Hey been a while since I was on here or posted anything, still own the R5GTT Raider & Clio 182 Trophy that was the daily for 10 years, until it started to get a bit rusty on rear sills/jacking points and needed to come off the road for repairs and a rest at 157k miles.
I needed a run-about as Mot on Trophy was out end of September 2025, needed welding repairs so took it off the road, my brother saw this Corsa D a customer of his had and was using to take stuff to the dump. It used to be his daughter’s car and as it was getting in the way, was filthy from top runs he was going to scrap it when tax ran out. Its a bit tatty & filthy however it was a 1.3 CDTI diesel with 150k miles on it, still had 8 months Mot left and he only wanted scrap value of £180 to get it gone, I snapped it up!
After giving it a look over seems pretty much all there. It’s on 152,855 miles, 8 months Mot, book pack there with part service history, 2 keys, locking wheel bolt key, spare steel wheel, jack/tools etc however missing the below:
It has a diesel leak from fuel filter which has been leaking into drivers front wheel arch, possibly partiality clogged old filter?
Coolant low in header tank so needs a top up.
Interesting Chinese tyres all round, ‘Churchill’ fronts worn on edges and getting low ish, ‘Landsail’ rears with loads of tread so rotated front to back, and back to front for now.
Boot has bits of brick, brick dust & crap in it, rear seats folded down as was used as a make-shift van . Took everything out of the boot, lots of hoovering everywhere, rear seat taken out and sponged over and left to dry in sun, front seats sponged down and left to dry on a hot day.
Heading to local scrap yard to try & source missing parts, also going to order service parts from ebay as its well over due for one.
So quick trip to the scrapyard, luckily few Corsa D’s there so able to source a much needed glovebox & screws, parcel shelf, pollen filter cover, side repeater, clutch pedal rubber and screen wash cap all for £30.00.
Heater fan resistor also secured to fan housing with a screw.
Next up service as rather overdue, found a deal on ebay for 5 litres of 5W-30 fully synthetic oil, oil filter and air filter for £29.99 delivered! Snapped those up, also found a pollen filter £6.88 and a fuel filter & £9.99 both delivered. Fuel filter looks old and leaking abit so carefully removed clips, fitted and bled it, no more fuel leak. Also 1 litre bottle of coolant as very low £6.38 and a new sidelight bulb for passenger side £0.30.
Love this! I sold my R26 a couple of years back to fund my 5 project. It’s replacement to get me to work and back was a £500 corsa D that my nephew was trading in. I thought I’d be gutted every time I got behind the wheel….but honestly, I love it. Absolute base of base model with the 3 cylinder petrol engine…..one whole litre of fire and fury!
Right, start of using Project £180 Corsa as the daily runner wasn’t without a slight hiccup. Insured, taxed beginning of the month, went for the first drive and it was incredibly slow, felt as if it didn’t have a turbo which it did. Then the yellow spanner light appeared on the dash, nice. Had a quick check under the bonnet all looked ok, then unplugged the Mass Air Flow (MAF) sensor (so it ran on base map) and it drove home how it should, although yellow engine light appeared on dash. Quick code read once I got home confirmed fault with MAF, 2 fault codes logged as below:
Removed MAF few squirts of Holt’s EGR/Carb Clear left to dry in Autumn sun, refitted MAF engine light was off and it drove as it should, free fix happy days!
All was going well for the next 5-6 weeks on Project £180 Corsa until one winter’s Friday afternoon it started hammering down with rain whilst at work. Started up ok after work, sounded bit rough but still drove so got home OK. With it still raining heavily next day went to see my folks with my daughter, left mine and had a loss of power which was abit strange no lights on dash however made it there. When I went to leave that night sounded bit rough again still drove ok, after going around a couple of back road bends loss of power returned, no dash lights foot flat to floor struggled with any type of incline. Limped it back (just) to my folks place again where we now stayed the night. Something definitely wasn’t right so got my head down and thought I’ll give it a look in morning. So next day popped the bonnet, found my old forgotten tool case I left in the garage years ago, something strange had happened in very wet weather, heard ECU was mounted in a daft place in scuttle panel so that was first on list removing wipers and scuttle trims with the old tools I had:
The ECU in towards the top right of the picture was sitting in a clogged scuttle of water, centre drain completely clogged and blocked with crap. Removed the ECU to try and dry it out as best I could indoors, centre scuttle drain unblocked also the drain holes in each corner that were partially blocked. Seemed strange when turning it starts running rough and loses power, not when the water runs from one side to another and sloshes over the ECU!
After few hours drying out ECU only option was to put it back together and fingers crossed it still runs, hopefully better than before. It did start, still running slightly rough although after a good 20 minute idle and some revs it sorted itself out then drove back home fine, thankfully ECU survived its bath!
ECU is mounted in a pretty rubbish place to be honest, reminds me abit of my old Clio Mk1 Valver. It’s on some shallow spacers so water can pass underneath then run to centre or corner drain. Whenever I see leaves near bottom of screen or pop bonnet I pick them out, I’ve literally couple weeks ago removed scuttle covers to check and remove any crap in there and check drain holes as don’t want it happening again. Reckon it had been left for ages by previous owner and got clogged up over time, might not be lucky next time around, although another free fix .
. Took everything out of the boot, lots of hoovering everywhere, rear seat taken out and sponged over and left to dry in sun, front seats sponged down and left to dry on a hot day.
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