What car to replace my '87 4kq? (long)

[Marco Weibel]

Think of Golf/Jetta....but not the newer models....
94-97s are a no fuzz, easy maintainable, reliable value
I've had 3 used Golfs since 1999. All 4-door 1.8 manual dragon-green, no luxury but A/C...combined kms around 700k.
Total purchase cost less than $9000
My current Golf will turn 300k this spring, got it for $1500 ready-to-go with 160k about 4 years ago. Nothing but regular wear parts replaced and if you break a mirror or dent a fender the scrap yards most likely have a replacement for cheap.
The first was T-boned in Montreal loaded with 3 passengers. All doors opened. The laters fell/will fall victim to rotten floors. 
But then.... If i'd find a 4k quattro i'd be all over it ! Especially if i 'know' the car for 14 years and know what still needs to be done to be a daily driver.

Hope you find what you are looking for!

Cheers
 Marco






On 2014-02-23, at 11:20 PM, Andrew Buc <abuc at andrewbuc.com> wrote:

> I've had my 4kq for slightly over 14 years, and my fondness for it is undiminished, but owning it is becoming less practical. I'm dividing this post into 4 sections: the Reader's Digest version of my sitch, the War and Peace version, my criteria for the next car, and my thoughts on what the replacement car might be.
> 
> READER'S DIGEST VERSION:
> 
> In the last couple years, the car has become somewhat less reliable. The basic car is pretty sound, but I'm experiencing component failures. A car this age with 253K on it is probably entitled to some component failures; the question is whether I can live with it. Parts are also getting harder to find, and this is really the worst aspect of the situation. (My garage reports a similar situation with contemporary VWs.) Furthermore, my commute to work really can't be done by public transit.
> 
> BEGIN WAR AND PEACE VERSION
> 
> In the last couple of years, prior to the past 6 weeks, I've experienced the following:
> 
> (1) Stopped by police last summer, told I had no brake lights and couldn't drive the car, effective immediately, until they were fixed. Nothing to do but flat-bed the car to my garage.
> (2) Gas pedal linkage abruptly came adrift.
> (3) About a year ago: CV joint failed.
> (4) Radiator sprang a leak 2 years ago.
> 
> The leak was tolerable--I topped the cooling system up as required until I could get the radiator replaced. But the first 3 items made the car mechanically or legally undriveable. I've been lucky in that none of them happened at extremely inconvenient times and places. The gas pedal linkage let go on the way to work, a mile from home and ~3/4 mile from my garage, and I was able to limp to the garage on idle over back streets. There's no guarantee that I'll always be this lucky. When the CV joint failed, I was pulling into the parking lot at work. I'd been on the freeway 5 minutes earlier.
> 
> Of course, the gas pedal linkage was simple. On the CV-joint failure, the garage was able to turn the car around in 24 hours. On the brake light switch, it took 12 calendar days, mostly waiting for the (new, not wrecking yard) switch to arrive. I was able to get to work by a combination of public transit and carpooling with coworkers, but it made my total day (out the door in the a.m. to home in the p.m.) almost 2.5 hours longer and was generally onerous. Renting a car for that long would have been spendy.
> 
> The last 6 weeks have been a case of "when it rains, it pours." One morning on the way to work, the alternator failed. I got some early warning (dim instrument lights, red instead of green voltage LED on the console), and I came off the freeway. The car died on surface streets in very light traffic, close to home, and I was able to coast over to the curb. As luck would have it, the garage was able to source an alternator quickly, and I was good to go that afternoon. I recently noticed some uneven tire wear and took the car in for alignment. The alignment shop said, in effect, "Come back when you've replaced the worn suspension bits."
> 
> So I took the car in last week for the suspension work, after confirming that the garage had rounded up the parts in advance. Fortunately, my garage sometimes works on Saturdays and has a loaner car available. (Small garage, there's only one loaner.) They found that the rear pads and rotors also needed replaced. On the suspension, they were able to get new bushings for the front, but for the rear, they had to buy entire control arms. I asked the mechanic if it would have been possible to get the rear bushings by themselves 10 years ago, and he said probably.
> 
> When I picked up the car the evening of Wednesday 2/19/14, I thought the brake pedal was spongy. The mechanic said the brakes should bed in in a couple of days. I drove the car to work next day, thought the pedal was really spongy, and swung by the garage that afternoon. The mechanic looked under the car and spotted a leaking seal on the LR caliper. (I didn't really pursue the question of whether it was damaged during the previous brake work.) At this point, the loaner had been promised to another customer for next day. They ordered a new caliper Thursday morning, got it Friday afternoon, and had the car ready for me around noon Saturday. So I had to get a rental for 2 days. Anyway, they didn't charge me labor for the caliper replacement.
> 
