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CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
12,862
4,159
Copenhagen, Denmark
After 11 years I am thinking it is time to retire my old GTI so I too have started down the "what car should I buy" path. I would like something fun to drive, manual transmission and can easily stuff my bike in the back for when I need extra security. I figure there is a good chance this could be the last car I have with a gas engine and possible manual. Anyway I have explored all the options and I think I will end up with another GTI. I could do a Golf R but can't justify the extra money for extra HP I will never use in Seattle traffic. Pretty exciting stuff, a new version of my old car that looks almost identical except for fancier lights.
If I was a baller I would get the Golf R wagon but its more than 100,000 i Denmark.



There is also the new Polo GTI which would make a great city car. Not sure if you et that in the US. More like the original GTI than the current Golf.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,016
Sleazattle
If I was a baller I would get the Golf R wagon but its more than 100,000 i Denmark.



There is also the new Polo GTI which would make a great city car. Not sure if you et that in the US. More like the original GTI than the current Golf.
We get neither of those cars.
 

CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
12,862
4,159
Copenhagen, Denmark
We get neither of those cars.
That sucks. I am really leaning into a WV this time around. There a also some good deals on the Polo GT from the previous version.

I was thinking about a PHEV Kia but I am afraid of the depreciation. Hippie needs a new job before we buy a car I think anyway :-(
 

HardtailHack

used an iron once
Jan 20, 2009
6,630
5,443
If you get a good VW they are really nice, sadly they make a lot of shit engines and electrical items. Of the six people I know with small turbo VWs three have had engines fail inside the warranty period, one had a replacement engine fail at 5yrs and the other guy had his start to use oil inside the warranty period and the dealer said it was okay, at 3yrs it was using a litre a week and they wouldn't warrant it.

The guy up the road has an Amarok and his failure was mainly due to incompetence of the dealership, the electronic water pump failed and became a restriction in the cooling system, VW said that it was a faulty Glycol sensor and then a faulty replacement glycol sensor and that the owner was imagining the hot smell. It cracked the head, both manifolds and killed both turbos and cost the dealership $20000AUD. Early Amaroks would also throw a drive belt and they would whip inside the timing belt cover and take that out too, ze Germans can make some truly weird faults happen.

My sister has a Toerag and it has been good but needed $3000 worth of modules replaced at 3yrs, window actuator, parking sensors would all go off in the rain, boot wouldn't latch properly and then one day she packed the kids in and went to take off at an intersection and it just completely powered down for 40mins and was stranded on the road, VW said there was nothing wrong with it.

Oh the guy that seized an engine in his GTI bought an R and he is selling it because at six months it had had 10+ visits to the dealership, it had electrical issues and parts falling off, he now hates the car and is looking at a BMW, I know nothing about them other than lots had bad valve stem seals a few years ago.
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,143
16,538
Riding the baggage carousel.
electronic water pump
W. T. F.?

That is almost as stupid as:
A coworker bought a V6 Touareg for $2000 off Craigslist. PO said that it seemed fine most of the time, but would just randomly die for no reason once in a while, and his mechanic couldn't figure it out. Just wanted it gone. Coworker figured out that the issue was that it had a split, two chambered gas tank that straddled the rear axle. There were two fuel pumps, one that fed the engine, and another that transferred gas from one chamber to the other. The latter had died, the upshot of which was, as long as he kept it over 1/3 of a tank it was fine. He's been driving it for 3 years trouble free. :rofl:
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,143
16,538
Riding the baggage carousel.
Because a regular water pump has never needed replacing.
For sure, but adding electronic whiz-bangery seems like a whole bunch of unnecessary bullshit failure points to provide a "solution" to a problem that might not even exist, especially when we're talking about VW electric. How many MPG can this possibly provide? I'm incredibly skeptical and would love to see some numbers, both in terms of MPG and cost/reliability.
 

HAB

Chelsea from Seattle
Apr 28, 2007
11,580
2,005
Seattle
For sure, but adding electronic whiz-bangery seems like a whole bunch of unnecessary bullshit failure points to provide a "solution" to a problem that might not even exist, especially when we're talking about VW electric. How many MPG can this possibly provide? I'm incredibly skeptical and would love to see some numbers, both in terms of MPG and cost/reliability.
If you can't decide, my B5 S4 had one of each. :rofl:
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,853
9,557
AK
The entire rear half of my 428 went berserk one day (approx 2 years old) and nothing would work, no hatch, rear lights, rear windows, car wouldn’t go into different modes, etc. The rear ECU just went crazy. Taking it and getting it replaced or reprogrammed or whatever they did under warranty worked, but jesus, what happens out of warranty or just 10 years down the road? It seems there’s no way a car that relies this much on computers and electronics can make it that far anymore.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,853
9,557
AK
I hope the electric water pump is in some easily accessible spot - like in a sealed compartment inside a crankcase.
It’s easy to know what the procedure is in an Audi or VW, no matter what the problem is, a/c belt, starter, etc, you have to remove the entire front half of the car.
 

HAB

Chelsea from Seattle
Apr 28, 2007
11,580
2,005
Seattle
I hope the electric water pump is in some easily accessible spot - like in a sealed compartment inside a crankcase.
On my S4, it was at the very back of the engine, up against the firewall. The standard move is to relocate them to the front, just above the alternator when replacing.
 

HAB

Chelsea from Seattle
Apr 28, 2007
11,580
2,005
Seattle
Redundancy. In case one fails in flight.
If only. The aux electric pump was just there to circulate water through the head after you turned the car off (high-ish compression, high boost turbo engine got HOT), so it wasn't enough to cover for the main pump if that failed. And the failure mode for the aux pump was to puke coolant.
 

