Indicator side repeater replacement

[Abinthom]

This may sound like a dumb question, but I need to replace the side repeater and with other cars that I have owned it was simply a push-fit plastic-lug clip in jobby to do on a dry day in ten minutes (or less). Now with a Seat Ibiza 1.2l 5 door 2003 with a duff repeater (M.o.T. fail!) can I simply buy a new bit, smash-out the old one and carefully replace a new one from the inside until I hear the plastic lugs engage? It's amazing how much money the repair garage wants for the job, but surely it can't be that difficult/expensive?

[SammoVWT]

You can do it on a dry or wet day in 10 minutes, check if your indicator has a socket to plug into, if you do you are lucky. I upgraded mine to LED repeaters, but I had to splice solder and heatshrink the wires. Since Im a sparky by trade it took me 10 minutes tops, including taking the old repeater off.

[Abinthom]

Brilliant, thanks.
I thought this would be the easiest of the three failures to sort. Question now is whether it is worth doing if the other two problems (emission, thanks again; Headlight) are too £££ to make it worth doing the easy jobs first if I'm only going to be floored by the other 2.

Really appreciate your help. It's my first Seat after years of Rovers and Lagunas (even an oldish V6 2.5L Granada Cosworth for a very short while) so this 21st. century type stuff has me groaning. Plus anno domini of course!

[SammoVWT]

The repeaters are cheap as are the headlights, check out ECP they do an online discount. I had to get a new headlight the other day, cost me £34. The repeater I cant see being much more than a tenner really. Very cheap, CTS maybe around 20-50 quid, make sure its genuine (but you need a scan to confirm that.

The Thermostat is maybe around £15,depending on the car but very cheap, but you will need some coolant to replace which you can get from VW/seat etc for less than you think, Maybe a £10-15 a bottle.

Hopefully your thermostat is in a easy place, but you can have that thing MOT ready for the other bits except the cat for under £150.

Sometimes its better the devil you know rather than sinking money into a new car. But thats your choice, depends if you feel if it will be reliable in the future, these bits will make it run better depending on what you find.

For me those are all small cheap jobs.

The next things you may need to look at with those miles is wheelbearings/bushes etc, but if its clean on the MOT test dont worry about it until it happens. Mines hit 140k miles now so I know what its like

[Doctle Odd]

Can't you remove the old one and change the bulb?

[SammoVWT]

Good point! Although the plastic can get brittle at that age hence why I just replaced them, he might get lucky - when i opened mine, it cracked the clips and wouldnt go back together without glue

[Doctle Odd]

Undo a couple of screws on the wheel arch lining, insert hand, use fingers to manipulate tangs and remove unit! Smash it? Jesus wept