APU head on my LCR!!!!!

Rich23 UK

New member
Points
61
Car
SEAT Leon Cupra R
Hi,

I've recently purchased my LCR from a garage. It's an 05 plate with 84k on the clock. I asked them about the cambelt and they said it didn't need replacing until 120k. Fair enough. I then discovered that Seat then revised this to be done after 4 years regardless of age and millage.
I rang the garage and queried it but they got there info from Autodata and weren't going to budge.
So fair enough I then took it to a SEAT main dealer and got them to change it along with the water pump.
They then rang me to ask me how long have I had the car!?
And then told me that it had an APU head on it which was from a VW Passat!!!! WTH!!!?

I've asked the original owner who had it from new until March 08 and he didn't get it done.
I've spoken to the garage who sold and serviced it inbetween and they thought it was odd but waiting to hear back from them about it.
And I'vew also rang the place where I bought it from and left a message with there service engineer and his initial reaction was that he thought it was odd.

Where do I stand with it? How will it affect the car? It seems like a bit of an unknown thing to do from what people have said.

Any advice on what to do would be great.

Sorry for the long post :embarrest:

Cheers,
Rich
 
wonder is the previous owner didnt bother with the timing belt ether?
its not uncommon to swap to the heads on the 1.8t for the older style ones that had bigger ports where as the later cars, including the cupra R, had smaller ports. but swapping a small head for a small head doesnt make sense
 
wonder is the previous owner didnt bother with the timing belt ether?
its not uncommon to swap to the heads on the 1.8t for the older style ones that had bigger ports where as the later cars, including the cupra R, had smaller ports. but swapping a small head for a small head doesnt make sense

I think it was done because of some sort of damage. Not for tuning reasons.
APU's are apparantly more common and alot cheaper than BAM versions. So a cheap and quick fix to sell it I reckon. And now I'm left with it :sad2:

Plus if it from an older car how do I know what millage it did? I could end up having to erplace it again at some point.

It pulls like a train but how do I know longterm what it will give me?
 
thats what i was geting at, if they had fitted an AGU then i could have seen the point.

MA answered in your welcome post about the possibility of a BAM head not being avalible. i can quite belive that as there is a major premuim attached to the AMK (210bhp) and BAM engines that are found in the Cupra R, S3 and the higher powered TTs and a new AMK|BAM head ( same part number ) comes in at a loverly £1669 according to ETKA

the APU do seem to be popular as they were fitted to passats and A6s
 
thats what i was geting at, if they had fitted an AGU then i could have seen the point.

MA answered in your welcome post about the possibility of a BAM head not being avalible. i can quite belive that as there is a major premuim attached to the AMK (210bhp) and BAM engines that are found in the Cupra R, S3 and the higher powered TTs and a new AMK|BAM head ( same part number ) comes in at a loverly £1669 according to ETKA

the APU do seem to be popular as they were fitted to passats and A6s

But I wanted a nice LCR. That's what I paid for. Not a patched up hybrid because the previous owner/garage couldn't be arsed to source or pay for a proper part.

How do I know what millage the APU has done? What else was done?

It's turning sour when it should of been a pleasurable thing I was doing. I mean it's a new car I should be enjoying the experience.
 
but lets say you were the previous owner, what would you have done ?
  • spend a couple of months trying to track down a AMK|BAM head
  • spend £1700 on a new head
  • fitted another head from another 1.8t
dont judge the previous owner unless you were willing to go to Audi or Seat and order up a brand new OEM head, head gasket, head bolt set, timing belt, waterpump, tensioners

remember the engine itself is pretty much the same as the lower models. its the injectors, intake manifold, lower compression pistions, turbo and twin SMICs. as long as the head thats on is in decent nick them you shouldnt have any problems with it. the 1.8t blocks are strong with the higher power models having some forged parts. your more likely to have issues with the thousands of boost/vac pipes in the engine bay or other sensors paying up - MAF, coolant, MAP, brake light etc etc
 

Please watch this on my YouTube channel & Subscribe.


Back
Top