thermostat...best done at the same time. You shouldn't lose more than a couple litres of coolant so you will need a bottle of G12+ coolant and some water to mix. Also by way of rubbish design your thermostat housing (which is plastic...typical VW) could be broken, mine was so I couldn't fit in the new thermostat without replacing the plastic housing. When you order the part from VW they should offer you a thermostat, rubber ring seal for the thermostat, plastic housing and ask for a temperature sender. Could be other things but the thermostat etc. are inexpensive to do.

It's entirely up to you to be fair, Polo GTI is heavier than a Lupo GTI. But if I was in your situation I would have the gearbox reconditioned and put in different gear ratio's like the one's found in a Lupo/Polo 16V Sport. At the end of the day your not going to sit at over 120mph for long. The shorter gear ratio's will improve acceleration times sufficiently.

Powerflex bushes tend to be quite stiff but if you want something inbetween see if 'SuperPro' do bushes for the Lupo. Generally speaking by way of the wishbone design on the Lupo it's all quite tight as the bushes are all quite small and solid in design. Hence the saying all you need is a set of coilies. Although the ones on my Lupo were given a verbal warning down to its age, no advisory as such on the MOT. If your someone who drives a Polo with the 9N chassis you would have grown to hate wishbone bushes as the wishbone relies heavily on the front lower rear wishbone bush which is HUGE. It also has gaps inside it which means there is excessive play and the bushes are prone to splitting...those bushes are one massive design flaw on VW's behalf. I replaced them and put on Powerflex inserts to prolong the life of the original bush as a temporary measure until I can afford to buy SuperPro solid bushes.