Hi All,

 

A friend of mine is looking to buy a vRS and asked me what to look for. I came up with a few things which I'll list below. If anyone has any more, please post up. Like anyone, he's looking for a reliable car and hoping to avoid any bills or problemsfor things he could have walked away from with an informed point of view.

 

So, I advised he consider/look for/ask about the following:

 

Clutch slip

Turbo whine (ie police siren=bad)

Leaky doors

Rear washer operation (can often pop the hose in engine bay and or boot)

If the car has been mapped, who by and how it drives

How the owner drives it- giving it death from cold being one to avoid, if it is warmed up/cooled down each time its driven

 

Okay, so those are the ones that were apparent to me when he asked me. Irrespective of how obvious it might seem, please post up what you'd look for- any experiences, tales of woe and so on appreciated.

 

I'm just trying to help a mate out and hopefully ensure he doesn't buy a lemon. He's thinking of looking at an '03 plate with 90k miles up at £3200, I'm not hugely current on whether that is good or not (cambelt etc considering).

 

Thanks in advance for your help,

 

Clarkey.

Firstly...you need to delete two of your other posts LoL 

 

Things I'd look for:

 

• full service history including cam belt changes (2003 means an 11 year old car and VW Group now recommend every 4 years or 60K miles) so if it hasn't been done within the past 3 years, you have a bargaining point.  Cost of cambelt replacement plus water pump is around £320 at a specialist garage
• suspension bush wear...especially front drop links and rear bushes.  If not already replaced, these will all need re-doing.  Cost at an independent is around £100 plus parts so around £200 all in.
• EGR operation (if it is still in place).  Check for stuttering under over-run conditions between 1500 and 2K revs.  Could mean an EGR clean or that a thicker EGR manifold gasket is needed
• Black smoke on start up is a sign of either a faulty injector seal (common) or an EGR not closing properly.  If the latter it will also result in poor performance.
• Black smoke when revved: over fuelled
• white smoke:  perhaps burning oil or turbo issues
• Brake disc/pad wear
• Oil used.  Should be to VW 505.01 spec
• Check that standard air box is still in place and that a standard air filter is used.  I don't care what anyone else thinks about the looks and sounds of engine bay cone filters or panel filters, they all result in advanced turbo wear as they wont filter as well as a standard paper element.  If its been run with an aftermarket filter, been re-mapped, and runs a standard clutch and turbo, best to walk away or big bills loom.  At 90K a remapped car's standard turbo and clutch will likely be on last legs if ragged and you have to assume it has been ragged.
• Door seals
• Electric window operation
• even tracking  - check wear on tyres for uneven wear
• suspension: best bought with original suspension unless something decent like Bisteins have been retro-fitted.

Very helpful indeed, thanks very much.

 

On the computer at work, I hit refresh a couple of times as it didn't load once I hit 'Post Topic', then all of a sudden I have three! Bloody computers.

Duplicates now deleted

Cheers damo :-)