New Guy Needing Advice

I live in Southwest, Iowa. I drive 500-700 miles on an average week. I go through approximately 2-3 tanks a week in my 2014 Focus Titanium. I have my focus financed and the mileage is killing the value immensely every month. I've been seriously considering selling my focus and buying a ALH Jetta. I've read that the non PD ALH is the better version to get and a 5 speed. I'm a member of several TDI Facebook groups who for the most part are down the middle on rather or not to sell my focus and buy a Jetta. So I thought I would join a forum which generally has a lot more serious and knowledgable people then Facebook. So here I am. The benefits would be cheaper insurance and no car payment would be nice. Also a jetta at this point has depreciated about as much as it's going to depreciate. The cons would be cost of ownership would probably be quite a bit higher then the focus. What do people here think about my idea? Any advice is appreciated!!

welcome! probably should do some math and get more specific about the two options. My gut feeling was that you are better off to keep the reliable (assuming it is) car. Depreciation doesn't matter at all if you keep the car til 'the wheels fall off'.

The TDI ALH can be pretty good at putting on miles for little cost but there is no guarantee and it is a better car for mechanics to own.

The concern really is just that almost anything you find will have high miles. Expect rust, and all sorts of random things like starters, alternators, fans, suspension parts to all be on their way out. Its also pretty standard to put a new timing belt on whenever you buy one if you aren't completely confident when the previous owner replaced it last.

This bit might be controversial but when people ask me about any VW, I consider what they want out of their driving experience. If you want completely hassle free driving, possibly look elsewhere. But if you appreciate the TDI, dont mind random quirks, and are handy with a wrench go for it. Financially, if you are paying a shop for these kind of repairs it can get real expensive real quick.

PS. The PD's are just as good in my mind. Don't blindly discount them.

I've found the PD's to have more power but get sh!ttier fuel mileage compared to both of my current alh's. They are easier to time when doing a belt, but tend to wear camshafts out quickly in comparison. I currently have 400000 km on my original camshaft in my 01. Once you get a colt cam put into a PD, it's a non issue though.

Good luck finding one that isn't miled out or full of rust. That's the other issue.

The fuel savings are fabulous in these things though. There's hardly a car out there that gets this good of mileage and still maintains this level of power. I've owned over 18 vehicles in my driving career and these are by far my most favorite vehicle.

I'm not afraid of working on a car one bit. I enjoy working on cars. I have a spare car and truck that I own so I'm not particularly worried about down time. Although I'm not comfortable timing one myself so that would probably have to go to the shop. Speaking of which I would also like to know if anybody knows of any good shops in the Omaha, Nebraska or des moines area. The most advanced work I've done was changing out a turbo, pedestal, and up pipes on a 7.3 psd. My brother is also a diesel mechanic in training so I imagine the two of us can do about anything. I work at an oil company that let's employees buy oil at a fairly large discount so that would save a good bit of money. I'm not sure if we make vw spec oil though. I'm willing to spend up to 5 grand and put up to a grand or two into it immediately if I have too. Can a good car be found for 5 grand? I'd like a southern car. I imagine I'd just fly down and drove it back.

if you can wrench a bit then its an ok approach if you have a back up vehicle, these vehicles are no less than 13 years old now and will require maintenance. Timing belt and clutch are expensive jobs, so keep that in mind if you buy to get the history. 5 grand you should be able to find a really nice shaped one, they are not worth that much anymore but it depends on your market area.

Try to get an 03 jetta 5 speed, its an ALH and has a few updates us vw/tdi guys enjoy. Theres a few things that cronic break in the early 2000/2001 such as glovebox, arm rest and window regulators among other items, 2003 also has the updated center console and a few other minor updates.

Is a 2003 a pd or non pd?

cj_ryan said:

Is a 2003 a pd or non pd?

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It's non pd. The engine in a 2003 is the ALH.

98(NB), 99 (A4), 2000-2003 are VE in North America. I'd recommend 2002 or 2003 5 speed manual.
Only cause you say you like to work on cars. Expect to spend some large sums for repairs, an injection pump is about $800, turbocharger about the same.
But if you can keep it on the road, it should go 300k to 500k miles before needing an engine internals refresh.

