Hi all,

I've always wanted a yeti, and now I finally have the money to buy one. Would people recommend the face-lift over the original? I prefer the quirky looks of the old one, and why should I give up on my very achiveable dream of an old yeti?

I guess it depends on the servicing and condition, but is there any major reason to buy the face-lift?

Sorry if this has been done before, happy to be directed to previous posts 🙂

Barney

If you want a diesel there is a very good reason to go for a later facelift with the 150hp engine.

It avoids all the problems of the EA189 engine fix.

I was looking at the 2.0 diesel. I didn't realize the fix caused issues, just done some googling and it doesn't look great.

I guess I have 2 main questions:

1) Going for a pre-facelift does the 1.2 TSI have and reliability problems above and beyond normal old petrol engines.

2) Post facelift - there's a lot of 108 bhp diesels around, i was looking for the 138 or 168. Is the 108 fine? I would prefer the 6th gear that comes with the higher power engines for motorway runs

Ah I've found the 150 hp this euro6 versions. They have way too many engine options...

8 hours ago, Barney95 said:

I was looking at the 2.0 diesel. I didn't realize the fix caused issues, just done some googling and it doesn't look great.

I guess I have 2 main questions:

1) Going for a pre-facelift does the 1.2 TSI have and reliability problems above and beyond normal old petrol engines.

2) Post facelift - there's a lot of 108 bhp diesels around, i was looking for the 138 or 168. Is the 108 fine? I would prefer the 6th gear that comes with the higher power engines for motorway runs

1) Not really. We've owned a few TSi and a few TDi Yetis. One TSi had an oil leak at fairly low mi les, fixed under warranty. Listen for timing gear noise at idle if higher miles. If DSG, the mechatronic can fail.

2) As with previous comments, the pre facelift 140 and 170 (a few made it to the facelift) were both good engines, with no adBlue required. The 150 is a bit more economical, but has adblue. I liked the 170 for performance, but the 140 and 150 are both good and you can have 4wd to use all the power.

For what it's worth I bought my 2013 Excellence right at the end of the Classic run as I wanted the quirkiness of the earlier styling. It's the 1.2 petrol, has 90,000 miles on the clock and other than tyres, a battery and replacing the front shock absorbers (picked up as "misting" at an MOT rather than they failed) have had pretty much 12+ years of trouble free motoring. As you may have picked up elsewhere there are a few 1.4 petrol models around if you can track one down but the consensus seems to be the 1.8 petrol is for those with deep pockets.

My understanding is there wasn't a step change from the pre to the post facelift Yeti, it was more building on what was a solid car from launch. One thing I have picked up from this forum, and I stand to be corrected, is the Amundsen unit in the FL seems to have more problems than the earlier Bolero so it's one of the things to look for when you are looking around but there's a lot of information on this forum and You Tube about fixing/replacing the unit.

Although the car inarguably is getting a bit long in the tooth now (well, they stopped selling them in 2017) it's still a fun and versatile car to drive. Keep your expectations sensible and I don't think you will be disappointed.

I prefer pre facelift, the look suits the car better IMO.

Mine is the base model with 6sp manual gearbox which means so much less to go wrong and in 4 years very little of consequence has. Worst has been the clutch master cylinder which is a chronic weak point on virtually all VW group cars of the era which employ the same part but it's a relatively cheap and easy fix.

TBH any early 1.2tsi which has made it this far is unlikely to harbour too many problems that an informed pre purchase inspection won't reveal. The biggest issue of course s going to be corrosion which can be near terminal and a failed next MOT away from an appointment with the scrappie.

Fortunately the climate here in Spain means that the words 'rust' and 'corrosion' are not even in the local MOT equivalent testers vocabluary and with nothing else to go on the underside of my 2011 car could easily pass for a 4 or 5 year old!