Advice on viewing

sockpuppet

Active Member
Apr 30, 2007
837
4
Four very common problems:

Choc cams - Seem to go around 100000 miles. Happen on my 55 plate the was serviced every 10000 with the correct oil. £700+ for a garage to fix
Door locks - Lock and unlock with fob several times check indicator lights flash (not locking all locks if they dont) also listen for laboured locking sound on driver and passenger door.
Gears - Engage clutch put in 1st take out of 1st disengage clutch. Do this 10 - 15 times and see if it won't go into gear or come out (Slave cylinder on way out £400+ as gearbox has to be removed)
Check floors for any wetness as doors known to leak or pollen filter housing incorrectly fitted.

Probably to late to get one before the weekend but a Bluetooth ODBII dongle and torque app on your phone will set you back uder £20 and you can read codes, see turbo pressures, coolant temp and about 100+ other readings. This is a must have if you are getting a Seat and don't have vcds/vag-com
 

AdamRoutley

Use The Force!!
Feb 22, 2007
1,827
1
Walsall
www.myspace.com
Four very common problems:

Choc cams - Seem to go around 100000 miles. Happen on my 55 plate the was serviced every 10000 with the correct oil. £700+ for a garage to fix
Door locks - Lock and unlock with fob several times check indicator lights flash (not locking all locks if they dont) also listen for laboured locking sound on driver and passenger door.
Gears - Engage clutch put in 1st take out of 1st disengage clutch. Do this 10 - 15 times and see if it won't go into gear or come out (Slave cylinder on way out £400+ as gearbox has to be removed)
Check floors for any wetness as doors known to leak or pollen filter housing incorrectly fitted.

Probably to late to get one before the weekend but a Bluetooth ODBII dongle and torque app on your phone will set you back uder £20 and you can read codes, see turbo pressures, coolant temp and about 100+ other readings. This is a must have if you are getting a Seat and don't have vcds/vag-com

Thanks Sockpuppet.

Have been doing some reading on the cams since Adam said earlier on. It seems like it mainly affected the earlier models so hopefully I won't be affected by that (fingers crossed)

I have Torque, as well as VAGcom(somewhere).

I've spoken to the seat garage that have serviced it for years and they have said it is a solid, well looked after car. So all being well I should be back to the fold on Saturday
 
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sockpuppet

Active Member
Apr 30, 2007
837
4
Quite a few late models affected with the chock cams. Mines a 2006 55 plate so you don't get much later than that.
 

andymc

Active Member
Mar 20, 2017
13
2
Sorry for reopening an old thread just thought some people would like some info of my chocolate cam failure, 277k 2005 ARL on original unmodded engine except darkside dev turbo and map.

Could have been bad oil but I’ve known and carried out work on the car since ~30k so shouldn’t have been.

Anyway the failure seems to have presented worst on the exhaust lifter closest to the gearbox, it has run enough that the valve stem has been hammered a little and the collets pushed out to almost pop off, if I hadn’t stripped it today I think it would have dropped the valve eventually.

There are another 5 lifters that look almost at the same point so the wear is very even. I believe my engine had the harder lifters in so it seems the harder ones lasted a while longer at least.

Wish I had caught this earlier as now I’m taking the head off to fix the hammered valve.

I intended uploading couple of pics but can’t seem to resize on upload so the pics are too big to upload.

Cheers

Andy
 

sockpuppet

Active Member
Apr 30, 2007
837
4
My theory on the choc cams is that the lifters were to soft as the number 1 cam seemed to wear through the lifter and the 5w40 505.01 oil they recommended wasn't the right viscosity as the VW independent that repaired my cam/lifters said they were notified by Seat to stop using 505.01 andstart using 5w30 507.00 oil on these engines instead.
 

andymc

Active Member
Mar 20, 2017
13
2
Sorry I didn’t see this earlier but that makes decent sense to me. Unfortunately I got an ECP valve to replace the hammered valve end and it failed directly after fitting and the valve has taken a piston out and the head. the failure was up at the collets side and failed about 5mins after startup. I’m going to try and post a pic and see if anybody can tell me if they’ve seen the same failure themselves as I’m not sure if was my fault tbh as it was still running and times bang on after the event - also because I’m going to ask if anybody has a standard arl piston and Conrod that they have sitting for sale!

My theory on the choc cams is that the lifters were to soft as the number 1 cam seemed to wear through the lifter and the 5w40 505.01 oil they recommended wasn't the right viscosity as the VW independent that repaired my cam/lifters said they were notified by Seat to stop using 505.01 andstart using 5w30 507.00 oil on these engines instead.
 

andymc

Active Member
Mar 20, 2017
13
2
I'm not going to say this is a definitive list of symptoms but its what I observed on my car,

1. Little by little the engine seemed noisier, not a lot, when the lifter started obviously leaking oil through there was slightly less pressure held in the adjuster so the noise got louder, the tolerances get further out and the failure starts to accelerate.
2. For me also the black soot that used to accumulate around the exhaust started to get a little gummy so I guess this was diesel and carbon mix due to incomplete combustion because the exhaust valve wasn't lifting like the others.
3. Eventually when the adjuster went through and could hold no pressure the car felt like it ran on three cylinders as the exhaust valve would be barely opening. There was also a loud thump from the inlet manifold intake - I guess this was exhausted gases that weren't exhausted exiting via the inlet manifold instead when the inlet valve opened.

My 2cents :)
 
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