About 9 years ago I bought an 03 5 speed Jetta ALH. It only had 80K miles on it. It took 3 years or so to find and iron out the deferred maintenance and get it to where I would consider to be reliable. Any ALH you can find now will likely be the same, or worse. The fuel cost savings won't offset other costs compared to a relatively new Ford Focus, in my opinion. If you just have to have a vehicle that gets 45-50 mpg, then go for it. The numbers won't pencil out though, at least for years and years.
They are kind of addicting though, once you spend any amount of time here and wrenching on the car.

seems a little crazy to think it took 3 years to iron out all the deferred maintenance, when it only had 80k. The cold reality of these cars is we expect a lot of them just because the engines can last, but the body is still weak, there is weak aspects of them in general (like the stupid wiper motor linkages that seize up), but lot of info on the web about them and fixing them if you have good enough hands.

I have had my jetta for 7 years, bought it at 267,000 kms and it now has 570,500 kms. I have never replaced the turbo, alternator or had the engine apart.

my own experience is that buying a car for fuel mileage is not a deal that will save you money.

if you are getting 35 highway in your focus you are looking at over 10 years easy to recoup fuel costs if you find a perfect TDI at the right price, and that no assuming no maintenance is needed and you are not upside down on your car.

national average 2.19 regular, 2.35 diesel

over 10 years with the focus at 35 highway and the TDI at 47 the cost is Focus $19,344
TDI $15,600 a 10 years savings of 3744. I split your mileage and used 600 which comes to 31,200 a year.


https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/savemoney.shtml

I was amazed too how much I found that it needed, and I didn't spend all my time working on it. Lot of learning and troubleshooting ahead of replacing parts. There was a persistent limp mode issue that even the gurus couldn't find. To be honest it had a salvage title when I bought it. It now has 230K miles and I just put on new tires and replaced the upholstery on the door cards, just to keep it nice looking. It's worth it, but I never had completely dead struts on a car with 80K before that either.

steve6 said:

seems a little crazy to think it took 3 years to iron out all the deferred maintenance, when it only had 80k. The cold reality of these cars is we expect a lot of them just because the engines can last, but the body is still weak, there is weak aspects of them in general (like the stupid wiper motor linkages that seize up), but lot of info on the web about them and fixing them if you have good enough hands.

I have had my jetta for 7 years, bought it at 267,000 kms and it now has 570,500 kms. I have never replaced the turbo, alternator or had the engine apart.

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A large portion of the reason why I want to sell my Focus is that I owe 13,000 on it at the moment. I pay approximately 320 a month on the payment. (11% interest. :/ ) Along with 740ish every 6 months on insurance. I also have high interest student loan debt that I'm going to have to start paying on in a few months. So I won't be able to afford these both. As i barely can afford the car payment. (Work in our DC is pretty slow through the winter months.) So regardless I'm going to have to get rid of my Focus or the bank will come get it. So i figured a jetta would be good. As I would own it.

Check with your insurance to see if it will actually be lower. I recently was checking and found with Liberty Mutual they charge exactly the same rate for every car I was interested in varying from an 19k Jeep to a 30k Subaru.

cj_ryan said:

The most advanced work I've done was changing out a turbo, pedestal, and up pipes on a 7.3 psd.

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If you're already familiar with a PSD, then a TDI will just be a (much) smaller version.

Having bought a high-mileage Jetta for the purpose of lower insurance, higher mileage, I ca attest. The car is very comfortable, except for the diesel noise. I have an Avalanche, which is very quiet but gets 1/3 the mileage.

Having bought a Texas car, and living in Sothern California, I have no rust issues. In fact, I park a few spots away from a guy who has a '71 Beetle, with the original paint. I do have ongoing maintenance. I figure I've spent about $120 / month for the car over the past four years.

Here's what I've seen from somewhere as to what can go wrong with a MK4 (mark four, or '99-2004 model year) or a MK5 vehicle. I've replaced the ones with an asterisk.

