Found quite a few in our budget for the wife and it would sure be a bit more interesting than a 1.4 Polo. Insurance is £60 a year more and the ta is back at the £180 mark but it kind of grabs me more.

Anybody know anything about them, problems etc?

CheeRS

 

They seem to be pretty reliable from what I've seen. MAF sensors tend to go if you have a filter on, CPS sensors sometimes fail too.

Parts are easy enough to find.

 

Don't touch the 8v's

 

They're nice cars, I was looking at them before I got my Beemer but I was surprised at how many were rusting quite badly.

 

Why?

My brother has had an 8v for the last 5 years and fooook all has gone wrong with it, it will return 35mpg on a run and puts a smile on your face every drive.

 

ive had one and working as a mechanic i can say in general they are cracking cars..i would have another in a heartbeat, i currently have a mk4 so maybe im gonna say they are great. but we never had any probs with ours, i done the usual i do to all our cars when i take ownership, cam belt filters etc and it never let us down.
i had the 8v

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/k...4/100_0167.jpg


the only thing that i can think of is that the idle can fluctuate sometimes and its usually down to some idiot cleaning out the throttle body or idle control valve but its usually resolved by re calibrating the stepper motor..
but you will need a scanner...mt2500 or something a like..

 

i had a mk3 vr6 and superb car, would have another any day of the week if it wasnt for the price of fuel!

Idle can be a bit iffy on them, especially the 2.0 8v, i had quite rough idling problems with my 2.0 8v that was fitted into my mk2.

The rear arches seem to rust a bit if theyre getting on a bit

 

they can suffer from rot around the front floor area where it meets the sill
and fuse box can give problems
but in genral they are not a bad car

 

I had an R reg Golf gti 8v before i got the Celica, was a comfy car and very reliable but so slow and drunk fuel like made!

I was lucky to get 50 miles to a tenner of fuel.

My advise would be to get a 16v version personally.

 

had the maf go wierd on my VR6 and took it to SCC which just cleaned it a reset something and then it was good as new . had a couple of gtis (both 8vs) and had no probs .

the only other thing that springs to mind is dodgy electric windows ?

 

But the 16 is juicier than the 8 tho'!

 

My wife has a mark 3 gti 16 valve and she averages 32mpg around town It's been a really good reliable car and it's now covered more than 140,000 miles. The early ones suffer from rust though.

 

weve been looking at mk4 golfs and they seem to have central locking and dodgy electric windows, must be a common fault

 

I could of dealt with the fuel issues if it was slightly quick but it was painfully slow imo.