How tough are 92 jetta diesel's?

[quaddogger]

Hey, There's a 1992 jetta diesel for sale for $1500obo certified and i need a car badly (blew the transmition out of my van and am borrowing my bro's car for now)

The trouble is I am hard on vehicles not just abuse the heck out of them but i drive them hard. Will a diesel jetta hold up for about 6-8 months? i always do regular maintainence like change the oil, fuel filter, air filter, check tire pressure, run injector cleaner once in a while etc. I was told these were very tough little cars until recently when i've heard alot of horror stories about expensive and hard to find parts, and hard to work on vehicles.

Personally i have never ridden in nor driven a vw of any kind so this is all based on what liscensed mechanics are telling me (most are bad things about the newer DI's)

Also the idea of getting 30-40mpg instead of 15-20 sounds alot better. I'd also like to try SVO and even tweak this lil engine a bit for decent power.

Thanks for any help guys i need to decide fast before this car is gone.

Jeremy

[jtanguay]

whats the condition of the car??? how does she start when cold??? i'd buy it if i were you...

the rule that you should obey is to let the car warm up before you beat on it... especially if its turbo.  if you do not follow this rule, the exhaust back pressure from the turbo will heat up parts like your head way too quickly and could cause the aluminum to warp.  thats just one bad case... your pistons might swell up too quickly... and gall the cyl walls...  sooooo many things can go wrong when beating on a cold motor.... so dont do it!

other than that, just keep checking the oil... if you notice your car is burning oil... then keep it topped up.  that is a really good diesel rule right there... never let the engine run low on oil.  the oil helps keep the temps in check, which can get extremely high when beating on it, and going up hills full speed  :twisted:.

nobody really seems to change the transmission oil, so that would be a great maintenance item as well.  git r done!  oh yea, and get your car lubed up from one of those undercoating places... i got mine done from Rust Check and they sprayed my shift linkage really good... it used to be all gummy and now its nice and loose  :twisted:  plus it keeps the rust away... but i didn't get it done this year... as my shift box is still loose.  you could probably lube it up yourself, but its so cold outside!

bleed your brake system as well.  one guy on this forum.. forget his name.. had some issue where the old fluid got really corrosive and started eating away his brake calipers and then got to his vacuum pump and starting screwing that up too... they say to change it every year... i would do it every 2-3.... but if you are hard on your car maybe every 2  :lol:

if you dont have maintenance records of when the coolant was changed, change it.  people don't seem to realize that coolant over time will turn acidic, where it starts to eat key components like gaskets, aluminum, hoses... etc...  don't believe me? then get some litmus paper and see the pH for yourself  VERY good maintenance item right there.

as for your injection pump, its probably going to start leaking when you fill up with ultra low sulphur diesel... not much you can do there bro... iirc some people mix 2 stroke oil with their diesel to help keep the seals from shrinking and leaking... i never actually tried it, but if it works sweet!  just more pollution, but you get added benefit of lubricated pump!  and good call on maintaining the fuel filter... if you can't get proof it was changed in the past few months, then change it

expensive hard to find parts???!!!! i've got two parts cars... two '91 jetta turbo diesels...  paid $1000 for both.  one actually runs and drives... the other one was probably just a bad starter wire or something... but i mainly wanted it for its power plant and maybe some other trinkets

i also upgraded the suspension on my car for around $400ish shipping included.  4 dropzone shocks and struts.. and some lowering springs from out west.  the ride is really rigid and bumpy, but i love it  my car is great going into corners!! fun fun fun!  shocks and struts are usually baffed on these cars... but both my parts cars have new shocks and struts  :wink:

as for the fuel economy you could probably hit 50 mpg if the motor is nice and tight... if you can keep your foot out of it  :lol:  i think the worst horror stories i've heard from these cars, are from the people who've asked the motor to produce twice the normal rated HP...  and winter starting  :lol:  in stock form they are pretty much indestructible.  it's only when critical parts fail like wastegate, cooling system, injectors, that anything really bad happens.

well sorry for the really long post... hope it makes you buy that car!!!!  

[LeeG]

My story of my first diesel:

Moved, faced a 240 km round trip commute to work.
Wanted fuel efficiency, bought '91 Jetta TD with 255,000km for $4500
3 years and almost 200,000km later I sold the car for $2500
Total invested in that motor?  $300 parts for 2 timing belt changes, one water pump and one alternator.  Once you figure out how to set the timing and change oil, you know how to do all the routine maintanance for that engine.

yeah, i also went through 2 sets of tires, 2 sets of front brakes, balljoints, tie rods, muffler, shocks and struts.  And more oil changes than you can shake a stick at.

Tough?  Driving that far everyday, all I wanted to do is get there.  That car hit the govenor multiple times each day.  It howled up passing lanes wound out in 3rd.  I drove the wee out of it.  It took all I threw at it.   It ran great when I sold it, but burned oil.  

I figure it burned 11,000 litres of fuel.  US EPA ratings tell me that a gas '91 jetta uses about 45% more fuel.  So it more than paid for itself in fuel savings over a similar gas car.  Plus I doubt you can rack up 200k on an old gas jetta for $300 in engine parts...keeping it aircared the whole time too.

I now drive a newer VW diesel.

[duffer]

M. Tanguay,

  I sent you a PM

[RabbitJockey]

i think they're pretty tough,  especially because of how underpowered they are. i think thats why so many of them last so long

[quaddogger]

Hey,

Thanks for all the info guys. In the winter i always let it warm up for 15 minutes and then drive very slow and gentle for the first few km's until it's warm, then i drive a little harder.

Currently i don't know anything else about the car, i'm going to call the guy tomorrow night probably. Been way too busy with school. Timing belts shouldn't be too hard to change, any other work i pretty well know how to do. I do all my own oil changes and such because it lets me see how the vehicle is running.