COMMON ISSUES

**injection pumps (clicking)
VNT actuators and sticking VNTs
smashed underbellies
control arm bushings
parking brake cables
fan controllers
radiator fans
compressor clutches
accessory belt idlers and tensioners
vacuum tube to brake boosters
boosters (2002 only for some reason)
oil pump chain (300k+ miles)
long crank time (1998 and 1999 only)
alternator clutch pulleys
dual-mass-flywheel (manual trans)
**clogged sunroof drains
wheel bearings (front and rear)
siezed tie rod adjusters
glow plug harness
relay 109 (main engine ECU relay)
condensers (leaks, NB only)
EGR valves
**mirror heater elements
reverse lamp switch
connector/wires (manual trans only)
brake light switches
leaky vacuum pumps (oil leaks)
coolant temp sensors
side airbag connectors under seats
clocksprings for driver's airbag
fuel temp sensors
**power window regulators
saggy front springs
**door latches

Here is probably the first thing to look at: How much can you get for the Focus? If it is what you owe, you are just throwing away a perfectly good car, to spend $5,000 on a different car that will probably need some more money in parts.
I would see about refinancing the car at a lower rate to save you some money. Look into joining a credit union, they usually have good rates.
You might be able to raise your deductible, to save some money on your insurance. You will need to check what limits your financing company requires.

cj_ryan said:

I live in Southwest, Iowa. I drive 500-700 miles on an average week. I go through approximately 2-3 tanks a week in my 2014 Focus Titanium. I have my focus financed and the mileage is killing the value immensely every month.

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I've been through this myself. I had a gasser Golf that I was piling the miles on, and I could see the car's value evaporating very quickly. Add to that it was hard on gas...well, compared to a TDI at least. Now a single tank of diesel in my Golf gets me 750+ miles, and I just love driving it.

However, I've poured thousands of dollars into the car, and hundreds of hours of my own time. I don't mean a couple evenings here and there, I mean whole weekends, for months on end...lol. I kinda cringe a little bit when I see somebody wanting to buy an old VW TDI to save money....but to each their own. If you don't mind working on them, and you like good fuel mileage...they can't be beat.

Finding a good Mk4 TDI...that's a challenge these days.

I've spent more money on these cars than I like to admit, that's for sure. I've painted both of them, engine in one, clutch in both, completely new suspension in both, all wheel bearings in one, 2 turbos in one and 1 turbo in another, bigger injectors in both and many various "upgrades" to both of them. All of that, and the other little stuff that continues to pop up on a regular basis (the drivers side headlight in my 01 just decided to let water into it for no reason while it sat all last weekend, now I get to have that adventure)

You're not going to save any money driving one of these cars compared to a new gas car of the same size.

But in the end I drive these for one reason and I'll explain it here. I live in Canada, and as a Canadian, I get the ever living sh!t taxed out of me. The tax is so bad that being a middle class citizen is becoming a thing of the past. There's income tax, GST, PST, eco tax on natural gas, green fees on Hydo, the list goes on and on. I feel that I pay enough in taxes on things that I can't avoid paying taxes on. So fuel is one that I can at least try to control. I have a card lock fuel account, and once a month I get the bill on it. In that bill, fuel cost is broken down for me to see what makes up the total cost per liter of fuel. It is well over 60% taxes that make up the cost per liter of fuel. Carbon tax, green tax, yadda, yadda, yadda... When I get a fuel bill that only equates to around 185 bucks for the month for 2 cars, I grin and get a small bit of satisfaction knowing I'm fukin the man, just a little bit.

I've been quite happy with my 2002 Jetta TDI. I've owned it for a bit over a year and a half and have put around 36,000 miles on it. The used car dealer I bought it from sells lots of VWs and had a VW mechanic go through it before they sold it to me. It had new pads and rotors, a new timing belt, water pump, and pullies.

Cost of ownership has been pretty low, until I did a bunch of performance upgrades. Before that it was only oil changes, filters, and two glow plugs. At around 200k miles I installed upgraded injector nozzles, a clutch as the clutch was original and due for a replacement and stock doesn't handle the power I was looking to produce, and upgraded the exhaust and downpipe to 2.5".

