Wife going back to work soon after maternity so I have to hand the car back, so i spotted this on pistonheads

GOLF

I always wanted one, do sod all miles a year so thought it would be a laugh…

only thing is it wont be garaged….

anybody got any experience?

cheers

I had a love/hate relationship with mine. I’d still get another…

The 16 valve big bumber is the one to get.

I had one pretty much exactly the same as that on an F plate and the small bumper model.

Black, 3 door, 16v, only modification was the Scorpion exhaust (which sounded fantastic but no OTT) like the example on the link.

I absolutely loved that car, but it had to go as I took it up to around 140k miles and the engine started needing some serious rebuiling work done to it and I couldn’t afford it at the time.

Mega fun to drive and suprisingly fast. Will get to 60 in second gear just.

Buy it.

Ooh I like that… Looks like a good one, though I’d be asking about service history and such. My next car is either gonna be a MKII GTi or a 205 GTi, probably the Peugeot for a bit of a change.

I had my 90spec 16v for 9years. Sold it last year and still miss it.

Preferred it to the E46 330ci Sport I drive now.

Looks good at that price/mileage/condition. I bet it isn’t for sale for too long.

You’ll have to get your hands dirty occaisionally, but they’re easy to work on and parts are cheap and readily available.

Do it!

I’m on my second Mk2 GTi and they’re brilliant little cars, but there’s an awful lot of overpriced tat out there. There’s a decent buyers’ guide at http://www.matey-matey.com which will give you some good pointers.

Good ones are ace, but they’re old cars now and a lot of them have been thrashed and ragged, so it all depends. Some stuff is easy to fix – the gear change gets sloppy over time, but the linkage often just needs an overhaul which is straightforward and inexpensive. Watch out for the synchromesh going between first and second – crunches – rust on the underside, particularly if some oaf has jacked on the sills and cracked the underseal, A-pillars and tailgate and around the arches. One fave rust spot is the small grommeted area where the windscreen wiper would locate on lefthand drive cars. Leaks from doors common, oh, and mind the heater matrix which can burst and spill coolant into the inside of the car. If the heater permanently blows cold, it might be that a bypass valve on the inlet to the matrix has failed…

But anyway, great, tough little cars, but buy on condition, look around and walk away if you’re dubious.

The fact it’s an 8v isn’t necessarily too bad either – they’re reputed to be slightly sturdier than the 16v, and easier to work on. Plus a bit torquier at the expense of all out power, I believe.

I’ve toyed with the idea myself and came to the conclusion that I needed reliability to get to nursery on time to pick up the kids 🙁

I’ve owned a Mk2 before and loved it. I have an Ibiza now. Handles as well as the golf IMHO, plus its faster and more reliable.

It’s a 16v in the link provided FMC.

Its getting hard to find complete standard version that old in good nic.

Sort of car that you could run for a year & still sell it for what you paid 😉

What a little beauty. Still miss our ’87 MkII 1.8 – a great little car.

I’ve got a MKII GTi coming up for grabs shortly (the old man’s got a couple of things left to do on it), should be ready in about a week or two, drop me an email if your interested? Also know of a J reg GL if anyone’s interested in that?

MkII’s are ok, but not as nice as mine 😉

MrNutt – details please…..

So it is. I’m having a silly Friday, give me a break 😉

If I had the cash and it wasn’t the wrong end of the country I’d definitely be going to have a look, put it that way!

I wouldn’t, not now…

… I don’t think* – just too old.

Mk 2 GTi / 205 / 309 etc are great examples of why modern cars are so dull.

The couple of Peugeots I had in the early / mid 90s were 115bhp and 130bhp respectively. Today that sort of power output would be regarded as mediocre, but both were huge, huge fun. The 130 horse 1.9 (309) was the most fun car I have ever owned, although the 1.6 was definately sweeter handling on twisty roads. Huge fun at 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 mph.

“GTi” equivalents today are up in the 200bhp range. The Mk5 Golf GTi we had a few years ago was an incredibly accomplished and quick car – but to get to the sort of fun that the older, lighter, less powerful hatches had at legal(ish) speeds required deeply illegal speed, and hence wasn’t really used as a GTi.

Shame really.
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* qualified by continued attempts to get currently unused 309GTi Goodwood from my dad…

… just like this

Down in Wiltshire, its a minter apparently, the old man bought it for me as I’d been banging on about wanting one but then I found a really tidy Morris 1000 which is tax free and costs £80.00 to insure 😀

can get you pic’s on Saturday, drop me an email (in profile) and I’ll send you them over 🙂

The fact it’s an 8v isn’t necessarily too bad either – they’re reputed to be slightly sturdier than the 16v, and easier to work on. Plus a bit torquier at the expense of all out power, I believe.

I think you are right there. However the car at the end of the link is a 16v.

that golf is just over the hill from here and looks lovely, anyone want to buy the GF’s gutless eco corsa so I can get it?

Had a few MkII, but never a GTi, had a Driver though with carb tweaked

Plus a bit torquier at the expense of all out power, I believe.

Common error. The 16v had more torque than the 8v, was quicker to 60 and quicker in every respect.

However, stroll across to http://www.clubgti.com and they’re probably still argueing about it over 20years later 🙂

Good times….Nurburgring Summer 2009:

Got me from Manc and back and round the ring a few times without any breakdowns!

I had a f plate non big-bumper covered many miles in that car was a lot of fun, depends what your used to as to whether you’d regret it but at the price it’s worth a punt, it’s half the price of an orange 5.

