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ace, thank you. I really like the idea of a decent interior in a small car. Reading around on forums it gets slagged off pretty heavily though, apparently really expensive to fix?
The other option I guess is to get a Polo or something equally dull. But having done long trips in a Golf I'm not overly keen
kboy-
I think this is often down to lack of knowledge on the mechanics part. Dunno if they were ahead of their time, or maybe more, the car industry hasn't moved on much in the past 20 years? I mean, construction techniques and materials remain mostly unchanged, choice of components and operation again fairly unchanged, regular mcpherson struts on anything under 2000kg, 30mm spaced spot welds and heat sensitive epoxy bonded bodies, 0.6/0.8mm steel on everything etc.
Today confirmed there aren't many good mechanics out there, have one very inaccessible bolt on my engine that needs a spanner that has been bent in 3 distinct ways in order to even begin to fit. VW made a special tool for the job in the 90s, and was hoping one of these 'vw/vag' specialists would at least know of the problem, if not have the tool and be willing to earn some premium money to remove just one bolt using their magic vw spanner.
But no.
Rang about 15 of them, 13 of them didn't believe there is a vw engine thats fitted to a volvo and why don't I go speak to a volvo garage its not their problem, the rest sort of knew of the problem but didn't know how to tackle it.
IDeally need a commercial van mechanic who does vw t4 as they have this same inaccessibly problem but struggling to find one.
BrickMan
I really like the A2
For petrol get the 1.4, the 1.6 fsi is a pain unless you like taking the head off just to clean the gunk out of the inlet manifold.
The diesel is very good*, just watch for camshaft wear (manifests itself in high oil consumption, just ask the seller how often they put oil in it in a matter of fact way, will get you the answer your looking for bluntly).
*though if a small super economical diesel is what you want, you need the fiat group 1.3 16v JTDm, prob in a panda or an alfa mito (Corsa)