buying second hand car

paddy reilly

Hellow all i am a new member to your forum and this is my first post.
I will be 17 soon and have been saving for the last few years. i have built up a nest egg of 9500euros all earned by driving tractors for ridiculously long hours i must say. for that money i have to insure it as well.

I looked at all types of cars in the autotrader and the vwgolf 1.4 is my favourite i have seen 01s and02s in my price range of 7000euros I got a quote from quinn direct for 2300euros under my own name which sounds vry reasonable by the others i go quotes of.

I would like all advice on this type of car reliability?
i have heard the gearboxes give trouble is it a serious problem?
are the engines fast? economical?
are the electrics any good?
All coments conected to to golf 1.4s much appreciated i need as much information as possible. thanks in advance

johnnyrotten

Try
www.parkers.co.uk
www.whatcar.co.uk/

quarryman

the golf 1.4 is dog slow, don't bother with it.

call into the second hand car dealers and test drive what takes you fancy.

since you're only 17 you'll prob have to keep it under 1400cc.

carzone is down at the moment. Enter your budget price into that and keep the engine size max 1.4 and see what it gives you.

Esel

Also check http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/index.htm

Anan1

OP - Given that it's your very first car and that you're going to learn to drive in it, i'd buy a cheap 1.0 car to start with and put the rest of the money away. That way, you can get your full license, build up a year's NCB, and most importantly not have to worry about the odd mark we all put on cars when we were learning. Once that's out of the way, your insurance will drop a good bit - you'll also be able to go out and test-drive and compare different cars to get something you really like.:)

tuxy

Ya I agree with Anan1. I know it's hard to do the sensible thing when young and impatient but just think of the performance cars you can afford in a few years if you do the sensible things now.

bazz26

I would agree with the others and buy a cheap first car. You are probably going to end up scraping or banging it so no point in buying an expensive first car until you are used to driving.

Something like a mid to late 1990s Fiesta or Polo is an ideal first car, they can be picked up for a couple of grand these days so you will not be too put out if you bump or scrape it.

After a year or two when you are a competant enough driver and you have done your test you will then be able to treat yourself to a decent car with your hard earned cash.

To answer your original question about the Golf. Golfs tend to be very expensive second hand for what you get, the 1.4 litre struggles in the heavy body and they suffer from other niggly problems, definately not as bombproof as VW suggest.

Fey!

I'd have to go with Anan1, Tuxy, and Bazz26 on this; get a cheap car, use it to learn, put as much of your nest egg on hold as possible, and buy a better car in a couple of years, when your competence is better and your NCB is higher/insurance lower.

That said, seeing as you earned the money to pay for the car driving tractors, I will assume that you are fairly competent, otherwise your job wouldn't have lasted long enough for you to save that kind of money!!!

Best of luck with it, regardless of what you decide to do.

PaulKK

quarryman wrote:

the golf 1.4 is dog slow, don't bother with it.

I'm sorry, but the OP is 17 and its his first car, what difference does it make if its the golf is slow? The 1.4 golf is probably the most popular one sold in Ireland, so it seems to fit the majority of those peoples needs. We can't all be driving around with 150BHP under us. Surely the 1.4 golf is faster than the suggested 1l cars that have been suggested anyway?

Anyhow, to the OP I would say that that is quite a bit of money to be spending on your first car.... however, if your confident enough in your driving that you prob wont bend it at some stage, which I assume you are from your tractor experiance, I suggest you go for it. Insurance could be worse, couple of my friends paid 3200 starting out on 1.4 litres.

bazz26

PaulKK wrote:

I'm sorry, but the OP is 17 and its his first car, what difference does it make if its the golf is slow? The 1.4 golf is probably the most popular one sold in Ireland, so it seems to fit the majority of those peoples needs. We can't all be driving around with 150BHP under us. Surely the 1.4 golf is faster than the suggested 1l cars that have been suggested anyway?

Nobody is suggesting that the OP needs a 150bhp car but the Golf 1.4 only has 75bhp which even back in 1999 was a poor. Most cars in this class have around 90bhp. Even a 1.25 litre Fiesta has similar engine output despite having being smaller capacity.