In the process of doing that work, I rebuilt the outer CV joints and replaced the inner, replaced a wheel bearing, changed the transmission gear oil, brke fluid flush, short shift kit, belly pan, and I am replacing the turbo vane actuator this afternoon (an issue that I didn't notice I had until I towed a travel trailer for 8500miles around the country). I ended up replacing the MAF as part of that as it would hit a max value that it could read and my attempt to clean it killed it. Again, I didn't realize I had the issue until I started towing.

There are a bunch of parts shops that specialize in TDIs that can save you money on parts and maintenance items. Not all brands of replacement parts work well on these cars, so running down to the large chain stores isn't always the best idea and a lot of the times the online specialty vendors can be half the price of the local parts shops. Luckily I live close enough to idparts that the $5 shipping through the USPS is next day delivery.

If you aren't willing to, or can't do the work on these yourself, I would definately agree that the maintenance costs can quickly get out of control. If you don't have access to a VCDS scan tool and don't properly troubleshoot issues before you begin throwing parts at it, repair costs can climb quickly, but that holds true for any vehicle.

This has been one of the most fun vehicles I have owned. It isn't too difficult to work on and just about anything you need to do or have an issue with has several writeups on how to troubleshoot and repair it. No repair manual needed.
They are an older vehicle and very few are not multiple owner vehicles at this point, so you never know what you are truly getting. If you can get one that has been owned by older drivers that were fairly meticulous with maintenance and have a good VW mechanic, you should be better off.

Personally, I'm not a fan of debt and the student loans can be quite burdensome. Since you do already have multiple vehicles, you have options for dealing with issues that require multiple days for repairs/waiting on parts. If you can get out from under some debt before you find yourself in a tight spot, I'd bail now. If you aren't confident with repairs, maybe look into something a little newer. The small difference in fuel efficiency of a slightly newer car will take a long time to even out in the fuel savings of a MkIV and one paid repair job can easily make the MkIV cost more.
Find yourself a good budget spread sheet, stick to it well, and look at it as a spending plan not a restriction on your spending. Get rid of that dept as fast as you can. I got rid of all my debt and saved up quite a bit of cash before going back to school. I'm in my last semester now and accumulated some debt again. Not looking forward to having a decent chunk of my paycheck go towards debt again, but looking forward to getting it paid off and not have it looming over my head.

cj_ryan said:

A large portion of the reason why I want to sell my Focus is that I owe 13,000 on it at the moment. I pay approximately 320 a month on the payment. (11% interest. :/ ) Along with 740ish every 6 months on insurance. I also have high interest student loan debt that I'm going to have to start paying on in a few months. So I won't be able to afford these both. As i barely can afford the car payment. (Work in our DC is pretty slow through the winter months.) So regardless I'm going to have to get rid of my Focus or the bank will come get it. So i figured a jetta would be good. As I would own it.

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If i were in your shoes, you said you had other vehicles for the moment that worked i would let the focus go. As in tell the bank you are gonna surrender it take it back clean and hand it over. save the money in insurance and car payments up and find a nice commuter and pay cash.

now I would not do that to my Credit Union but a bank i would have no issues doing that to. its easier to afford fuel when you have no car payments. now the student debt that will follow you through bankruptcy, but a car you can surrender the car is the collateral.

It's financed through carmax. Can I just take it back and say here it is? And will that effect my credit?

Read the contract.

Those national chains tend to have airtight contracts intended to screw the customer over for everything possible. Hopefully there is something in there that will allow you to get out of the contract with minimal damage. You may need to take a slight loss due to your future financial situation, but if you look at the amount you would have paid in interest or lost due to vehicle depreciation, you may be able to justify a small hit.

You can always talk to them to find out what your options are. You aren't committing to anything by having a conversation. You may even find a sympathetic ear and someone may be willing to bend a few policies to help you out.

Look at the current book value for a private sale and compare that to what you owe. If they are close, list it on the higher side to give yourself some negotiating space.

