Although we are both trying to reduce our 'collection' of cars, the Mrs spotted this on eBay, and decided to save it from being won by a scrappy:



It's a 1990 Seat Marbella 850cc!

We picked it up last night, and have managed to break down in it already today! The fuel gauge is not really working, so we thought we had 1/3 of a tank, when we had nothing... Still, all good fun!


Now, as we both have Mk2 Panda's, we can clearly see the similarities, and also the difference! The Marbella is on rear leaf springs, are they the same as the Mk2 Panda 4x4 ones? Or is the whole Marbella closer to the Mk1 Panda?

Are there any known engine faults / issues on the 850cc engines?

Cheers, Ed.M

Looks solid from the picture

As far as I know the Marbella was all mk1 Panda based, with some later Seat tweaks. It was born at a time when Seat were producing badge engineered Fiats under licence. Fiat & Seat split before the mk2 Panda was introduced which is why the Marbella has the old suspension, front quarterlights, none of the later engines, etc, etc.

Many had the Fiat 903cc engine from the 127 and early Panda/Uno but I don't know if the 843cc was a Seat own design or a rehashed Fiat 850 unit.

Don't know much more about them, but I'm sure an expert will enlighten us further shortly............. Nice find anyway

Nice car, always quite liked the Seat version

Ha! I was watching this one too . Not to buy, because I have a Terra I watch all the Marbella stuff.

I'm pretty sure the 850 is the Fiat engine. No real issues with it, timing chains tend to be rattly unless they're less than a week old, you have points in the distributor with the typical problems they provide, otherwise it's a good little engine, the design of which goes back years. Any problems with the rest of the car are pure Panda.

Well done for saving it . Don't be surprised if the Mods move this thread to 'Members motors non Fiat' though.

Funny you should have that problem with your fuel gauge!! Must be a Marbella thing, as none of my pandas have that problem but my Marbella reads full aaaall the time

I bought a new fuel sender unit (the floaty bit) but haven't got round to fitting it yet on mine. You have to drop the tank down a bit to get to it and that can be a bit of a pain.

Anyway, glad to hear it's been saved. That 853cc version I would guess is the Fiat engine as my 903 version was all Fiat when it came to the engine (Fiat stamped all over the place). The 903 was great before I did my engine conversion, I was very sad to take it out as it was so much fun and very high revving too. I would say very strong, has a timing chain so no need to worry about silly bits of rubber snapping on you and it was very happy to scream its way down the motorway for a couple of hours. Got 90mph out of it (off highway of course) and sounded great with a converted mini RC40 exhaust too! As Vern says the points are probably one of the few things you'll need to consider but that's true of any older design carb'd engine.

Also Seat did a much better job at rust proofing so you should have less to worry about than on a Panda of similar age/mileage. Doors are usually rust free even underneath the plastic trim bits.


Having said that, key places to keep an eye out for rust are:

seams just above the shackles for the leaf spring.
Sills (as with any car tbh)
boot seal seams (as with most pandas it seems).

Anyway, best of luck with yours. I am sure the Mrs will have lots of fun with it.

Si

edessex said:

We picked it up last night, and have managed to break down in it already today! The fuel gauge is not really working, so we thought we had 1/3 of a tank, when we had nothing...

Click to expand...

good honest original fresh out of the factory condition then !

I remember many people having these new way back when and breaking down was standard.

still its cool i quite like it

Thanks for the positive comments! We've been driving it again this morning, and we're both loving it... none of our Panda's are on the road at the moment, and this brings back the memories!

My first Panda had the 903cc engine, and with only 20k on the clock the engine ran perfectly. The FIRE engines in the 750cc & the 2x 1000cc that we have seem a bit easier to work on, but I managed with the 903cc so I'm sure I'll be able to work on the Marbella...

The only thing that threw me so far was the coolant system... not used to a hose and bucket set-up!

Nice little Marbella Like Vern I have a Terra and also had the same problem with the fuel guage. Si's diagnosis of the fault will probably be right. The piston seizes up in the sender giving a reading of wherever it happened to get stuck. The only way round it is to drop the tank and clean the sender unit up.

Well at least we now have a fuel can in the back!

Does anyone know roughly what MPG a 4-speed 850cc will do?

I'll have a look at the sender once we've used the car for a bit longer, want to see if any more issues crop up.

It's a lovely car, but I don't know how long we'll keep it for... We've already got 3 Panda's!

With all the variables of your driving and the tune of the engine considered, late 30's to late 40's MPG.

I was guessing around that! The Mrs' old Panda 750 was great (unless you hit a steep hill), but that had a 5-speed box.

Driving the Marbella really makes me miss my Panda 903cc!

I've just worked out the MPG on the Marbella... 38.7 MPG!

Not too bad considering it was off the road from 2006/7 until last November, and then I think it just sat on the guy's driveway!

I'll see if I can improve it a bit with a service.
Also the idle seems to be a bit high when the car is hot, so I'll look into that as well...