2003 VW Golf. Opinions?

Totofan99

A friend of a friend has offered me a 1.4L petrol 2003 VW Golf at a reasonable price. Just wondering what people think of these cars. Is there anything that I need to watch out for? And what am I looking at in terms of mpg?

schadenfreude8

slow, thirsty, headgasket issues, list of common issues...:o

i own one

Mycroft H

~35mpg.

Unreliable and underpowered spring to mind.

PLUG71

Noisy top end and poor oil circulation according to my mechanic.

I owned a 1.4 Bora and it sounded terrible.

However it never let me down!

promethius

don't do it. i used own one, great to see the back of it. no power and heavy on juice.

PrettyBoy

What price is he asking?

I owned one for a few years and I sold it a few weeks ago. I must have been lucky because my one never gave me any trouble. They're underpowered and heavy on petrol ( I was getting ~27 MPG) but as long as you're not racing around you should get reasonable MPG.

lomb

The 2002 on ones were good the earlier ones let the show down. My 2003 bought new was/is a very good car. The 1.4 16valve though underpowered revs freely versus the leaden dead 1.6 8valve which is horrible.
My fuel economy was very good getting 48mpg on a 100 mile run on A roads. Admittedly I doubt it would do that now more like 32 City, maybe 42 outside. Id say sensors wear with age and the economy declines. Needs to be run on 5w fully synthetic only, most of the problems seem to arise due to shoddy non main dealer /specialist servicing. Without a stamped service history from a main dealer Id probably run a mile.

Totofan99

He's asking €1300 which I think is pretty good compared to the prices I see elsewhere. No idea if there's service history with it. I'm undecided what to do. I might go look at it anyway. Sure it might be wrecked and the decision would be made for me! Thanks for the advice anyway.

PrettyBoy

Totofan99 wrote: »

He's asking €1300 which I think is pretty good compared to the prices I see elsewhere. No idea if there's service history with it. I'm undecided what to do. I might go look at it anyway. Sure it might be wrecked and the decision would be made for me! Thanks for the advice anyway.

At that price I'd be very cautious. A decent 03 would be worth quite a bit more than that so I'm assuming his car has some issues.

Totofan99

PrettyBoy wrote: »

At that price I'd be very cautious. A decent 03 would be worth quite a bit more than that so I'm assuming his car has some issues.

That's kind of what I'm thinking alright. But sure there's no harm in looking at it anyway.

L-M

If he's a good friend, and the car is actually decent with decent miles.

Take it, wait six months and double your money :P