Hey boys, convince me to get another td!

[Topherdiesel]

Well, after having some annoying problems with my 93 golf td, I decided to sell her this spring.

Basically heres what pissed me off.
1) tranny went, reverse gear buggered off and when I had it "fixed" the shop that did it, half assed it, and it shot a seal and killed my tranny

2) head gasket went twice, and I always babied the car and waited till it was warm to load her up

3) my crank pulley decided to do the crank pulley trick on me, caught it just in time, and it was fixed by a member of the board.

Well, convince me that my car was a lemon, and find me a good deal on a 94-99 jetta td or tdi for under 7 grand.

[Hammy]

How many Km's on tranny before it blew-up? Did the half-assed repair happen before or after the tranny blew? Who did your head gaskets? Did they know what they were doing? Did they change the head bolts also? Did they clean all of the oil out of the head bolt holes in the block? What was the maintenance record of your vehicle like before you bought it? I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not sure if your car was a lemon or not. All vehicle manufactures have them, just some more than others. It's been my expirience that some people condemn their car, yet they never did all of the maintenance. It would have been easy for me to say that VW's were crap when the head gasket I changed failed, but I did it without changing the head bolts, even though everyone said to change them. So who's fault would that be? The guy I look at in the mirror, not VW. If you feel that your car let you down because it was a poorly built piece of junk, then you should probably look elsewhere.

 Just my opinion, thats all.

[Topherdiesel]

I got let down by a ***ty vw mechanic.
The tranny was making a click in reverse before I got it "fixed".

Then it spit a seal the day after I got it back, drained all its fluid on the 400 north of parry sound, and siezed up completely.  The ***s who "fixed" it said it wasn't their fault, and because I had paid cash they did their best to try to *** me.  We finally agreed that I would pay for the parts, and them the labour to put the tranny back together.

Got the car back, tranny sounded like ***, pinion gear was scored and made a screeching noise for about 5000 kms, until it wore down a bit.

Head gasket, done by me, new everything, head decked slightly...found out when back from machine shop that the head was warped, badly, and the deck wouldn't do much.  Slapped it on, and well, it popped the gasket again.

Crank pulley working its way off...I was not impressed.

BUT, *** happend, and I want another vw diesel.

[Hammy]

I'm glad to hear you want another. I've had new "BIG 3" vehicles before, and they have been bigger problems than my 2 current VW's. Drive as many as you can before choosing one. If it's clean all over, then there  is a good chance that the previous owner took care of it. IMO, the price range you are looking at, is going to be something with a couple hundred thousand K's on it. Personally, I wouldn't be that worried about that, you might feel different. In Barrie, there is a couple of really good VW shops, that are reasonable in their prices. Look for a good shop, for what you can't do yourself.

[vwmike]

It seems like I've heard nothing but horror stories about the 1.9TD. TDI's are actually getting down in price so if you're thinking about another VW, perhaps you should try and move up a little? I've heard of very few TDI related problems in comparison to the TD's.

[Topherdiesel]

I think the problem is that the IDI's just need to have been well taken care of from day 1.  

I mean, even with a blown head gasket on mine, I was still getting clost to 45 mpg.