No, not yet. Parts are actually pretty damn cheap for this car. I was surprised and that is one of the reasons I’ve kept going. I’ve still put more money in to it than the car is actually worth though. If I factored in time however…
And yes, it really should be good for awhile. There isn’t 1 area that hasn’t been gone over or replaced. If I sell it, someone is getting a solid MK3. If I keep it, it should last quite a long time. The body is rock solid.
I agree, the goal here was to avoid a car payment since i’m not baller enough to just buy a brand new car that i would actually want outright. Obviously I’m still paying out the ass for parts, but i’ve replaced everything that could need replacing lol
See below.
Florida’s lemon law is based on new vehicles. Besides that, most of the problems didn’t come to light until I got home. The heater core only cost 25 bones, i just didn’t have the means to do it in florida. So while I was there i was saying to myself that it was still a solid car and i could handle that one problem. Also, the check I had mailed to him had already been cashed for about a month.
I agree. Lesson learned. I’ll either drive this til it dies or sell it off, but my next car will be new. I’ve owned one brand new car and it was nice not having to worry about anything other than taking it to the dealer.
I also may just keep this AND get a new car, since i really like VW’s and this is a lower mileage MK3 VR6 that is now in damn near pristine condition
Lemon law isn’t 1 thing goes wrong and you are out of the deal. Lemon law, in NY, is 3 unsucessful attempts to correct the SAME problem. Also, there is shit not covered by a used car warranty, a heater core being one of them. Also, once a car is over 100k, they are as is. All out of state sales are always as is. Of all the issues you’ve mentioned, the only really shitty one to do is the heater core. Struts-fucking cake. Tie rod assemblies-fucking chocolate cake. The check engine light being ABSENT when you started the car-I would have driven to Autozone and had the bitch scanned if I didn’t have my scanner on me-red flag right there. Also, as soon as the guy knew you were coming from out of state-you were FUCKED. Also, you didn’t open the hood till you were 3.5 hours away? Who the fuck does that?? Not trying to break balls or anything but thats pretty insanely overtrusting on your part. I’ve done dumb over trusting shit though, like sending $9000 cash in a show box out to Cali for a car. Looking back on that now-holy fucking shit.
Also-was/is this car on Craigslist now or a bit back in the past? Sounds like one I came across but my mind is mush these days
Nah, we didn’t open the hood til we were away. The place was seriously fucking sketch. We drove from the airport to where we were dropping him off, a good 20 minutes, and it drove fine. It takes a lot to make my dad uneasy, let alone myself, but this place did it. Normally the hood would’ve been popped.
Everything else, i completely agree. I got screwed over and the piece of shit totally took advantage of me, but it’s not like i lost out a shitload of cash and ended up with nothing. I still have the car and with some work it’s just fine. If i was completely useless and didn’t know how to turn a wrench though…then I’d be fucked.
But you did gain a fair bit of experience and knowledge no doubt.
We’ve all had our share of vw shitboxes and this is just another case of that. They are just crappy cars if you don’t take car of them. That being said, some of the newer veedubs, the 08 gti being one of them, were just junk from the factory. I find though that if taken care of, the older (pre 2002 ish) vw’s can last pretty long and are usually cheap and easy to do repairs on. But i guess the same goes for most vehicles.
any car that you do not take care of will end up being junk, not just VW’s. There’s someone in every crowd that says another car company is junk while someone else swears by that very same car company. Honda is probably an exception…you can beat the life out of them and they keep on ticking lol
Fortunately, everything on this car is updated now. Now it just needs to be taken care of and should last a good long while.
Blows because you had to buy it sight unseen from Florida, but a clean 13 year old $3k VW that only needed a heater core, SAI pump, struts, HG, and timing chain guides isn’t exactly abnormal. Granted you’ve only driven it for 2 weeks so hopefully that’s the end of the road…
It’s going to be a pleasure to drive once you’re done. Just chaning the back half of the dogbone mount to urethane did wonders for wheel hop. :tup:
That GTI his name is Milos He has popped that motor more then i can count, He has rebuilt it many times as well That is a 24v Vr6 Built with a GT42 on her. Secound fastest golf in Ont for awhile.
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Yeah i’ll drive it for a few weeks and make sure it’s not going to spontaneously combust then I’ll start adding some little things like that. I’ve already got the BFI motor and tranny mounts and gave the shifter a makeover… I like little things like that, they just give the car a different and better feel. I don’t drive fast so go fast parts don’t matter to me. Who knows. The rest of the parts won’t be in until thursday so i’m just ignoring it for a few more days
Wow that totally sucks, but that is def how it goes buying used out of state. I had a similar experiece with my MK3 GTI. That a. it had never been painted, and b. the tires were fine to drive from Chicago to NY in early March on. Turned out both bumpers had been resprayed and at least two of the tires were totally bald, near corded. It was fine until we hit snow in Toledo. We had to spend the night and get two tires at sears the next am just so we could get home.
Like others have said the work you did was to be expected given the age, just sucks you had to do them right away. Oh well, it should be a damn solid car now for plenty of time to come. I think mine had 240k miles on it when the body finally rotted out.
I’d say about 4200-4500. obviously not including time. It’d be less if i didn’t buy things that weren’t necessary, i just got a case of the why-nots. I’m not counting the tires because I actually still have the summer tires that were on it when i bought it (brought them up in the trunk), i just bought all seasons to deal with the snowy mountains.
Things that I actually NEEDED (timing guides, HG, emissions crap, struts, etc) probably totals to about 500. I’m just guessing though. It’s tough though to be overly upset because, like juicedz4 said, everything was just pretty much maintenance crap that all just needed to be done at once.