24th Jul 2025, 16:50
And one final update. It made it to 385k, and was in an accident that wrote it off, later that year. Mold that had started earlier became more of an issue, so I let it go to someone who wanted the diesel engine for their Vanagon build with only a little pang.
Later, on my urging, based on this car purchase, my dad got a 1995 Jetta TD. It had been garaged a long time (10 years) and the seller said it had low mileage. Knowing that these VWs wrap their odometers at 300k, I was skeptical, given some of the wear to the pedals and the shifter, but it wasn't until halfway through the drive home that it turned nightmarish. A gurgling clank quickly turned into a slapping sound in the engine bay. The timing had slipped. All of our attempts to fix that were futile. We wound up giving it to my sister and her husband, and with a great deal of work, they got it back on the road, for about 3 years. It was constantly having little issues, until the gearbox fell out at speed. That was the end for that car, and shows that these cars really, really don't like being off the road for any period of time.
4th Dec 2014, 06:51
Yet another update, now at 376,000km. The car is just beginning to come apart. The front driver's side splash guard is hanging by a screw. The driver's side window can't roll up or down. The trim on the inside is holding together suspiciously well, except for the broken glovebox. Someone broke the plastic back off the passenger-side mirror recently. The back hatch got dented by me and won't open any more except by the release button. The alarm is getting tetchy and the doors don't all lock together any more.
Do I dislike it because of these faults? Nope. I bought it because of fuel mileage, and it is still doing that great.