Looking to buy used tdi

I need to buy a used car for my daughter. She will be starting her second year at college, living off campus. The college is 1000 miles from home and she will probably be making that trip at least twice per year.

One of the cars I was looking at is a manual golf or jetta TDI. We were initially looking for a 2009-2010 in the $9000-$10,000 range. That means mileage on the car between 80,000-120,000.

A dealer told me that he would never buy a TDI that was out of warranty. Especially with the problems with the earlier HPFPs. He said there are no inexpensive repairs with the TDI engine.

Even if we were to increase our budget and get one with 40,000 miles, we'd only have 20,000 of factory warranty left.

Would you feel comfortable buying a TDI without a warranty, even with a clean Carfax with regular maintenance?

Whatever you decide to do make sure she has AAA coverage.

i can sell you my 1.6 tdi ) but first you must come to the Turkey )

chilipepper:

If this was a car for a guy/girl who loved to wrench on cars and do their own work; I would totally recommend a TDI. TDI maintenance and repair can be expensive, but if you can do your own work it cuts a lot of the cost out and makes it pretty easy to cover.

But I have a 16 year old daughter; and if I were sending her 1000 miles away to college I would not put her in a VW at all... A Honda Civic, Accord, or perhaps a Toyota Camry; something similar, inexpensive to maintain due to numbers and reliable as anything on the road.

VR6Growl,

I think I am starting to lean that way. I am not mechanically inclined, so I would be taking it to a shop to do all the work. Reading through some of the threads is really opening my eyes as to the possible out of pocket expenses down the road associated with the TDIs.

The other cars on our list are exactly what you suggested.......Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Acura TSX. Barring a huge incentive from VWoA for the thousands of brand new TDIs setting at the ports and dealer lots, it will most likely be one of those Japanese imports. The trouble with those cars, is finding one with a manual transmission. Which my daughter is insisting on. It cuts the available cars for sale down to about 5%-8% of inventory.

Thanks for your input.

I think you are over reacting. Yes there were hpfp problems in the early models but they are covered under an extended 120k mile warranty. Aside from that these motors are pretty bullet proof and the costs are not any more than a gasser unless something major goes down (injector pump for instance), but major things are expensive in a gasser too.

gliitch said:

I think you are over reacting. Yes there were hpfp problems in the early models but they are covered under an extended 120k mile warranty. Aside from that these motors are pretty bullet proof and the costs are not any more than a gasser unless something major goes down (injector pump for instance), but major things are expensive in a gasser too.

Click to expand...

These motors aren't bulletproof. The motor itself is decent but you have HPFP issues, Intercooler issues, DPF issues, EGR issues, turbo failures, etc. A single event of poor quality or contaminated fuel can destroy the HPFP and cost upwards of 5K to fix... You can replace the entire engine in a Civic for less than that :laugh:

My first car was a 1984 Rabbit diesel. I accidentally left the oil cap off when doing an oil change, and drove that car for almost a week with no oil. When we started investigating the damage we found the lack of oil had warped a cylinder and caused it to freeze in the block... The car drove beautifully so we just left it alone and drove it for another 150,000 miles between me, my family, and two cousins who we sent it to when I left for the Army.

That's bulletproof. :thumbsup:

Like I said before; owning one of these for yourself when you know what you are doing is fine; but sending a kid out in one; no thanks.

I would say my VW cars have been similar to my Hondas in terms of reliability. I realize not everyone has this experience. I wouldn't hesitate to buy a car with 40k, to me that's nearly ideal. But I prefer to save money and go even higher mileage. If it has been maintained and drives well, you're ahead of the game. My only concern is the higher cost of diesel which is subject to change.
All that said, it definitely is hard to find a manual car. But you can get a lot of car for that money. Recently saw a nice one owner GTI on the golfmkv forum for about $6k.