How are these diesel's in the winter? I heard they were slow to warm up because there is some kind of cooler in the oil pan? Do they fish tail easy with a good set of winter tires?

Is the rear seat in these cars a fold down?

Thanks so far guys you have been very helpful

[burn_your_money]

Hey man, I live in North Bay too, give me a shout if you want and I can check out the diesel with you
477-1103
Tyler

They are tough cars if you treat them properly. Make sure it's warmed up before you beat on it and as long as you take care of the minor things as they occur you'll be fine. I also have a large stockpile of parts, there's pretty much no such thing as hard to find parts for these cars, unless you are doing a rebuild and trying to find I-shaft bearings :roll:

[burn_your_money]

Currently i don't know anything else about the car, i'm going to call the guy tomorrow night probably. Been way too busy with school. Timing belts shouldn't be too hard to change, any other work i pretty well know how to do. I do all my own oil changes and such because it lets me see how the vehicle is running.

You need a dial indicator to do the timing properly

How are these diesel's in the winter? I heard they were slow to warm up because there is some kind of cooler in the oil pan? Do they fish tail easy with a good set of winter tires?

I love my diesel year round. They warm up quick if the thermostat is working properly. There are no coolers in the pan, on turbo diesels there is one right above the oil filter. With good snows you have to try pretty hard to get them to fishtail, unless there is lots of snow and it's very slippery.

Is the rear seat in these cars a fold down?

Nope, not on a Jetta

[jtanguay]

true... forgot to mention like BYM stated, if you have a good thermostat these cars make heat relatively quickly... i would go get a brand new one from a vw dealer and make sure you test it with boiling water... some people on here reported to have bad thermostats (they were brand new...)

my gauge starts to move after about 3-4 minutes of idling at -10C  

at that outside temp the car will take about 15 minutes to reach 3/8 mark on the gauge at idle, which on my car is around 80C.  if i start to drive and slowly work her up i can get full temps by around 10 mins including 2 min warmup.  

the oil cooler helps warm up the vehicle IMO... libbybapa has a thread going where he showed the coolant flow through the cooler, and it basically sends the heat from the hot oil into the coolant when the coolant is flowing into the motor... good for warmup... bad for driving hard when its super hot outside...  but my oil cooler went south on me and was a PITA to change... on my last diesel jetta it didn't break though.. luckily maybe just some bad luck?

if you have a place to plug in your jetta, you're set.  i plug my car in at work all shift long... which is sweet!!! make the city pay to prevent damaging cold starts on my vehicle  my car does start now, but misses a bit, probably due to a bad glowplug or bad compression...  oh well it still runs okay...

good thing you're close to burn... he knows a lot about these diesels, and as it seems, has quite a large collection of parts  :lol:

and for fishtailing... i love fishtailing!!! i try to fishtail whenever possible... using e-brake kinda ruins it as it puts the car into a bad spin... my car seems to love it though!  but i would never do it with other people on the road... accident waiting to happen there   :roll: just point to where you wanna go and spin the tires!!!  :twisted: fun fun fun

[burn_your_money]

i'm going to call the guy tomorrow night probably.

Did you call him?

What car is it? Maybe I've seen it around town

[insdtanoodles]

Ive had one hell of a time with my car but its a 96 not a 92, the previous owner didnt take care of the car so do your reseach into the cars history first!. Things I have replaced

timing belt
water pump
power steering pump bracket
turbo and drain line
serpintine belt tensioner roller
suspension all around (rear springs were in pieces)
lower rad support
starter
oil cooler internal gasket ( oil filter gasket off an old filter works awsome)
lower timing belt cover
crankshft work - timing pulley destroyed crank nose so machined to fit new pulley
harmonic balancer
re-ringed the engine
a few coolant hoses

all that in about 75000 kms, most of the odd stuff to replace like the power steering pump bracket was because of my damaged crank nose. I am still not done fixing it either, injectos are leaking and so is the injection pump, gonna do those at the next timing belt change. Tie rods are gone and my rear tires are out of alingment so bad that shims cant even get them prefect so I gotta decided what to so with that.

The very best thing about the car is I can now fix anything on my car, if it dies on the street I know what to fix it and even with all the problems I have had with the car it has never left me stranded, it has stopped working but it was stuff I could fix with the tools I keep in my car. If you get this buy a bently manual, a set of tools for you car, some wire strippers, unions and different kinds of terminals (wire going to fuel cut-off soleonid rotted off when I was driving, died 200m from a canadian tire ) and spare fulids. Its been a year since I got my crankshft and all the really bad things fixed on my car and after that it was run prefect except for parts that just ware out so no big deal. I could never have afforded this car if I didnt learn how to fix it myself and before I got it I barely knew where the oil went, so even after all the *** I am happy I got my vw diesel, sometimes it can go perfect or it can go bad like it did with me. So far the car has costed me about 7000 dollars over 2 years and I bought it for 1900 dollars.

[RabbitJockey]

i always let my warm up then i beat them to hell...  hsn't hurt them yet lol, i haven't ahd a problem with either of my cars in months

[quaddogger]

sorry i haven't been on in a coon's age guys. I lost the bookmark and couldn't figure it out til now. No the car is long sold my brother lent me his car while he drives his 94 diesel dodge to work (which he much perfers! )
Thanks anyways guys for your input it's stored away in my vw file cabinet now.

[burn_your_money]

I'll have one for sale in a month or two, you could stop in and have a look at it if you wanted to

[quaddogger]

I'd like to buy a diesel vw but right now I have about $250 to my name, I need a job bad! LOL but i'll keep your offer in mind. Could you tell me the specs on it for now though? Thanks alot

Jeremy