Trying to Keep It Alive..... Golf 25th Anniversary Edition

[cosmicsnot]

Hi all,

My brother has a 52 plate 25th anniversary golf Tdi, this has just clicked over 250,000 mile, Everything on the car is as it was supplied by VW in 2002 eg. turbo, gearbox, starter motor, exhaust etc. until 1 month ago anyway... the turbo decided to give up, not actually bad for the mileage !!! so replaced the turbo.... He is now being told that the cylinder head is cracked because of a small amount of smoke from the exhaust (which we thought could just be oil sitting in the exhaust from when the turbo went pop) a small loss of coolant and very bad starting from cold.... I spoke to a few specialists local to me and I'm getting different possibilities on the faults which until I have the car in my possession could be 1 of any of them... worst one is something about the injectors working loose and damaging the head which will result in a brand new head, cracked or not ...

Anyway, my brother has said I can have the car for free as I've always liked it and I've been after a run around so I can keep the miles down on my 911. My brother lives in London and I live in Newcastle so trying to get engine codes etc. is proving quite hard as my brother is not really mechanically minded.... I'm trying to explore options of "fixing" the original engine, which by the sounds of it is going to cost in excess of £2k to do "properly", but the car is just not worth that kind of investment, or, a second hand engine....

The car is in excellent condition for its age, and mileage !!!

I don't want to put more cash into the car than its actually worth.... Does anyone have any ideas on what I should do ???

1. Just strip and sell the parts and buy something else with the cash....
2. Spend the cash and hope I get the same kind of trouble free mileage as my brother has...
3. Take the risk on a second hand engine...
4. Second hand engine

Does anyone know where sells reliable engines, or other engines that fit in the car with the original running gear ???

Any help in this matter would be appreciated....

Thanks
Craig

[cosmicsnot]

Hi there,

The diesel engines in the anniversary cars are 170bhp standard... not sure if the engines are identical or not to the 150bhp,

On the hunt now for an engine but probs best to have it looked at by someone else first... got to be work an hours labour in case its just something simple..

Thanks
Craig

[cosmicsnot]

Hi mate, yes.... apparently these engines are 170bhp... to be honest I'm not a vw boffin so know very little, but the car was chipped and took it from an apparent 170bhp to 198bhp... i've just rang my brother as he's the one that told me is definitely 170bhp as is convinced this is true... will have to try get the engine number....

Thanks
Craig

[cosmicsnot]

Ahhh... ok, great... this just proves my brother is infact an idiot :-)

Thanks for clearing that up....

Thanks
Craig

[cosmicsnot]

Yeah, it would seem that way.... now I've put it to my brother he's not 100% sure...

This now makes it a bit easier to think about a replacement engine as an apparent descent engine is only around the £400 mark plus fitting...

Thanks guys

Craig

[cosmicsnot]

Hi all..... ok, so I'm ment to be getting the car this weekend, got to go pick it up and drive it back from London !!! Best take my AA membership Card :-)

Thanks for all the info guys, looks like the car will be saved as I now have a friend that will transplant the engine for me....

Think I might explore this PD130 option.... Thanks !!!

Will keep updated on the progress

Cheers
Craig

[cosmicsnot]

Ahhh, I see.... so my brothers not a total plank.... lets not tell him though.... :-)

Thanks
Craig

[cosmicsnot]

Hi there, ok, I drove the car back from London this afternoon.... From cold, my brother found the best way to start in it's current condition is to crank the car over for 5 seconds then stop, do this again and then on the 3rd time the car starts, which it did.... Just a little lumpy for a second or two... there was a small amount of white-ish smoke from the start.... there was quite a strong smell of diesel but not sure this had anything to do with it !!!

Anyway, when driving the car there is no sign of smoke whatsoever, but when you pull up at traffic lights there are small clouds of smoke start to appear and stay there till you pull away.... the car never missed a beat all the way back to Newcastle, for the first 50 or so mile I never went over 70mph but as I got further and further home I slowly got a bit faster and faster to which I ended up doing the last 100 miles sitting at 90mph.... when I was just around the corner from my home I did press the loud pedal in second gear and it lit up the front wheels in the dry...

The car will then start on the button every time you get back in as long as it's within 4 -5 hours, but after this time when the car cools too much you have the same trouble starting from cold...

There was a dye put in the expansion bottle to see if they could locate where the small loss of fluid was going but I don't know what the outcome of that was... but apparently there were signs of engine gasses or something to that effect detected in the water....

My guess is that it has a faulty injector and when on idle it's over fueling... but then again I'm normally wrong about everything...

So, if anyone knows where I should start or you've even had this happen to you, your input would be much appreciated......

Thanks
Craig

[cosmicsnot]

Don't think so.... that would only cover the bad starting ???? wouldn't explain the smoke when on idle.....

Thanks Craig