Newbie looking to buy- advice

[macspring]

Thanks

Glad I joined the forum

I will also be looking at two others so hopefully one of them is a go'er.

Cheers

Post photos of the three cars and any spec / condition details and we can, well I can pontificate some more about each one some more, the others contributing to the thread can advise you on what to do.

Don't post where the cars are in the event that some 'lurker' nips in front of you and buys it.

[anthonys2]

I have attached a few photos of my black S2 Coupe mine is a decent example just to give you some comparisons

These cars are getting rarer and rarer as not many of the good examples people want to let go but the mileage on the one you are looking at is very low interior looks nice but the spec levels seem low as mentioned earlier.

Good look in your search

[Rich]

Looks beaut mate

Can't wait going to be a busy weekend viewing 3 cars.

One Friday
One Saturday and
One Sunday

I'll keep you all posted if I become an owner .

😀

[Vorsprung durch Technik]

Are you seeing the red one with the cream interior at £14,500?

[Rich]

No chance too much money for me! Plus personally the worst colour combination to have but that's just my opinion

Looking at 2 black ones and a white

[Vorsprung durch Technik]

Totally agree with you about the price,then the lower door rubbers need replacing as they are rotting out and the bumpers need reinstating back to black lowers but otherwise i really like the colour combo. Somebody mentioned referring to values it's not like the old days where there would be several on Autotrader.Well i can see at least four right now. Nice choice to have.

[jubjub]

Somebody mentioned referring to values it's not like the old days where there would be several on Autotrader.Well i can see at least four right now. Nice choice to have.

I'm clearly a ****. Or my Autotrader is shagged....

[jubjub]

As the forum of late I see has many cases of oneupmanship, I'm glad I only paid £3k for mine last year. Maybe not so much what, as who you know.

Hope OPs viewings are successful.

[Audi J]

don't see any on Autotrader at the moment either, seen a few pop up on ebay recently.

Maybe he was talking generally.

[Vorsprung durch Technik]

don't see any on Autotrader at the moment either, seen a few pop up on ebay recently.

Maybe he was talking generally.

Spot on,i was talking generally. It was all about Autotrader and piston heads but now there are so many other options to sell cars and people choose the cheapest option.

[biertje]

Might as well add my name to this list On the look out at the moment - although it's very early stages. Still don't know whether to go Coupe or Avant. What are the best sites to look on?
Problem is I need to get an everyday car replacement too and I already own a trabant which my lady friend isn't happy with so this may take some convincing.
How handy with cars do you have to be to own one? I can do very basic stuff, but after that it's over to a garage. Alas I only have the street to work on

[VagOrBust]

Might as well add my name to this list On the look out at the moment - although it's very early stages. Still don't know whether to go Coupe or Avant. What are the best sites to look on?
Problem is I need to get an everyday car replacement too and I already own a trabant which my lady friend isn't happy with so this may take some convincing.
How handy with cars do you have to be to own one? I can do very basic stuff, but after that it's over to a garage. Alas I only have the street to work on

From your name I'd take it you are either Dutch or Belgian. I'll be honest: If you don't have garage then you'd better have deep pockets. These are 20+ year old performance cars and while they can run flawlessly, they sometimes don't. I've driven an UrS6 for a daily for 2 years and to give you an idea:
Purchase: 6500 euro.
First preemptive big maintainance: 1750 euro. Cam belt, all fluids, etc.
Weekly petrol cost: 100 euro.
Small maintenance: Yearly 1000 euro minimum.
Taxes: 1000 euro / year
Insurance: 300 - 600 euro year
And so on. And I do a part of the maintenance work myself.
And now it sits at home doing nothing because it decided to run 1 liter of oil every 1000 km.

That said: It never left me standing and I enjoyed every km of driving the car.

[macspring]

Accurately and realistically said.

You need to be able to fix them yourself, apart from the really big things - Gearbox rebuild.

You need to know this advice in advance, rather than after the 'event'.

This is said now to help you rather than annoy you.

[biertje]

No just lived in NL for a year, back in the UK now. The name is shamelessly stolen from the Heineken advert
I understand that car is a lot higher in NL and I would only drive it about 6000km a year so hopefully petrol will be a bit less, but still that is a large amount of money to fork out. Haha no of course it's always good to get this information on board before you go and spend £8k on a car
so what are the "little" things that you are talking about fixing?

"And now it sits at home doing nothing because it decided to run 1 liter of oil every 1000 km." - My Seat is doing the exact same thing - normal consumption according to them haha

[Cottis]

I am no mechanic and have no real wish to be and I ran one of these cars without working on it (I did once fit a throttle cam, bored me to death) I preferred to drive it but each to their own.

Anyhow, you do not have to twirl spanners at all. I got round this by working, earning money and paying a professional mechanic to do the work. It was no more costly than running a normal car. It needs oil, it needs new filters, stuff goes wrong and needs putting right but just more than normal as it is an older car. It is all about money as with most things in life. If you can afford to pay someone (like the vast overwhelming majority of car owners in the world do) then it will be fine. Just bear in mind that overall, more will go wrong with a higher performance, older car and more regularly but that said, I found it to be a very very reliable car given how hard I drove it and the performance it provided. Mine was a good, well cared for example though. That probably helps.

Clutch and Reconned Gearbox cost me £850. I thought this was pretty good but ovvo subjective when it comes to money
Cambelt - £350
Servicing costs similar to normal car but add on a bit more for top spec oil

For me, the advice I would give is consider if you want it to be a daily driver or a second car. I ran mine as a second car. Few reasons. Fuel consumption is rubbish the way I drive (Mid Teens, low 20's if you take it steady) I would also lose my licence if I drove a car like this everyday. I would just be overtaking everything but I have a heavy right foot. Also, I would not want to rely on it as a daily due to the slightly increased chance of something going wrong with an older car. When it does go wrong, the parts are harder to source. Would it be off the road longer than a more modern or common car? Yes, probably. Is this acceptable for a daily? Dunno, depends if you have other options. For me, I rely on the daily so it has to work. My daily is a lazy diesel that has nice amounts of torque, I can hammer it everywhere and still get 40mpg and it works all the time.

Buy the best you can possibly afford but make sure you have buffer to spend on possible issues. I would say at least £3k buffer pot. You just do not know what will go wrong. Turbo blows up and engine ingests some nasty stuff = Expenditure. Buy a car with rotten subframes and you are gonna get dirty or pay someone an arm and leg to put it right. Plenty to try your bank balance and we are not even started on electrical gremlins which could afflict even the best looking car.

Things I would not want on an S2 if I got another would be no sunroof, no aftermarket alarm.

Things I would want as an absolute must would be newish brake upgrade and subframe/suspension refresh.

Bonus would be recent clutch, gearbox recon, possible engine work but why?