Which would you purchase?

[Devon Hynes]

My Altima finally died and since we have bought a Pathfinder as a second vehicle we no longer need as big of a main car. We are looking to buy a cheap car that would get us best mileage and be reliable for our 150km round trip commute. Went through the classifieds and came up with a short list of 2 cars. Going to view both tomorrow, but assuming they are both in decent shape I'm undecided between the two.

First one is a 1999 pontiac Firefly ($1200)

• 170000km (105 633mi)
• 1 liter manual
• MVI'ed 12 months ago
• Rust free
• Needs winter tires

Second one is a 1993 Volkswagen Golf Hatchback ($1500)

• 91000km (56 544mi)
• Diesel
• MVI'ed 3 months ago
• Some minor surface rust

In Nova Scotia cars need to through a motor vehicle inspection within 30days of purchase and every 2 years after. So either car I buy needs to be inspected after I buy it and could cause allot of unexpected costs. One would assume the more recent the inspection the less work that would be required.

I'm slightly leaning towards the firefly but she is leaning towards the golf. Firefly with 4 new tires would come in slightly less then the golf. It is a bit newer no rust and I would feel very comfortable working on it myself.

Golf would probably be more comfortable on the highway, and where it has just gone through a MVI 3 months ago there shouldn't be any surprises putting it on the road. As for working on it, my knowledge of diesel engines end at knowing there are no spark plugs. Also I know VW's from this era also had electrical issues, I don't know if this year was effected.

So looking for a bit of advise. Car is dead so need to sort this out tomorrow afternoon, hopefully I'll hear from a few of you by then.

Thanks in advance

Devon

[cfg83]

Devon -

I'd lean toward the Golf because of the lower miles and the Diesel and the long drive.

CarloSW2

[Mario_Marques]

Golf 100% for sure!
Really nice diesel engine, very solid engine, low fuel consumption, the golf also looks way better than the pontiac Firefly(in my country called suzuki swift).

[Ryland]

VW's have the highest cost of ownership, cv joints, suspension, wheel bearings, they all wear out quickly on the VW's, CV joints require special VW only tools and like you said, electrical problems starting back in the mid 80's and continuing onward
I've owned a number of VW's including two diesels and will never own one again, same with friends of mine who own them, they are nice to drive, they handle well and the TDI is nice but it ends at that unless you like spending your weekends fixing you car.
The draw back of the fire fly is that it is a cheap car so they can be a little rough but they are also simple, well designed and easy to fix, the worst thing that can happen to the metro/fire fly is the front suspension mounting points rust out, other then that it's pretty cheap to buy whole used engines and transmissions if things really go wrong.

[Ang84Indy]

I'd go with the Firefly, easier to work on.

[Mario_Marques]

Ryland you had a very bad experience with VW, I'ma mechanic/tuner and work almost exclusively vw group cars(vw, seat, audi, skoda), I do not usually repair/tune many golf mk3, only newer cars, but the few that appear with many km's do not usually make big hassle for the owners, just basic maintenance, oil and filters, even if they street race or trackday, but most of them are tdi, not sdi or petrol.

[star_deceiver]

I'm with Ryland - Run fast from the Golf!!! That engine may run forever but the rest of the car will be more of a headache then you'll ever know...

[cfg83]

Mario_Marques -

Originally Posted by Mario_Marques

Ryland you had a very bad experience with VW, I'ma mechanic/tuner and work almost exclusively vw group cars(vw, seat, audi, skoda), I do not usually repair/tune many golf mk3, only newer cars, but the few that appear with many km's do not usually make big hassle for the owners, just basic maintenance, oil and filters, even if they street race or trackday, but most of them are tdi, not sdi or petrol.

As others are saying, I forgot about the VW track record in the USA. My *theory* is that VWs are more reliable in Europe because they have better access to parts.

CarloSW2

[Ryland]

Just ask around at some local mechanic shops and see if you can find someone in your area that will work on VW's, the friends I have who still own VW's end up taking them to the dealership to get work done because no one else is willing to work on them and these are not people who have alot of money, that's part of why I have most of the special tools to replace the stuff that fails regularly, I help them out when I can but it's way more work then I like to get involved in.
If I could put the engine in another body, I would, then it would only be the 60,000 mile timing belt change and worrying about the ($1,200) injector pump failing because the belt tension was just a little to much.

[Devon Hynes]

So I ended up going with the VW, for a couple reasons. The VW was in the city close to work to go view and the Firefly was about an hour outside in the opposite direction from home, and I'm still driving the Altima which is burning coolant at an alarming rate and the wipers just died on it. When I got off work and the snow had already started it was just a bad idea to drive up there to view the car if there was nothing wrong with the VW.

Went and viewed the golf, it was in amazing shape. One small dent in the rear but next to zero rust and didn't look near 17 years old. The interior was 10x better then any other metro/swift/firefly that I've been in and since we were going to be spending so much time in it everyday that was almost as important as the mileage. After I took it for a quick drive I went out and checked the tires and seen they were brand new winters on steel rims and then the guy selling the car tell me the alloys that go with the car are in the garage with 4 new all seasons. The 2 near new sets of tires and and rims are worth $750 at least so the price was right and couldn't say no. So I put a deposit on it should be picking it up this Friday, I'll post some pics of it as well once its here.