Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisBennet
We've had a lot of VW's and they are pretty crappy. Sigh, but we keep buying them anyway...
'85 GTI, '84 GTI, '87 GTI-16V, '95 VR6, '97 Jetta
-Chris
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I've owned:
1977 VW Rabbit
1985 VW Scirocco turbo
1992 VW Corrado SLC
1980 VW Jetta 2 door
and...I currently own:
1997 VW Jetta GLX
Each of these cars had their strengths and weaknesses. The Scirocco was probably the best car I've ever owned- it was built like a rock, and the only problems I had with it in 127,000 miles of ownership involved the water pump and the radiator, both of which failed after 100,000 miles.
[My dad never taught me to change the coolant every three years; now you know why those parts failed~
]
I learned about flying from that. Anyway...
My current Jetta is a VR6-powered automatic [sorry, my mistake-!], and has been nothing but trouble. These weren't VW's best efforts, and this car apparently led a sheltered life in Miami Beach before I took it to Memphis about one year ago. The first day I was in Memphis it was 17 degrees fahrenheit when I attempted to drive the car to work, and it nearly immediately blew all of its oil out of a weak seal on the oil cooler. I had to call a tow truck- only the second time in 22 years of car ownership that this has ever happened...and had the car towed to the dealer. The engine wasn't damaged, but the bill was still pretty high. Anyway, a week later [I'm not kidding; a WEEK later exactly!] the f*cking heater core blew apart in traffic. The car filled with steam, and I managed to pull over in stop-and-go traffic in Memphis. Well, second tow in a week. This time they wanted $1100 to replace the heater core! Yeah right. I told them to bypass the f*cking thing...
....and then I spent the rest of last winter freezing my ass off in that car!
Listen: That was brutal, even in a relatively warm place like Memphis, and with gloves and warm clothes on. I still froze! I just spent over $600 having that heater core replaced at this place in Memphis near the airport called Faulks.
Well, as I was driving toward the place that I stay in Memphis after the heater core was bypassed, I noticed that the temperature gauge was steadily climbing toward the red zone. What the hell? Well, it was now a "nice" day, nearly 60 degrees F out, and I was stuck in traffic again. Well, the Jetta's fan was not operating. Guess what? The fan motor had finally failed. When I bought this car, I had my local mechanic do a PPI on it, and the only thing he found was that the fan motor was making noise. Well, it chose right then to basically lock up.
$1100 later-!
I had a fan. I remember driving past a used car lot in Memphis- there was a chevy Lumina sitting there, and I am still mystified by this: for a few seconds, the notion of pulling in and trying to convince them to trade this @#$%^ )(&& and @@##$$%% m-$$%%^% pile of crap car for the Lumina actually ran through my mind.
Good lord! A "lumina" is a barely-roadworthy device with a plastic interior manufactured by the Saran-Wrap corporation and a silly pushrod engine fit for the label "Briggs & Stratton". The notion that I would even consider that object a "car" much less a car that I would own just mystifies me now, but I guess it indicates what state of mind I was in at the time.
Well, the Jetta has behaved since; it managed to only go through two or three tires since all the early-year fiascos, so I'm probably going to keep it for another year. I put a K&N "knockoff" air filter on it, and it sounds really cool when it revs out. But that's my VW story...
Moral: A VW that is properly maintained will put a smile on your face and not cause you much trouble. A VW that is NOT properly maintained will still put a smile on your face...but it will destroy your wallet!