High mileage golf gti, am I mad?
Discussion
At 9 years old, it will have averaged 15-16k per year of its life so far - which isn't a lot for some people. You may find that another owner has run it for much larger miles for a shorter period.
In my experience, a car like this will have the mechanical wear of a lower mileage car. That said, you'd expect it to be peppered with stone chips at the front; for the interior to be showing signs of wear; and at 9 years you'd expect niggles and odd jobs on any car (bushings, pipes, minor electricals etc).
I'm guessing it's cheaper than other models of the same age? If it is and you can find nothing wrong with it and aim to keep it a long time, then it may stack up. If it's in no better condition than any other car and you expect to sell again soon, I'd pass.
I'd also be very wary of warranties: you can barely claim for anything on most.
In my experience, a car like this will have the mechanical wear of a lower mileage car. That said, you'd expect it to be peppered with stone chips at the front; for the interior to be showing signs of wear; and at 9 years you'd expect niggles and odd jobs on any car (bushings, pipes, minor electricals etc).
I'm guessing it's cheaper than other models of the same age? If it is and you can find nothing wrong with it and aim to keep it a long time, then it may stack up. If it's in no better condition than any other car and you expect to sell again soon, I'd pass.
I'd also be very wary of warranties: you can barely claim for anything on most.
Not mad, so long as the price is right and you understand that cars of that mileage may well suffer expensive failures (though may not).
We recently sold our 2005 MkV GTI, which had nigh on 140,000 miles on the clock (owned it from new). It was still running very well and everything still felt sharp. Inevitably though, it had started to suffer minor issues, CV boot needed replacing, exhaust problems etc. Any car of that mileage can hit you with a big bill (turbos being a likely candidate), so you need to go into it with your eyes open. If you are mechanically savvy then that helps, as it reduces the cost of getting things fixed.
One issue to watch is the headlamp covers, which VW stupidly decided to make out of a plastic that goes misty over time and at some point will become an MOT fail (ours just passed the MOT prior to selling it).
We recently sold our 2005 MkV GTI, which had nigh on 140,000 miles on the clock (owned it from new). It was still running very well and everything still felt sharp. Inevitably though, it had started to suffer minor issues, CV boot needed replacing, exhaust problems etc. Any car of that mileage can hit you with a big bill (turbos being a likely candidate), so you need to go into it with your eyes open. If you are mechanically savvy then that helps, as it reduces the cost of getting things fixed.
One issue to watch is the headlamp covers, which VW stupidly decided to make out of a plastic that goes misty over time and at some point will become an MOT fail (ours just passed the MOT prior to selling it).
willmagrath said:
Thinking of going to see a 140k mileage 2005 mk5 gti next week, it has a fvwsh and comes with a long warranty but is there anything I should look out for on these? And how much of a bad is it for me to buy it? 
thanks
thanks- Common problems, will happen at any mileage/age http://www.golfmkv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249...
- Budget for suspension refresh
- 2005 year should have good compressor but check anyway!
- Check service intervals and MOT mileage i.e. regular oil is good for turbo life
- Current tyres will tell you lots about previous owners attitude to maintenance
- Buy on condition
y2blade said:
Is 140k seen as "high mileage" ????
Not compared with the several GTIs with over 200k that I have either owned/driven or know of via friends & family.is 14k a year deemed high mileage these days, no, so over a ten year period should that be something to worry about , no.
When will people start realising that cars from the last couple of decades can easily manage to go to the moon and back if they are properly maintained.
OP- Buy on condition not mileage ;-)
aka_kerrly said:
When will people start realising that cars from the last couple of decades can easily manage to go to the moon and back if they are properly maintained.
OP- Buy on condition not mileage ;-)
You might, but most people don't... so you need to think how long you're keeping the car and how easy the car will be to shift when you want to sell, or it would need to be suitably cheap that it doesn't matter!OP- Buy on condition not mileage ;-)
Hub said:
You might, but most people don't... so you need to think how long you're keeping the car and how easy the car will be to shift when you want to sell, or it would need to be suitably cheap that it doesn't matter!
Ok, if you are only keeping a car short term why care about the mileage in the slightest? If you are keeping it long term wouldn't you rather a marginally higher mileage car that has had components like the clutch/flywheel, suspension bushes, brakes and other non service items replaced or would you rather own the lower mileage car with no evidence of consumables/service items replaced and budget to replace those items in the future?
I don't like spending lots of money on cars just to sell them so that someone else gets the benefit of my hard work hence I opt for well cared for higher mileage cars rather then obsess about having a low mileage car.
Will be perfectly fine! Mines done 98400 as of this evening and is still feeling strong. They seem to wear quite well. Mines spent a lot of its life doing a long motorway commute which I don't think is very taxing on the car. The Leon I had before was on 57k miles but mostly around town so it felt and looked a lot more worn.
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