~air fooled~ wrote:welcome and good luck matey! tell us your dodgy story! what has happened!?
Hmm where does the story being... ahh yes, the day I bought it!
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I test drove it on the sunday, and it drove well, really good, one of the best I tested. On monday we made an offer, which he accepted for $12k - Got there, payed the man.. drove home. On the way home, I shoved on my L's (hadnt got my licence yet) and we found a secluded spot so I could practice driving a manual. After getting used to the unnusual format of putting it into reverse, I slowly crept backwards... only to here the worst sound ever! - cluck cluck creek, eek, crack... at first we thought I wasnt putting it into gear properly, but we soon realised, there was something wrong with the gearbox
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It made the most aweful noise (only in reverse) - im sure we tested it, so it looks like the bastard thrashed it after we looked at the car, and broke the reverse gear. Anyway, we took it to a garage around the corner (nice.. in for repairs the very first day!), the guy said he knew what the problem was, so we let him fix it. Anyway, he found a whole bunch of crap that needed to be replaced, and it ended up costing $2000 to fix the gearbox, and put in a new clutch plate. After we got it back, reverse was fixed..... 5th was broken. It jumped out of 5th gear randomly (and anoyingly) - so back to the bloke, who opened the gearbox again, which took another week (ended up being 3 weeks until I drove my car) - when we got it back, everything was in order. Except the bodywork. Around the car, hundreds of small kinks and scraches, the front and rear bumper has two big scars on it... and we couldnt exactly remember if the body had this much damage, (we'd only seen the car for 2 days max) - we argued with the mechanic who denied it all, nothing much we could do really.
A few weeks after, we decided a shock change was in order, so we took it down to a place called 'dr shocks'. Got the front shocks replaced, and it ended up costing $270, not a bad price. Afterwards - the car was unsafe to drive, the steering wheel locked around corners, and wouldnt unwind! - every bump in the road would rip the wheel out of your hands and jolt the car in a random direction. Utterly dissatisfied, we took it back had an arguement with the guy, but he eventually decided to have another look. He fixed it up a little, (still not perfect) and that was that. Until I started noticing tire wear. We knew this guy wasnt going to help us, so I took it into beau repairs, had the allignment done.
10000KM later, I have the worst tire wear you have ever seen. *sigh*
Hmm what else... oh yes, I needed a timing belt replacement (100000km) - and took it to a BMW/Landrover specialist my friend recommended, top bloke, but car the car back and it leaked oil everywhere, so I had to take it back... again.
Around september last year, I was driving and the coolant light came on. Stopped on the side of the road, it was EMPTY! not a drop left. Got home and filled it up, a week later, it was empty again.. uh oh. After about 50 attempts to put the water block thing onto the engine block, we discovered that this small plastic component had a tiny hairline crack in it, so we replaced that. $120 from VW
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About two months ago, the brakes starting making bad noises... time for new pads up the front. Decided that for once, i'd take it to a VW dealer, and get the job done PROPERLY. I spoke to a guy there, and he estimated around $300 for new pads and machining of the disks, but they'd need to check to confirm. I had to give them the VIN number over the phone, which I tried about 60 times, but they couldnt find it on their computers (how many different brake pads for a 1997 golf do you know of?) - I had to physically take the car down and have it checked - so they could get a part number, and I demanded that they inform me of the price before doing ANY work. Anyway, went down there, and they booked me in for a service... I informed them it was just to check out the brakes. Got a phone call a few hours later, they wanted to charge me $550 for new pads and completely new discs. I told them where to stick it
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Went back to the dealer, and they wanted to charge me $150 for a quote, and it was detailed that all 4 tires came off the car. Funny getting a quote for front brakes, and they had to take off the rear (drum brake) wheels.
I argued for a few minutes with the bloke, and he let me take the car away for free... Cant even get a decent service from a VW dealer, I have been tempted to throw in the towel on my VW many times, but then what kind of fan does that make me? Im still here!
so those are my (bad) experiences. I did end up finding a good subaru mechanic to change my pads, for a good price. Hes a good bloke.