Faults:

A lot of rust!

Leaking water through the rear hatch.

Rear breaking cylinders replaced.

Left driveshaft replaced.

General Comments:

Reminds me a lot of my old Opel kadett -88 (Vauxhall Astra). A tin can with four wheels (I liked the kadett better). A very basic car without any extras. The over all quality seems to be somewhat questionable, to put it mildly.

Mine has started to rust just about everywhere, even though both me and the previous owner (a friend) has washed it regularly. It is also quite noisy.

On the positive side it has been very reliable with excellent heating during the Swedish winter. It also handles snowy/icy roads pretty well.

This is good since I wouldn't want to be caught in an accident in this car.

Faults:

Thermostat, since it happened on the road trip it was changed by local emergency repair shop. Fortunately it is the VW engine, the spare was the same for Golf and Seat which means easily available.

General Comments:

Best value for the money I owned. I traveled all around Central Eastern Europe with it (Poland, Austria, Slovenia, Bosnia), went on vacations with two bikes squeezed inn, apart from thermostat problem it never let me out.

Older models are now having lot of problems with rust, consumptions is getting worse by the age.

Nevertheless great car to own.

Faults:

At 51000 miles, the car started to overheat quite suddenly - it had hitherto been unfailingly reliable.

It appears that a plastic thermostat holder close to the cylinder head had broken - this causes the thermostat to become inoperative. The cylinder head gasket blew, and was replaced, but the cooling system - locked by the blocked thermostat would not operate.

General Comments:

This is a basically good car ruined by poor manufacture and design. The failure of the thermostat housing lead to head gasket water pump and radiator replacement. The cost of repairs will likely exceed the value of the car.

Faults:

I used to have a Lada Samara 1.3 (built in 1993). One day I decided to sell it and buy a Skoda Felicia 1.3 MPI, built in 1998. I shouldn't have.

I bought the car with 41 000 km.

At 41 500 it left me on the side of the road. I had to call a trailer. The throttle (in the valve) went wrong. A throttle costs 432 Euros, which is a bit too much for a half-eastern car.

At 42,000, gear-shift got stuck.

At 42,000, the thermostat went wrong.

At 43,120, heating went wrong.

At 44,000, the thermostat had to be changed again.

At 45,000, the throttle in the valve went wrong again, and the oxygen-sensor went wrong too.

Now I have 45 570 km on the car and have decided to trade it in for a Lada Samara (1994)!

General Comments:

This is a slow and noisy car!

Service at the dealer is too expensive and really-really bad!

No fun to drive.

Unreliable.

Parts are too expensive for a half-eastern car.

I don't recommend it to anyone!

Faults:

No problems whatsoever to date.

General Comments:

This is a no frills, no nonsense car that offers reliability and comfort at an amazing price. Steering is a little heavy at slow speeds, but hey, in every other department it's a very competent little car. I've had this car which I bought second hand for about 3 months now and it's been absolutely faultless.

I use this car every day for commuting to work in heavy suburban traffic with lots of gear changing and braking! I can't believe how good it is. Front and back is very spacious with ample headroom with a good sized boot. The dash is a simple and straight forward affair- nice analogue controls. It's pretty nippy and more than you need for around town. It has been 100% reliable and the build quality is very good. Nothing has gone wrong at all.

On the downside it lacks a few refinements like electric windows and central locking but hey, I can live without these. General noise levels are higher than its more expensive rivals but I really don't find any of these points a problem.

If your'e not a badge snob and want a great car offering fantastic value for money then put this on your shortlist. You won't regret it and can use the cash you saved for a nice holiday in the sun!