I had a Mk2 GTI (small bumper version bought new in 1988). It was fun, but was probably the “unluckiest” car I’ve ever owned – got broken into and stereo stolen, had an accident in it, clutch and water pump needed replacing shortly after warranty expired, and was eventually stolen and never recovered at about 4 years old! I replaced it with a Peugeot 205 1.9GTI which was also great fun but rattled like a can of mabs.

Those early Golfs still look great though. Always liked Golf GTIs after owning that Mk2 (3 of the 7 cars I’ve owned subsequently have been VAG cars), even though the owning experience wasn’t the greatest.

I loved my old MKII GTi. Still miss it lots too. Solid as anything, fast, quick, loud.

RIP old son…

Cheers all,

I’m going to take a look at it, it is a risk but I have a friend of a friend who is in the local VW club and I know a local back street garage guy who dabbles in retrotastic stuff, its just the reliability and having the cash ‘too hand’ to get it back on the road pronto if it goes pear shaped, but that’s half the fun i guess (in my perverse logic)

I know those engines can run to over 300k ‘if’ looked after religiously, even if i can get a year out of it trouble free.

my first car was an original mini, the last version with the slide back front windows.

Hmmmmmmmmm……

They are great (I had one for two years) BUT they don’t have much/any safety kit and are incredibly easy to break into.

I had a J reg 16v big bumper model which I put about 80k miles on. One of the best cars I’ve ever had. From that era, and that sort of money, absolutely nothing to touch it in terms of performance, fun, practicality and reliability.

I want it.

I had a Mk 2 16v – on a “J” plate, one of the last of the Mk2s imported. The handling, engine, steering and everything else was worthy of the hype but mine was hideously unreliable. Water pumps, fuel pumps, oil pumps, fans, coils and some extremely cack handed so called “Specialist” attention from a bloke in Marks Tey all conspired to ruin the experience for me.

Oh, and 40mpg on a good day.

Oh, and 40mpg on a good day.

I’d doubt that. Highest mine ever got was 32mpg…maybe 35mpg (indicated) when driving like my grandma. I wouldn’t trust what the MFA said.

Had a 8v MkII, with the Pirelli “P” alloys. Uprated and dropped the suspension 25mm and it handled beautifully.
40+mpg and didn’t use a drop of oil between services even with 200k on the clock.
Heater matrix had a leak so car would be like a sauna when it was first switched on, sunroof leaked in heavy rain, right into the drivers lap.
Bucket seats needed re-building eventually as well.
Rear caliper handbrake link seized up.
Headlights went out whilst driving along, but that was down to a previous owners attempt to fit an alarm.
Lovely car that one in Pistonheads looks nice.

I had my Mk2 16v for five years and have no reason to doubt the fuel economy figure – granted that was best case scenario, but it wasn’t unknown.

Even when thrashing it the fuel economy was never shocking.

I got my 16v down to 14 mpg!

I think it depends on what you term thrashing. I could certainly get very low mpg’s from mine when driven correctly.

The 16v comes alive from 4k rpm right to the redline…and should be driven as such 🙂

I’ve had 2, and I’d buy another tomorrow if I could have it as a weekend / sunny day / play car.

If I was single with no kids I’d get one for everyday use. But I’m not & I can only fit one toy car in the garage 🙁

I need a bigger garage and more disposable income

Buy it now.

Common error. The 16v had more torque than the 8v, was quicker to 60 and quicker in every respect.

However, stroll across to http://www.clubgti.com and they’re probably still argueing about it over 20years later

I always wonder if some of it is that while all that might be the case at wide open throttle, which is what happens on a dyno, the 8-valve might simply feel more responsive at part throttle openings, which is where most day to day driving takes place. I have, waiting quiety in a corner, a TSR tuned 8-valve engine, pretty much 16-valve top end but with what feels like more grunt, note the ‘feels like’.

Personally I’d buy either quite happily, but unless it’s been done already, you’ll probably spend extra sorting out suspension and bushings etc.

i owned both a 1.9 205 and a Golf 16v gti back in the day i sold the 205 and bought the Golf.I thought the Golf was better to drive on the motorway and still good fun on single roads. Every car i have owned has great memories until you go back into them. I always remembered the 205 as the best car i ever owned and wished i had never sold it but i made the mistake of thinking about buying one again last year.I went for a test drive it shattered all my memories it wasn`t really as good and not as fast as i remembered it to be.

I owned a MkII 16v in monza blue. It was the best hot hatch I’ve ever driven. I tried moving on with a 2 litre 16v cordoba, a couple of ibiza turbos and even an audi quattro but the golf was just so much fun, taking it to the redline in 2nd was just awesome. Weren’t many cars about that’d beat it – once even managed to get one up on a bloke in a lotus on way to silverstone! Probably just luck but beat him none the less. Sold it as it needed plenty doing but wish I’d kept it and rebuilt the whole thing. Engine interior etc. Great car. Iconic status, what is there now that has such classic potential?? BUY IT 😈

get one up on a bloke in a lotus on way to silverstone!

Depends what speeds you were going. Some Lotus (you don’t say what type) don’t have much after 100 where as the GTI has a bit more.

I’m sure you weren’t doing these sorts of speeds though 😉

It was an elise – old style so probably a 99 or there abouts. Rover engine…

I found my 16v was sluggish on 97RON petrol, so I swapped to LRP and was pleased with the result. Some have been remapped with proper electronic fuel injection too, otherwise getting fuel will be a headache.

I replaced my 16v with an Alfa 156 V6. Now that b*gger was thirsty when thrashed…