Jolio
Well-known member
Hi guys! After lurking here and looking everywhere for nearly a month, I've finally found a replacement for my old moneypit Civic. Me and a buddy of mine headed up across the PA border earlier this week and found this beautiful 2001 GLS TDI with 170k, desperately in need of some TLC:
I checked inside and out, under the hood as best I could, and took her for a ride...strong motor, clutch, and trans, neither of us noticed anything major, so I snatched it up!
As I hinted at, there is a fair amount that needs to be taken care of. She's nearly due for a TB job and brakes/rotors all around, A/C doesn't work, CEL is on (previous owner said he was told that was something about glowplugs, and that it was "normal," sure...), there's diesel on the top of the fuel filter (but there doesn't seem to be a leak, hopefully just from a messy filter replacement), and there's oil coming from the filler area and the (broken) dipstick tube, that I'm a bit worried about but the car's not going to move much before I can get it checked:
Plenty of cosmetics to fix, mostly the plastic trim, I'll be asking around for parts once I'm ahead of the scheduled maintenance. Classic, someone tore the front fender pulling away from a parking space, never fixed it so the plastic skid plate's getting eaten up, that's fine I planned on putting an aluminum skid plate on anyway...
I'll be getting it looked at on Tuesday, in the meantime, I was going to do myself what I could...I just got around to taking pictures, and haven't even cleaned it yet. I've been reading through a lot of threads here, and there's plenty more to go through. Unlike my previous car, I intend to do as much of my own maintenance on this as I can. I'm really glad I found TDIClub, and I'm looking forward to owning this TDI--and frequenting these forums--for a long time. I'd love to hear what you guys think, tips, suggestions, anything, and feel free to have a look at the rest of the album!
I checked inside and out, under the hood as best I could, and took her for a ride...strong motor, clutch, and trans, neither of us noticed anything major, so I snatched it up!
As I hinted at, there is a fair amount that needs to be taken care of. She's nearly due for a TB job and brakes/rotors all around, A/C doesn't work, CEL is on (previous owner said he was told that was something about glowplugs, and that it was "normal," sure...), there's diesel on the top of the fuel filter (but there doesn't seem to be a leak, hopefully just from a messy filter replacement), and there's oil coming from the filler area and the (broken) dipstick tube, that I'm a bit worried about but the car's not going to move much before I can get it checked:
Plenty of cosmetics to fix, mostly the plastic trim, I'll be asking around for parts once I'm ahead of the scheduled maintenance. Classic, someone tore the front fender pulling away from a parking space, never fixed it so the plastic skid plate's getting eaten up, that's fine I planned on putting an aluminum skid plate on anyway...
I'll be getting it looked at on Tuesday, in the meantime, I was going to do myself what I could...I just got around to taking pictures, and haven't even cleaned it yet. I've been reading through a lot of threads here, and there's plenty more to go through. Unlike my previous car, I intend to do as much of my own maintenance on this as I can. I'm really glad I found TDIClub, and I'm looking forward to owning this TDI--and frequenting these forums--for a long time. I'd love to hear what you guys think, tips, suggestions, anything, and feel free to have a look at the rest of the album!