Rockland

Turbo Monkey
Apr 24, 2003
1,870
262
Left hand path
No Polo GTI in the US, but you can still get a Ford Fiesta ST (and cheap too).
Not as nice an interior as VW, but dead simple to work on. I can take mine apart and put it back together in my driveway. No issues after 3 years flogging.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,016
Sleazattle
For sure, but adding electronic whiz-bangery seems like a whole bunch of unnecessary bullshit failure points to provide a "solution" to a problem that might not even exist, especially when we're talking about VW electric. How many MPG can this possibly provide? I'm incredibly skeptical and would love to see some numbers, both in terms of MPG and cost/reliability.

I’d say improvements from pumping losses would only be about 1%. But the finer temperature control allows modern engines to run rather absurd compression ratios pushing 14:1, which is really where the efficiency comes from. To run 14:1 on an old school engine you would need to run race gas at pig rich AFRs.
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,827
13,063
it was pretty easy. Walk in an ask to test drive it, schedule an appointment and test drive it. My dude was pretty accomodating, he sat in the back seat with my 11mo while I drove the 425hp cadillac. He was cool.

You might get pestered about it though. He wasn't bad (like the kia guy) but he did let me know when repairs were done and the car was ready to go again.
Was nice and easy and thankfully he's sending the pestering emails to my wife not me :D
The car was shitty condition for the age and what they were asking, neither my wife nor I could work out how you'd get a big hole in the headlining between driver and passenger...
 

roflbox

roflborx
Jan 23, 2017
3,163
834
Raleigh, NC
Was nice and easy and thankfully he's sending the pestering emails to my wife not me :D
The car was shitty condition for the age and what they were asking, neither my wife nor I could work out how you'd get a big hole in the headlining between driver and passenger...
paging @TN to the vehicular analysis zone.
 

HardtailHack

used an iron once
Jan 20, 2009
6,630
5,443
W. T. F.?

That is almost as stupid as:
Yeah I should have said electric water pump not electronic.

They are awesome things, I put one on my 1971 Mini and it increased the power slightly and made the engine feel noticeably smoother. The head had so much metal taken out when ported that it would get hot spots and boil as soon as you turned the engine off. Having a pump that ran for a few minutes.after the car was switched off solved this issue, the cooling system was so efficient that it only needed one 8" fan.

I'd assume VW have it to circulate coolant after the engine is stopped to extend the service life of the turbos, I think it also flows through the heater circuit so you can have heating with the engine off. They are pretty smart things the Amaroks, they have had sway control for years, it senses that a trailer is starting to whip and will brake individual wheels to try to stabilise the trailer.

Oh, if anyone has a VW with a transmission that says it is sealed for life it is a load of crap, they can be serviced like any other traditional auto box. I know zip about DSG but I don't trust a VW brain enough to be able to control something that fancy reliably for the life of the vehicle.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=627129607384223&id=171892302907958
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,031
5,921
borcester rhymes
Was nice and easy and thankfully he's sending the pestering emails to my wife not me :D
The car was shitty condition for the age and what they were asking, neither my wife nor I could work out how you'd get a big hole in the headlining between driver and passenger...
That's an interesting comment as the two cars I test drove there were both in distinctly"used car" condition. Ie cars you would haggle over because of a loose armrest or scratch on the screen. I wasn't impressed with the cars but I liked the process I guess
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,827
13,063
That's an interesting comment as the two cars I test drove there were both in distinctly"used car" condition. Ie cars you would haggle over because of a loose armrest or scratch on the screen. I wasn't impressed with the cars but I liked the process I guess
We went and looked as it was the closest variant of the car listed locally and wifey hadn't been in one before. It had 80k on the clock but the interior had clearly had a hard life, filthy drivers armrest, shiny gearknob and the weird huge rubbed hole in the headlining.

It was more what you'd expect to find at small little second hand dealership rather than a big chain.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,032
7,552
I’ve driven gems at CarMax and some shitboxes, too. I think they try to peddle the latter for a few days then off to Mannheim.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,031
5,921
borcester rhymes
possibly last worthless update for a while:
test drove an 08 335i sedan the other day. About 110k on the clock. Car was fast right from the get go, 300hp is a good number. Showed up to this random dealer, like 12 cars on the lot, 40yo russian dude at the desk. Scans my ID (should I be worried) then we get on with the drive. Strap my kid in the back then he says he wants to pull out (dealership was on a busy road, understandable I suppose). Drives like an ape into a random parking lot that's marginally easier to get out of. Car is fine, but felt like a car with 110 miles on the clock, which made me think wtf I am doing looking at cars with 100k on the clock. Returned to the dealership, gtfo, and might be putting the search on hold for a bit as I figure out what the heck I am actually doing.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,032
7,552
wtf I am doing looking at cars with 100k on the clock
If it's not a money thing then not having a 100k+ old car is quite nice... If you FCA then you can have a whole slew of low-mileage loaners, too.
 

Da Peach

Outwitted by a rodent
Jul 2, 2002
13,681
4,904
North Van
Nice cars fall into the “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it” category.

They’re fun, for a while, but there’s always going to be that other car that blows your doors off. Then that “gosh, this is fast” feeling wears off, but the payments just keep flowing out the door.

Then you bend it, or one of your idiot friends scratches it while loading a bike onto it... or your beautiful significant other nudges a parking barrier and scuffs the rear quarter panel... always a fun conversation.

#wetblanket
 

boogenman

Turbo Monkey
Nov 3, 2004
4,290
973
BUFFALO
Hijack here:
Last week I purchased a 2014 Hyundai Accent hatchback. 19k on the clock, $8k couldn't pass it up. On a scale of 1-10 it is a 0 for performance.