> 3 or 4 weeks ago, both windows on the left side refused to open. The LF window started to work again a few days later, but I rolled it up and won't risk opening it again for now. My mechanic's  (reasonable) guess was it was probably a wiring problem rather than both switches going out at once, but when he had it in for the other work, he determined that both switches are bad. He's now trying to source replacements. I guess I'll find out if they're NLA. Chris Semple is great, if it comes to that, but IMO parts like that are best bought new. Again, the situation could have been worse. The windows could have stuck open rather than closed, and Seattle is famous for rainy winters.
> 
> I'm starting to wonder when the next shoe will drop. I'm planning a weekend trip to Portland, Oregon, 175 miles away, in a couple of months, and I plan to rent a car.
> 
> Concerning my commute, I started a new job 2 months ago. I can't assume that carpooling with a coworker in a pinch is even a possibility. My starting time is so early that even catching a bus to meet my carpool may not be workable.
> 
> Anyway, I've recently put ~$1500 into the car, and I'll be looking at another $200 for alignment and a rental while the car is being aligned. And that's not counting the window switches. I don't think in terms of "This repair is $X, and the resale value of the car is $Y." I do think in terms of, "If I do this repair, what kind of service will the car give me for the foreseeable future?"
> 
> END WAR AND PEACE VERSION
> 
> So, what would I replace the 4kq with? I know that one car may not check all the boxes, but here are the criteria:
> 
> AWD: Not as important as you might think. Here in Seattle we get snow some years, but not like Minnesota. I've been running Vredestein Quatrac 3 winter tires (mountain and snowflake on the sides) year round, and would do the same on the next car.
> 
> Size: The 4kq is about the right size, but I'm open to going a bit bigger or smaller.
> 
> Passive safety: Very important. I've never forgotten the time in '72 when my Saab 96 was t-boned in the passenger compartment by a Plymouth Duster and went greasy side up, and my passenger and I walked away without a scratch.
> 
> Total cost of ownership (parts, gas, service, the whole enchilada) should be reasonable. All other factors equal, a car that needs 2 hours of labor to change the timing belt is better than one that needs 4. I'll probably be retiring in the next 5 or 10 years, although I don't have a firm date set. Reliability is obviously important. Parts also need to be available quickly, not like that brake light switch, for some years to come. The car should have sold in reasonable numbers in the US so there will be plenty of parts in wrecking yards. I learned the latter lesson a few years ago with an '84 VW Quantum. (I didn't really want a Cosworth Vega anyway.) Maybe I should go for a bread and butter car rather than an upscale car. This may not be too bad--I gather bread and butter cars have improved greatly in the last 25 years. The 4kq's gas mileage is tolerable, but I wouldn't mind doing better with the next car.
> 
> Handling: Should be reasonably good. I suspect I have the lightest right foot on the list, but I like the 4kq's responsiveness and feeling of oneness with the road. At least I'd like a car that isn't a yawn, like the rental Corolla I had a while back. I liked my Peugeot 504, which was softer than the 4kq, but not in a sloppy land-yacht way. Audis have been criticized for their nose-heaviness, but given my driving style, that doesn't bother me.
> 
> I'm a bit wary of gadgets like satnav, keyless entry, etc.--they strike me as more things to go wrong. I'm also a bit wary of electronic instrument panels. I'm thinking of a "Car Talk" response a while back to someone who had a few-years-old Volvo with a dead clock: "You can't just replace the clock. You'd have to replace the whole instrument cluster, which is $1000. You're going to get an aftermarket digital clock and stick it to the dash." (What happens when an essential instrument, like the gas gauge, in an integrated cluster fails?) But on a newer car I may have to accept more electronics.
> 
> Cars I've considered, not necessarily in great detail:
> 
> Japanese cars in general: Reliable, but I question their passive safety. We had a case a few months ago where a drunk driver hit a Mazda Protege head-on at freeway speed, and there was a photo in the paper of what was left of the Protege, from the B-pillar to the rear bumper. Not pretty. Of course the Protege driver was killed. If any Japanese automaker has made strides in passive safety when I wasn't watching, I'm all ears.
> 
> Saturn SL/SW: The fuel economy, reliability, and passive safety appeal. On the down side, most of them are probably getting up in miles by now. A friend with an '04 Saturn LW says they've just discontinued OEM parts.
> 
> Volvo: Famous for passive safety. S40/V40/V50 is about the right size. The others are really bigger than I need. An upscale car, so I'd be concerned about running costs.
> 
> A newer VW Jetta: I'd consider one if the buzz is favorable.
> 
> B3/B4 transverse-engine Passat: See Jetta above.
> 
> Ford Contour or Focus: See Jetta. These were more or less designed by Ford Europe, so I'd be OK with the fact that they're American.
> 
> B5 or later Passat/A4: The V6 is more engine than I need, and I've heard about the sludge issues with the 1.8T. But no car is perfect, and I might consider one of these if it was a good compromise.
> 
> Also, I'd like whatever I get to have an autobox.
> 
> I'm going to throw out a tentative price point of $3000 to $3500. I'm sure I'll find out whether that's realistic! If I do trade the 4kq, we've had a good run.
> 
> Thanks for your collective wisdom, as always.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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