Qustion regarding facelift FTOs

[Bartpabicz]

Hi there,


Say, I got a bit confused today. I recently noticed there are some FTOs for sale that are 1998 or even 1999 and yet they still have pre-facelift bumper installed. I was sure that all models produced after August 1997 were equipped with the facelift bumper. Am I wrong?

[Bernard]

You're not wrong.
It's conceivable (though unlikely) that a car produced early in 1997 with the prefacelift bumper didn't sell and wasn't registered until '98, I've never seen a '99 with a prefacelift bumper though.
What's more likely is that someone is chancing their arm and have falsely registered it, the way to tell is by checking either the vin number or the label on the seatbelt that has the manufacturing date.

My car is a '00 but was originally brought into the UK in 2002, when I went to register it here I had to correct them as they read the documentation wrongly and were going to register it as a '02...

[Bartpabicz]

alright, that explains a lot. Thanks for clarifying that Bernard.

[goz_83]

There are two other possibilities, the latter being unlikely.

1. The facelift bumper was damaged in a collision and the owner could only find a pre-facelift.
2. The owner bought the car with a hideous after market bumper and replaced with a standard pre-facelift bumper.

[Bartpabicz]

I thought about the first option too, but few months ago I found quite a few presumably-facelift models with pre-facelift bumpers on autotrader.co.uk - barely 50% of newer models had facelift bumpers. Plain weird

[Chris_Heilong]

weird because, they would have to retro fit the fog lights and indicators.

[Bernard]

I thought about the first option too, but few months ago I found quite a few presumably-facelift models with pre-facelift bumpers on autotrader.co.uk - barely 50% of newer models had facelift bumpers. Plain weird

A UK site, there's your problem.
For some reason that I just don't understand a lot of FTOs advertised in the UK are listed with their import year, not year of manufacture.

[Bartpabicz]

A UK site, there's your problem.
For some reason that I just don't understand a lot of FTOs advertised in the UK are listed with their import year, not year of manufacture.

ah, now that makes sense. It's the year of registration perhaps, similar situation to the one you experienced.

[gt94]

i wonder how many owners are running out to check there seat belts im gonna check mine after work