Vw?

[equate975]

Yet even though you haven't owned one, you still repeat that they are "notoriously unreliable".... Personally having owned watercooled VWs for the past 10 years I can tell you it's quite the opposite.

People will have bad experiences with any car make and I'm not here to dispute that. Passing on what you've "heard" doesn't do anyone any good, speak from experience ;)

uh yeah x2

my jetta and hell even my POS mazda have been way more reliable than any e30 I have owned...

125k on my jetta and all I have done is change the plug wires, o2, and a master cylinder (all known before I bought the car).

It has yet to leave me stranded.

[wRek]

See... I knew Cramer would chime in at some point, seeing as how he knows both auto manufacturers.

BMW's are notorious for "costing a lot to fix", but most of the people on here know that isn't entirely true.

I drove my GTI every single day for over a year and a half and never had a single thing go wrong. Oh, by the way... My VR swapped GTI took numerous e30 and e36's from a roll and a stop on numerous occasions. They aren't as slow and unreliable as most people seem to think.

What I find even more humorous, is the number of people with 318's who like to talk crap on how "slow" they are.

[craig4ie]

haha yeah I knew the VW guys would show up

Does it count that the only time I drove my Aunt's 4-5 year old golf, I closed the door and the window fell in?

Or the time my dad's old golf decided to go permanent WOT on his ass in traffic.

I know there's alot of VW guys on this forum so I better tread carefully lol

I'll shut up, back to this guy's build...

[bilson]

well i'm completely new to this forum.. i've been looking at an E30 here in MS for a while.. but im a VW guy. It's funny how my mother's 2004 Safari mini van and my sister's late 90s grand am are in the shop and i'm asked on numerous occasions to run errands in my 1987 VW Golf.. they're reliable if they arent beat to death by the driver, and maybe even reliable then.

[KenC]

HO-LEE SHIT

One of a kind.

[Mot]

ya this build is really cool!

[92 mtechnic cabrio]

that's cool and all...

but....fender flares to make the wheels sunk? I thought he was cool because he wasn't going to use fender flares and it was going to be SWT lookin. He just copped out by getting those fender flares and still having to fit those wheels with those ginormous wheel adapters. With that kind of budget why doesn't he just go purchase wheels that fit the car properly? (I'm not even talking about the flares at this point, just his need to use those huge adapters)

[euroshark]

That golf is living the Volkswagen dream: to be a BMW

Haha, soooooo true... Excellent...

[joshh]

As far as I'm concerened VW does have a place in the market but they have failed the consumer in some areas. Like every one of their cars are Pigs (heavy). Even with the VR6 in the GTI it felt sluggish. The new Rabbit is light but way underpowered.
The newer GTI is a big fat pig and they are concentrating on comfort not performance hardly at all. 200HP 207 ft lbs of torque and it's juat as fast as the lighter Honda Civic Si. When VW gets serious, only then will I care.
As for the older VW's, they are a great start for a light weight pay car. That's a great project he has going. I wish him luck.
If VW made a GTI that was a fairly "stripped" model, I'd be all over it.

[der affe]

Yet even though you haven't owned one, you still repeat that they are "notoriously unreliable".... Personally having owned watercooled VWs for the past 10 years I can tell you it's quite the opposite.

People will have bad experiences with any car make and I'm not here to dispute that. Passing on what you've "heard" doesn't do anyone any good, speak from experience ;)

i have always wondered that myself. i started on air cooled vws....you want to talk about unreliable!!!! mostly because they are 30+ year old cars that have been owned by teenagers with no $$$ to fix them properly. just like about every car out there reliability is based on how well it is taken care of. the vw hatred thing is almost a "ricer" attitude....if it is not honda it must suck! A-2 vw's are great cars!!! now when they became A-3's it was the begining of the down hill slide for vw in my opinion. they became heavier, the build quality went to shit, the handling sucked, and their trying to grab at a higher line market just wasn't well executed at all. i drove the hell out of my 1985 A-2 jetta for 5 years almost no problems, sunk a ton of $$$ into customizing it and rebuilding it, and loved it. i went from that to a porsche, and from the porsche to the bmw, the bmw was everything that the HIGHLY modded vw was, just done differently and with more refinment. i had always liked the e-30 325i's they looked alot like my jetta (boxy, very german....unlike now, very lexus????) , but they were a lot nicer car!

[equate975]

As far as I'm concerened VW does have a place in the market but they have failed the consumer in some areas. Like every one of their cars are Pigs (heavy). Even with the VR6 in the GTI it felt sluggish. The new Rabbit is light but way underpowered.
The newer GTI is a big fat pig and they are concentrating on comfort not performance hardly at all. 200HP 207 ft lbs of torque and it's juat as fast as the lighter Honda Civic Si. When VW gets serious, only then will I care.
As for the older VW's, they are a great start for a light weight pay car. That's a great project he has going. I wish him luck.
If VW made a GTI that was a fairly "stripped" model, I'd be all over it.

And you don't think new BMWs are pigs? ;)

[JeffNJM3]

The new Rabbit is light but way underpowered.
The newer GTI is a big fat pig .....

Uh.... isn't the new Rabbit and the GTI the same car? so how can one be a big fat pig and the other light? Not trying to be an ass, just curious.

Also, this project is really cool and shows lots of talent, but it seems to me like this guy is going thru an awful lot of trouble to have a VW that drives like and e30, or an e30 that looks like a VW.

[euroshark]

And you don't think new BMWs are pigs?

I think BMW spends more time to get the car to feel right. Gearing, torque curves, whatever it is. I am in love with most of the new models, even if some are heavy, because BMW makes them feel great. If you want an out of the box race car, get a Lotus!

As for VW, I have considered an older MkII Golf or GTi as a pizza delivery car, if I ever start delivering again... But I dunno, I might go with another Saab 900.

[joshh]

Good point Euroshark, BMW increases power with the weight of the car. When the E46 came out they increased the power. The older M3 is a very good performance car. Both older M3's for that matter. They really are pigs but they have the power and performance to make up for the weight...the GTI does not, even with the VR6.
The car (GTI) is just not "tossable". That's why I own an Acura Integra. It's still light has has good power for it's size and weight. Let alone they make everything you could want for it.
The Rabbit is from 3000-3100lbs. No it's not light but it's also under powered. I actually thought they were 2800lbs...I was wrong the Rabbit is heavier than I thought. And that might just be the difference in motor weight. Or mostly.

[bilson]

i thought we were talking about reliability, not performance....? anyway, ill revise myself now that i think about it... ill take anything pre MK3 as a performance base.