Circa 2002, 80kmiles estate.

Should I?

Get a vRS you fanny!

Do you buy a car with a full tank of fuel and change it when the red light comes on?

Just go for it. You'll be changing it in 6 months anyway.

🙄 I had my Forester for 2yrs. I'd still have it now if it didnt like eating through parts.

I like the VRS- Imagine a remapped 4×4 Octy 😀

Hora – if it's in good nick then yes. They are very sought after and lose very little money. Is it an estate?

Engine can be tuned to death but bear in mind that it's not a full on performance chassis – it wallows a bit.

Definitely an estate. Seen a turquoise one (the colour doesn't bother me).

Hora, if you decide not to proceed, could you let us know where you saw it and how much it's up for?

Ta.

Oh, and if you do buy it, let me know how much you want for the Avensis!
e-mail in profile.

Be wary of that engine. IIRC that is a VAG one and in 2002 there were issues with the ignition coils. They fail very regularly, although it is covered under warranty until 100,000 miles or 10 years.

Check out http://www.honestjohn.com for very useful "what to look out for" stuff.

Still miss mine every now and again, cost a bit to run though. Chipped to 215bhp and 240ftlb with KW coilovers.

Rusty Spanner its a very nice car (11 toyota main dealer stamps)- last serviced 2 weeks ago by a main dealer and it went through its MOT also 2 weeks ago with no advisories. All 5 tyres are Bridgestone Sports so it says something about how badly the first owner was fleeced by Toyota.

I have had a Vrs Estate from new its a 2004 with nearly 110K on the clock now and its only just starting to feel a little tired and I have abused it. Its carried bikes and towed my track car all over europe.

Not the most exciting drive out there, but does exactly what it says on the tin.

Bazzer

Looks good on the RS4 style alloys – although doesn't that slightly spoil it's "softroader" abilities?!

If it's the one on Autotrader then it looks rather nice…and seems a good price as well…

Looks good on the RS4 style alloys – although doesn't that slightly spoil it's "softroader" abilities?!

Aye, but it makes it handle somewhat better, useful when running a bit more power than std! Ride quality improved also strangely enough.

Dave – did you lower it too? Alloys seem to fit well under the arches.

Be wary of that engine. IIRC that is a VAG one and in 2002 there were issues with the ignition coils. They fail very regularly, although it is covered under warranty until 100,000 miles or 10 years.

I'd be amazed if there are any 1.8Ts still with dodgy ignition coils. They're a damned good engine – plenty of people run them up to 300 brake.
I'd say it's rather less of a problem than say, DMFs on modern diesels or the BSI system on PSA group cars.

I had an ignition coil fail last year on my 1.8 20VT engine, hopefully the last one to fail, had all four go since 2002. Now keep a spare in the car just in case.

Despite the dodgy batch of initial ignition coils it is a great engine! Turbo comes in nice and low and keeps on going 🙂

tron – the reason I say this is because until relatively recently I had a 2002 1.8T VAG engine and had no end of coils go 😥 It is still a common issue – not that the dealers will admit that mind 🙄

The dealer replaced all coils and even the new ones started to fail – they said that it was a "feature" that occured on the 1.8T's built during late 2001 and late 2002 😕

Dave – did you lower it too? Alloys seem to fit well under the arches.

Yep, with some of these:

You really need new links for the rear though, as std you can't adjust camber and without it the rear tyres were only good for 6k!

Ah yes – camber. My car has so much on the back wheels that from some angles it looks like the suspension has collapsed! All quite "normal" as is the M Sports suspension which is firm but fine on 17s with non RFTs.

Inflate the tyres wrongly though and you also get about 6k from the rear tyres (but RWD).

Have a look at http://briskoda.net/ – forum for all things Skoda, mate of mine had a chipped nutter Octy for a while and was a regular contributor over there, it's a good resource.

Ta for the link Cougar/will do.