What is a MkIV TDI worth?

If the engine were good, then perhaps $1k. Wonder what the undersides look like: she appears to like to hit things.

If this woman single? I could only imagine what her dating ad would say/claim!

Welp, I'm out...

It needs a core support and subframe (apparently the front and side damage is a little more extensive than it appears.

It needs a turbo (the vanes are frozen solid) and is probably why it is smoking like a chimney. Brakes are shot, all the vacuum hoses crumble at the slightest touch, basically all the rubber bushings (control arms, strut bushings, etc).

Way too much even for my initial $1,500 offer.

I'll keep looking. I already found a 2004 Passat Wagon TDI on craigslist for $2250. It is a salvage out of AZ, but it is a stolen recovery which apparently AZ brands a stolen recovery as Salvage.

Woah, I just saw a car with 53k go under $1k. That’s a lot of items to fix though nothing that scares me to much, I think I’ve done about everything on that lit at least once. $500-$750 would be a fair deal.

Ok... I'm out. I'm in. I'm out. I'm back in....

There is a little glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

I got back from lunch today, and the service advisor who wrote up the car told me to call the lady that she was now willing to negotiate the price of the car because she is done with it. The repair estimate of nearly $7k was more than she could afford.

So I called her after I got off work. She's not completely convinced we are being honest about the repair estimate because she still feels it is in GREAT shape. So she is going to come by Wednesday and I will walk her around the car showing her what the techs found.

She says she is now willing to negotiate the price of the car, but she's not going to "just give it away".

I personally think that since the engine is good, the transmission is potentially good (how bad can it be with only 53k miles), the interior is good (after it gets cleaned), and for the most part the body is good that it should be worth at least $750.

I can do most of the work myself (core support, suspension bushings, vacuum lines, turbo cleaning) so that will save a lot of money. Hopefully a cleaning will free the turbo and not require a complete replacement.

So I'll know on Wednesday wether I am buying it or not.

Because of the low miles, it might be worth taking a chance. I don't think it's something fix and then keep forever, because it does have the automatic transmission, but the costs to get it running should be easy to estimate at least roughly.

You know it needs a new timing belt and a change of all the fluids. The brakes and suspension and steering will need some parts, maybe most of them but not everything all at once. All the vacuum hoses need replacement, the IC should be drained, and the EGR is probably plugged. A set of tires, of course. $2500 may cover it.

Repaired and cleaned up it's probably a $2,500 - $3,000 car, even given the low total mileage. Mileage isn't everything. Considering what it seems to need to get it driveable she should "give it away." But if you could get it for $2K or so by the time you're done you'll have $5K in it, most likely. And it still won't be perfect. If you drive it for a while the value won't drop much, but you'll definitely be upside down for a while.

Old TDIs aren't an investment. They're an expense. If you keep them and use them it works out, but otherwise it doesn't.

"Old TDIs aren't an investment. They're an expense. If you keep them and use them it works out, but otherwise it doesn't." IBW

I've got way too much money in mine from a fiscal point of view.
Now if you classify them as a hobby, it looks a bit better. Might be
cheaper than golf at a toney country club, or campaigning a sailboat at the yacht club. I do use my car everyday.

"Old TDIs aren't an investment. They're an expense. If you keep them and use them it works out, but otherwise it doesn't." IBW
All cars (and any transportation) is an expense. You can buy a new car and not deal with repairs for awhile, but you loose 50% of its value during first couple of years. The advantage to buying a older TDI is its engine. You get incredible mileage and durability. So you either let a car depreciate or you put money into its maintenance. You may experience some breakdowns but most agree you come out ahead taking care of an older car. So you either pay backward (depreciation) or forward (maintenance). Either way its going to cost money. That car you are looking at appears worth putting in the effort to getting it back on the road.

I'm a fan of "used" because I view things as total embedded energy. The longer you can run something the more that that initial embedded energy gets used. New vehicle production, though the claims are newer cars are more environmentally friendly, require LOTs of energy, and produce lots of waste in their manufacture: I seem to recall a statistic like 20k gallons of water used in the production of every new car (have to figure in ALL the pieces of the puzzle): I'd assume that over the years there's been improvements in water reclamation, but no idea.

I'm not adverse to new and "cleaner' vehicles, but, I have to wonder whether there's been full accounting of lifetime costs. The emissions stuff puts a lot of extra work/costs on continued use- does the reduction in measured emissions reductions really offset on-going emissions from replacement parts and work? (folks here can recognize/appreciate the amount of work it takes to clean an ALH intake manifold, which has been fouled due to emissions-related designs). I have no idea how it all adds up.

Cars are an expense unless you sell them for a living. A good Mk 4 TDI is the best expense on the road. The epa scraped my mk 6 tdi, an environmental disaster. It had dsg, a super expensive transmission that worried me in the event it failed. Tales of grenadine fuel pumps more expensive than my mk 4. Freezing intercooler leaving me stranded, and hesitation accelerating from standstill before the blast of torque kicked in. The dpf failing is equivalent to buying about 10 egr valves. Mk 4, an expensive hobby that gets you from a to b longer than 3 Chevy cars and counting.

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/cto/d/2001-volkswagen-golf-tdi/6375252840.html
https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/cto/d/vw-golf-tdi-2001/6392446348.html

Here's the state of the local market. One high mileage 5spd, 1 owner!
And a "salvage" auto that looks pretty good.
I'd suggest that either would be a better buy than a dinged up one.
I think IBW said somewhere that a clean straight body and paint is more important than mechanicals. Ie. more expensive for bodywork
than drivetrain.

I wish I was shopping for a car now rather than 1 1/2 yrs ago. Prices of ALHs have plummeted after the "fix". Lots of people are jumping into the newer models IMO, getting rid of that 15 year old vehicle.

My $.02

Well, here in the PNW ALH prices have actually jumped back up. Occasionally there's a deal to be had, but mostly folks are all feeding off each others' listing prices (no idea what they really do end up getting). Someone here is trying to sell a 2002 Bug with about 140m miles and an 01m for just under $8k! And then there's a dealer selling one (also 01m) with about 108k miles for about $2,500 less: this car seems also to be in excellent condition. I was going to contact the seller to tell them to sell for $2k less and then turn around and buy the one from the dealer and then sell it for $1k more (or so): of course, this would have mostly been tongue-and-cheek (a tactful way of saying that his asking price was stupidly out of whack).