You had both 1.8t’s correct? I never heard of many issues with them. I know first hand from my Jetta, it was a total piece of shit and it was a VR6. Everyone i’ve talked to at German Auto Parts gave me the same feedback I was coming across; MK 4 Jetta VR6’s are nightmares. I’m certainly going to follow the advice given from my friends at GAP.
My car had just a little over 100k on it and started with stupid electrical issues. The first one being the door lock module. It will do stupid things to your car that will drive you absolutely insane;
Power windows suck in these cars. Plan at some point of ownership replacing all window regulators before the car hits 100kmi. In my MK 3 I had to replace them all and in my MK 4 they had all been replaced too.
If you plan on buying a VR6, plan on changing the timing chains around the 100k mark too. It’s not the easiest job in the world either. It’s a pretty involved job so plan on leaving your entire weekend open.
On a side note, I love Volkswagens. If you maintain them, they’re awesome cars. In my personal opinnion they don’t make the best daily drivers because they can get costly to maintain, which is why I drive a Honda.
Aside from what is no doubt just a switch in one of the doors gone bad (the door chime thing), everything else you’re describing is pretty common for cars with those features in general.
Both of my E36’s had the door striker microswitches fail which means all of the interior lights, the door chime, and even the coupe sealing windows would go off as I went over bumps.
A trip to the dealer with a 20 spot and 20 minutes and it was new again.
Just saying.