[s-cars] Kid's cars

[Tom Mullane]

Folks,
 When I worked for VW in the mid to late 80's, we would get "restored"
Beetles in for service from time to time. About 90% of the time they were
cars that someone had just bought for their teenage son/daughter because
they remembered how great their hippy youth had been and what great car the
Beetle was. Of course, the Beetle *was* a great car, but like their hippy
days, its time had passed. Generally, these cars were, for the most part,
junk. Most looked as if they had been pulled out of a swamp somewhere,
loaded up with Bondo, and shipped to Earl Schibe. Candy coated turds for
lack of a better term. I, the tech, was supposed to restore working heat,
exorcise the shimmy, and make these car run like new for a new hundred bucks
(they're *so* cheap to maintain!). Bad, bad memories.
 But the New Beetle is worse. At least the old Beetle actually had a "time";
the New Beetle never had a time. In the old Beetle, form followed function.
The New Beetle is far less functional than the car from which is based - the
Golf. Yes, the New Beetle is cute. But the Golf/Jetta is far more
functional, easier to maintain, has better visibility, and is better car
overall. It's funny how things come full circle: My friends still at VW
detest working on the New Beetle almost as much I hated working on the old
Beetles. Don't buy your kid a Beetle.
 That said (I feel much better now, thanks), both of my 70+ parents are
driving Golf/Jettas. Their needs are roughly the same as a seventeen year
old, I figure. They make mostly short trips around town punctuated by an
occasional long trip, they are on a fixed income and need cars that are
cheap to maintain and operate, and their driving skill are "off peak" so
they need every advantage the car can provide. Most importantly, the cars
are safe enough to protect them without being some unnecessarily over sized
behemoth that might save their lives at the expensive of someone else's.
  Tom
    Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:33:37 -0400
From: Taka Mizutani <t44tqtro at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [s-cars] Kid's cars
To: "lebakken1 at netzero.net" <lebakken1 at netzero.net>
Cc: s-car-list at audifans.com
Message-ID:
<79698a910510121733of493b39y90feac23de709d25 at mail.gmail.com>
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Craig-
If you do decide to go with a New Beetle, try to get 2001 or newer- the
early cars- '98 and '99 seem to be very problem-prone. Then again, around
2000 or 2001 was when VW installed a bunch of piston rings upside down in
the 2.0 engines and thus had engines that consume a TON of oil- like 1-2
quarts every 1000 miles or more. I got VW to replace the engine in our
Beetle at about 37k when it consumed about 2 quarts every 1000 miles.
Fortunately (or not), I was driving about 1000 miles per week during that
time, so it only took a week to prove to VW that the car was consuming oil.

Also, I strongly recommend getting an extended warranty- we got one for 7
yrs., 100k miles at about 51k miles, it has already paid off in a big way:

1. airbag harness for driver's seat chafed- airbag light- repair procedure
required wiring harness replacement, north of $2000 in just parts- mechanic
fixed by repairing harness, all covered under warranty, would have been
thousands potentially.

2. fuel tank sender failed and CV boot cracked recently, saved just under
$500 for those repairs.

We still have coverage for a while- the biggest mistake was not getting the
warranty while the car was still under factory warranty- then the emissions
system coverage would have been included, that would have saved another $600
in repairs to the MAF and O2 sensor.

The Jetta is a better car than the Beetle- the interior materials are much
better in the Jetta- so much so that our Beetle has a 3-spoke GTI steering
wheel and GTI seats in it now. Additional sound deadening and some trim
upgrades will make it much better as well- too bad RSI parts are
unobtainium- I'd love to have some billet aluminum OEM trim parts.

Taka