You still have some time to sort this out, so you don't need to rush it and put yourself in a tight spot or take a loss if you don't have to.

Man that sounds real sketchy. I hope you don't need to take out any new loans in next 7 years it will take to get that cleared off your credit history. I suppose it depends on how much of a predicament you are in.

Look here under deficiency: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0144-vehicle-repossession

Real bad idea IMO unless you file for bankruptcy they will keep on you until they get what they're owed.

That said it couldn't hurt to look over your loan terms and see if maybe there is an easier out of some sort. Your least aggravating solution would be to simply sell it.

Here is what happens,

Sorry I can't afford the car here it is.

Someone yells and screams at worst. They ding your credit (OMG not my credit you say) go on living your life pay cash for the next car. If your FICO score was a great thing you would not be looking for an out.

They will take the car it's the collateral on the loan.

I will add this also, if they do try to go to court over this it will be years down the road they will attempt bully, guilt, beg plead for you to pay long before they spend money to have a lawyer talk to you in front of a judge for 14k.

They got the car back guess what they will be pretty happy in the long run the car is still new enough they can resell it so long as you have not damaged it. And they will sucker some other person into their loan and "help" them build their score.

When I bought this car in was making quite a bit mpretty money. (I used to drive a grain truck amongst other class a trucks.) Now I'm making a significant amount less. So it wasn't that I bit off more then I could chew. I can't get my cell back tell January. I imagine I could sell my focus back. I would be taking a pretty big loss. I'm going to see how I can do selling it privately and check what carmax will give me for it. I won't have to start making payments on my student loans tell January luckily.

cj_ryan said:

When I bought this car in was making quite a bit mpretty money. (I used to drive a grain truck amongst other class a trucks.) Now I'm making a significant amount less. So it wasn't that I bit off more then I could chew. I can't get my cell back tell January. I imagine I could sell my focus back. I would be taking a pretty big loss. I'm going to see how I can do selling it privately and check what carmax will give me for it. I won't have to start making payments on my student loans tell January luckily.

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If you can sell it back and have the money to cover what you might need to make up the difference then go that route. If you cant no finance contract is air tight, thousands of people just up and walked away from their homes a few years ago. walking away from a car is as easy as driving it to the dealer (or financial institution) dropping it of and saying sorry, The most that happens is you have a ding on your credit report, and to be honest you could dispute that also. I have let go of a vehicle before, when you make a decision set up with the company and drop it off where ever they want and get a signature that you turned to car over.

I understand the importance of paying loans its a contract and you gave your word but honestly if you cant do it you just cant do it.

Ill Named said:

I've found the PD's to have more power but get sh!ttier fuel mileage compared to both of my current alh's. They are easier to time when doing a belt, but tend to wear camshafts out quickly in comparison. I currently have 400000 km on my original camshaft in my 01. Once you get a colt cam put into a PD, it's a non issue though.

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I tend to get about 37-46mpg out of my PD, depending on how I drive (if I'm constantly flooring it and going up hills or carrying over half a ton in the back, I can expect 37-38).

Stock fuel economy does indeed suck. When you do upgrades and get a tune, it's a lot better.

Good luck finding one that isn't miled out or full of rust. That's the other issue.

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Yup, take it from me - 2 time TDI owner. Bought my Golf at the end of April. Love it, but next time, I'll buy a car that doesn't come from Quebec (and then imported into NY). Rust is a constant battle.

The fuel savings are fabulous in these things though. There's hardly a car out there that gets this good of mileage and still maintains this level of power. I've owned over 18 vehicles in my driving career and these are by far my most favorite vehicle.

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My 2 cents? I love my TDIs. But unless you're technically inclined, you might want to rethink your potential decision. Maintenance costs at the dealer can kill your pocketbook, and these being older cars, you WILL be replacing things (suspension, AC compressor, alternator, battery, wheel bearings, etc). And then there are the things that are a given - oil, brakes, tires, timing belt - that's not a big deal, so long as you can do it yourself or find a guru, and the timing belt is every 100K, so it's not something you'll be doing every year.

Peruse the forum and take the advice of those of us with experience, and welcome to TDIclub.