Seat Arosa 1.0s

10 October, 201312 yr

Model: Seat Arosa 1.0s
Engine: 1.0l 8v in-line 4 Multi-point Injection

Hi guys, I recently bought a Seat Arosa 1.0s (very similar to the VW Lupo). I have owned the car since March 2013 and thought it was about time to get a build thread up to track the little things i have been doing. I bought the car for £650 with a misfire, we thought that this may be a simple fix such as new coilpack etc. The car was on 79,000 miles which is relatively low mileage. However, after replacing the coilpack, spark plugs, ht leads, lambda sensor, injectors, injector seals still no luck. So as a last resort we decided to strip it right down to find what the problem was, we stripped it down to find that the first piston had pretty much seized and had been smashing against the head. It looks as though the previous owner had never heard of oil :S

After this setback my dad bought me a new engine to replace the ruined one with and we set about doing the engine swap. The new engine wasn't from an Arosa but a VW Polo (still the same engine code- AUC). However, after putting this engine in we discovered we had no oil pressure. Instead of messing around even more with getting this new engine to work my dad bought me another VW Polo engine which works brilliantly now.

So all in all it has been a little bit of a nightmare, but a good learning curve and now the car is all working fine. When i bought the car i was only 16 and wasn't driving, I am now 17 and have started driving the car and absolutely love it, everything feels great and it runs a dream, could do with a little bit more power but its a great first car. The car does have a few minor bad points; the bodywork isn't 100% great and there's lots of little jobs that need to be done.

The bodywork has a few imperfections; the rear quarter panel looks as though it has been pushed in at the very bottom near the rear light, the front bumper looks as though it has had an encounter with a bollard of some sort, the rear bumper has a large scratch and paintwork issues above the rear number plate recess the roof has some areas of lacquer peel as does the bonnet. Also, the boot lid has been debadged and there is a patch which is a slightly different colour where the badge used to be. I have listed every bad point but in the flesh it is not very noticeable. As for the rest of the car, the interior is mint, it has the "tim tom" interior which was an optional extra as standard. Another bad point is the passenger door makes a loud clonking noise when opening which i have discovered is the door bushing so will fix it once I make a new bushing. However, I think the car has previously been modified, for example the door pulls on the passenger side is black, but the door pull on the drivers door is grey. Also the boot lid shows it has been debadged and the front grille has been sprayed black. However, all these little things have been poorly done and will need some tlc to do properly.

Future Plans:

- TA Technix Coilovers (bought already waiting on fitting)

- Dare DRS wheels (bought already waiting on fitting)

- Lupo GTI rear bumper (bought already currently smoothing and re-spraying)

- Scorpion stainless steel centre exit backbox (bought already waiting on fitting)

- Mk3 Golf Colour concept Recaro seats (bought already waiting on fitting)

- Momo 280 steering wheel (bought already waiting on fitting)

- Lupo GTI Boot Spoiler

- Camber rear wheels

- Bonnet Bra (to cover bonnet lacquer peel)

- Smoothed Front Bumper

- Carbon Wrap roof (to cover roof lacquer peel)

- Wind Deflectors

- Boot build

- Show cage (already bought waiting on fitting)

I have attached a few photos which show a few different angles of the Arosa, any advice would be much appreciated, thanks for reading :)

Now I have started driving the Arosa i absolutely love it, its a great first car. However when I tried to insure it no insurance would insure me as a learner with modifications declared. So for now i can only modify it in subtle ways, so far i have fitted a new grill to replace the previously shoddy sprayed black one, it now has a brand new one. I have also swapped the oil cap for an R8 oil cap. I trial fitted the show cage as it is from a saxo and wanted to see what i needed to do to fit it securely. I have also found the heated rear window switch hidden behind a tray in the dash so cut out a section of the dash and now i can use the heated rear window switch. I am also currently making the new door bushing to hopefully stop the clonking noise. I have started to rub the Lupo GTI rear bumper down ready for filling and smoothing. I also compared my momo 280 to the original steering wheel and noticed just how small the 280 is!!

I am somewhat of a wheel whore, here's a list of my collection so far:

- Dare DRS 15"x7J (BBS reps) wrapped with 165/50r15 bridgestone potenza's which give great amount of stetch

-Pirelli P-slots 14"x6J which i had refurbed and wrappen with 195/45r14 Falken ziex's

-Porsche Teledials 15"x6J which have recently been sprayed a turquoise kind of colour and have been wrapped in staggered trye sizes, 165/50r15 Nankang NS2 on the fronts and 195/45r15 Nexen N6000's on the rear.

i have also attached a picture of the BBS reps on my mates Polo 6N