Used Car of the Day: 2003 Volkswagen GTI 20th Anniversary
Our first used car of the day comes from Maryland -- a 20th Anniversary 2003 Volkswagen GTI 1.8T.
Offered for $3,200, this one has a manual transmission and 160,000 miles on the clock. It also needs a bit of love and care -- that's obvious from the photos, and the seller says so, as well. The car DOES have a salvage title.
However, a whole bunch of parts have less than 5,000 miles on them.
This could be a perfect project for a VW fan, especially if you're looking for a starter car on a budget.
Take a look, especially if you're in the mid-Atlantic area.
[Image: Seller]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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Why would he replace only the left bearing? Is the right magical? There’s too many telling things and no doubt most of those miles are a 1/4 mile at a time.
Scrap value. If he’s smart he already stepped up to 4.6 V8 Mustang, bone stock, some street/strip gears and drag radials.
I own a E90 BMW ... it is amazing how many ways the German car industry can find to make things complex. They are ingenious, I will give them that. And when stuff works, it works great. But when it goes wrong, it can be quite a puzzle.
Did I sleep through 6 months and it's actually April 1st... April Fools Day? Back to back clapped out high mileage VW products ready to bankrupt their next owner and leave them high and dry on every two-lane road they traverse. VW's are great... when they're under warranty. Out of warranty, avoid them like Dr. Fauci at a cocktail party.
Ugh - a MKIV VW. Heavy, slow and terrible interior durability to boot. The 1.8t in these things had awful lag, and was made worse by owners swapping K03 for K04 turbos.
No Thanks.