The Golf is a heavy car and 75bhp is not enough to carry that heavy body around without struggling. Where you will really notice the lack of power is when you go to make an overtaking manoeuvre, I have driven a few 1.4 Golfs and you really need to plan you overtaking well in advance. I don't like being at the other side of the road for too long as it is dangerous so I want to get the overtaking manoeuvre done as safely and quickly as possible. I found that when I was doing this in a Golf it was a bit nerve racking as you pressed the peddle nothing happened.

gucci

i would have to agree with bazz here, im in the market for a 00-ish golf myself and want to buy a diesel but i said id give a petrol one at least a test spin yesterday, shockingly disappointing and sluggish, it was a nice car with low milage too the search goes on.

on topic,id say the same as the majority here, pick yourself up something cheap and cheerful, drive it for 12months and then move on, i got a 97 polo bout 18months ago and now am making the progression as described.....only thing is 97 polos dont have power steering (well the one i have) so remember that when your thinking about what to get

paddy reilly

Thanks for all your replys:)
The prolem with me is i have shiny machine disease and this means i like to only drive good equipment and mind everything to the last id couldnt drive a banger.
Id really like to hear from 1.4 golf owners about the cars faults and plus s.
If power is a problem on them would i be able to chip them? what is fuel economy like with them?

bazz26

paddy reilly wrote:

Thanks for all your replys:)
The prolem with me is i have shiny machine disease and this means i like to only drive good equipment and mind everything to the last id couldnt drive a banger.
Id really like to hear from 1.4 golf owners about the cars faults and plus s.
If power is a problem on them would i be able to chip them? what is fuel economy like with them?

Trying to chip a 1.4 Golf is a waist of time and money imo even if it is possible. Unless you going to slap a turbo or super charger on it you will not see any substantial performance increase.

Known problems with Golfs include flakeyremote central locking. Gearboxes have been known to fail prematurely on certain Golfs. Also mass air flow (MAF), lambda and throttle body sensors are known to give trouble.

junkyard

They also suffer big time from piston slap, excessive wear in the engine due to poor quality casting in the engine block, the window winders fail on a regular basis, door lock failure, water leaks, water pump failure, timing belt tensioner pulley failure and numerous electrical failures which I could go on about all night. In fact I'm just in the process of finishing a report on a 03 1.4 Golf with only 46k miles on it and we have found 32 faults, 8 of them serious. If I was you I'd look at another brand tbh, as I've said many times before, VW aren't as reliable or as good quality cars as they once were.

milltown

SEAT Leon?

Cheaper than a Golf. Better looking (IMO). More reliable, according to numerous customer satisfaction surveys. Better equipped as standard. And certainly feels zippier than the Golf for the same engine. I suspect the gearing may be different as it's a bit noisier than the Golf at motorway speeds, but not unpleasantly so.

If I was going back to that class of car I'd have another one without hesitation. It would have to be the previous shape though, the new one (and most of the new SEATS) just don't do it for me.

Boggins127

I have bought a 99 golf 1.4 seems fine to me was my 1st car was lovely plenty a poke i thought n not soo bad ta look at???
:cool:Cool,
Dave

challengemaster

Punctuation is your friend. Txt spk is not (or anyone elses).


The idea of a 17 year old chipping or modding a car is a tiny bit silly. Insurance would be all over the thing.

get something like a 1L or 1.2L to learn in, save the rest of the money. Gotta start somewhere..

Fizman

And on the 11th month the thread rose from the dead. :rolleyes:

paddy reilly

Well about 4 months ago i bought an 02tdi 115 golf. I decided that i would be better with the disel then the petrol in the long run.
Its more economical a better engine than the 1.4 and its also has power for overtaking.
I bought it for 8500 then i put a timein belt into it aswell as a new set of tyres gave it a full sevice and fitted two rear bushins an a cvjoint.
So it stands me at about 9500. It went through the nct no problem and i think that it is the ideal first car.