Problems starting car.
Engine and air bag lights would go on and off.
Replaced starter motor.
Replaced distributor and reset timer.
Coolant needed replenishing more frequently.
Removed and replaced radiator assembly and coolant.
Replaced battery.
Replaced front upper strut mounts and bearings.
Replaced lower ball-joints.
Replaced exhaust from catalytic converter back.
Replaced catalytic converter two years prior.
Replaced spark plugs.
Ignition wire set.
Until recently, car was reliable and required few repairs other than regular maintenance.
However, in the last two months I have had to be towed a couple of times to service car and have many parts removed and replaced. This cost a little over $3,000 Canadian.
Parts are expensive.
I'm concerned with the validity of this review due to the lack of perspective and context. All items listed are typically due to fail at higher mileages, and not necessarily a fault of the vehicle or design.
Mine won't stop running (237k miles.), and although it goes through waves of parts eating binges, it should have been tossed aside long ago. Most items that need replacing are due to my own negligence anyways, as it is a car that can take abuse and keep going--making maintenance issue seemingly frequent... when in reality, I'm just spoiled by it's reliability.
I've never kept a car for so long in all of my life, and have no desire to change it for another.
HI, I have a 1997 Golf GL in Australia and although I love the car and it drives well, it is now on its 3rd gear box. I agree the parts are expensive and after 167k kilometres it seems to continually need repairs. Now the airbag light is always on which I assume will cost even more money to fix.
It seems like you only had/have 3-4 real problems:
-Problems starting the car/starter motor
-Engine light (did you find out what the codes were? Did the new spark plugs fix the engine light issue? Or did the new Catalytic converter fix it?)
-Loss off coolant probably caused by a corroded radiator that you replaced.
-Airbag light.
The 1st three "problems" aren't a big deal considering the age and mileage. The Check Engine light means you have an emissions issue - and a bad spark plug, bad wires or a bad catalytic converter can cause this. And the airbag light just means the airbag won't work in a collision. So your level of crash protection drops down to the level of a VW Golf before they came equipped with airbags. Something I wouldn't bother fixing. Fix it only if you want to sell the car certified.
To spend $3000 once after having 5 years of little or no repair costs is actually pretty good. I spent a little over $5000 (in Canadian funds) on maintenance, repairs (Including a $500 stereo upgrade) on my 1987 Honda Civic over 3.5 years.
And I spent about $3000 on a 1991 Ford Escort I owned for 3 years.
On any car over 5 years old, you have to expect to spend an average of at least $100 a month on maintenance and repairs simply because older cars need more maintenance than a new car.
You're doing better than that and you should be smiling over how well you've done with this car.
$100 a month is way cheaper than the payment on any new car. The cost of insuring a new car is higher as well.
If you want to reduce your repair and maintenance costs, stay away from VW dealers and educate yourself by going to sites like www.vwvortex.com and learn to do some things yourself. VW dealers (at least in the Toronto area) are terrible when it comes to service - expensive, arrogant *and* incompetent.
Note: A Comments RSS Feed is available. New comments appear in the Members Area before the main site