Another 'Looking to buy' thread

[Willenium]

Hi guys,

It's been a long time since I last posted. I joined up a while back to get some advice on what to look out for on MK3 Golfs, in particular the 1.8 Driver model. As it goes, I've not stepped up to one but have more recently been thinking about a MK4 GT TDI. They appeared to be quite a decent car with good performance but having just browsed over a couple of pages on here it seems like I could potentially be making a big mistake buying one? (Camshaft issues, leaking oil coolers etc)

Is there anything similar that would be a better investment? Bear in mind I'm 22 so insurance would be a big deciding factor.


Cheers

Will

[dubcruiser]

Nothing wrong with the TDi's mate. Stick with the 115bhp and 130bhp models and they are pretty much bullet proof. the only model that suffers from Cam, Turbos etc is the 150bhp ARL engine, but even then if you get a good one it will go on and on, if you get a bad one it can cost you £££. Bit of pot luck really!

[Willenium]

Cool, I just saw people saying they had PD engines and that it was a common issue so got put off quite quickly. Did they produce different engines for each of the power ratings? It would hopefully be a 115 or 130 I'm going for.

You say they are pretty much bulletproof, do you reckon would that go out of the window with a remap?

[dubcruiser]

They are all 1.9 engines however the 115bhp and the 130bhp are the same but with a different factory map. The 150bhp is different animal. It has a bigger turbo, bigger intercooler and some different internals but as you have read they can fail.

A remapped car is just a reliable. My 1.8T is remapped and to some extend it probably does the engine a favour as its not working as hard for the same power which is why the fuel consumption goes down!!

[Willenium]

Ah ok, that's reassuring. Looks like I will continue to search for the car I want then Anything in particular to watch out for on the MK4?

Hopefully I'll be able to come back to this thread in the future with pics of a newly purchased Golf

[batteryman]

Look here http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/p/56052/425656.aspx. If you go to see one, make sure as far as you can that everything is working. Assuming you'll look for the major things don't forget small items like wipers, washers, lights, radio/cd, heater, elec windows and mirrors, aircon - as much as you can think of. The strings that lift the parcel shelf are sometimes broken. They're all little things but annoying when you find them on your new car and cost money to fix. Use avything you find to haggle on price if you decide you still want the car.

[tony19]

Another thing that you should do is get a quote insurance before you decide to buy it as the GT TDI are a high group insurance.
I got a gt tdi 115BHP and is group 13 and a mk4 1.4 petrol is group 4 wich is a big difference.

[dubcruiser]

Another thing that you should do is get a quote insurance before you decide to buy it as the GT TDI are a high group insurance.
I got a gt tdi 115BHP and is group 13 and a mk4 1.4 petrol is group 4 wich is a big difference.

Don't know where you got that from mate.

The 115bhp TDi is group 10 (the same as the 2.0 GTi petrol, the 130bhp TDi is group 13 and the 150bhp TDi is group 16...

[Willenium]

Little update, I went to see a 2002 GT TDI PD130 today and it seems quite nice. Having now done a bit of further reading I've seen that quite a lot of you mention this 'Limp Mode' popping up. Should I worry about this? I only got a short drive around his neighbourhood but it pulled very well during that time. Is it mainly in certain gears I will get this problem pop up or can it vary? Gonna have to try and drive it again when I go back.

Might be purchasing it so any pointers would be beneficial.

Cheers guys

[batteryman]

From the comments I've read on this forum, the main cause of a car going into limp mode is overboost ie too much pressure from the turbo. Can be caused by sticking turbo vanes or sticking valves in the turbo induction system - I'm sure others can list the possible causes and fixes. If it pulls well at full throttle up to the rev limit it should be OK but a seller may not let you drive like that to test it.