04 Spice Red wagon SOLD

SLF-951

Active member
Joined
Mar 12, 2011
Location
Pittsburgh PA
TDI
MK3 Jetta. MK4 Jetta Wagon
Putting my well loved Waggo up for sale, here's it's story.

I purchased this car from a good buddy of mine late 2018 with 192k. He had it for 1.5 years and and received it with 178,700. It came to me with quite a bit of neglect, but before us the car was in Alabama and originally from Tennessee... Rust free !!

So as I got the car it was in undrivable constant limp mode, and it was an auto trans. I did the right thing and bought another mangled 04 manual sedan and started gathering new parts. So, at 192k this car lost its auto, got a new clutch kit and SWF, rear main just cause I was there and one axle. Along with that was a T belt/rollers, water pump, thermostat, top intake pipe... The car was a running machine but found out right away it needed glow plugs, glow plug harness, all the front end bushings(used the Audi pucks), tie rod ends, wheel bearings and an alignment. Shortly after that the coolant temp sensor and the big rad fan. That was all done by summer 2019.

Drove the car a while, did the sunroof drains and headliner recover to hounds tooth material. Got a black set of GLI seats, a set of GTI Monti Carlo wheels and a set of crappy coil overs. Car was looking super sweet. There was an EGR cooler pipe replacement in there, which broke, so mounted the cooler correct, and that welded one broke again, so i replaced it again... Got some tunes for it !

Put some miles on it... Cheapo coil overs were great but the rear coils collapsed, so ordered Neuspeed coils for it that are wagon specific. After waiting 2-3 months for them to apparently come from Germany, back in business... Got a euro switch, DRL pin pull and did the rear turn conversion to the euro spot. I did replace the rear taillights at one point as one of mine was cracked and both the boards were in terrible shape. Also added trailer harness as the car had a hitch. And it got real Hella GLI headlights and the rear fog !

Many enjoyable miles on the car, then lost the egr pipe again, blanked off and a new set of tunes. Till the upper pipe went last summer, now the cooler is fully deleted. Last fall the car got a new heater core, fresh pink juice, new tires and another new set of front bearings... I had done the blend door repair the winter before. also got all brakes and rotors. More recently the 2 upper engine mounts, most the fuel lines replaced, fresh GL4 trans fluid, all filters and a new interstate battery... Window switch and drive door lock replaced somewhere in there too.

This has been a great vehicle, I really love it. It gets 40 plus all the time, if I'm reasonable on it and keep it below 75 it'll get close to 43. Best ever was a high 43.
The car is pretty well dialed in, could use a new lower engine mount and I think the driver front rotor has a soft spot in it, it's not warped but it has a grabby spot to it. I've had a bad casting on another vehicles rotor like that before. Upper strut mounts were new but are beat due to the lowering coils on the stock struts.

Current mileage is 240. I run the stage 1 tune, but the tuner has 4 tunes on it. When it's cold it seems the boost comes on really strong and slips the clutch if it has the 1.5 or 2 tune loaded. No dash lights, everything works, only leak I see is an oil drain plug drip. I do have both sets of seats, the originals are hammered though. I never put the black back seats in and I have the rear lowers out so the tops lay flat. I have other things floating around for this car, original coils, headlights, an extra running engine with almost new injectors.... Things can be discussed I guess.

With it being rust free, lots of parts all under 50k, no dash lights, cold air/hot heat, 17" GTI wheels with fresh hoops, real OEM GLI headlights and a Tunezilla with 4 tunes I'd like to see 5500 out of it. Compared to what I'm seeing asked of wagons lately this seems a realistic price to me. I have way more than that into it plus the countless hours. OBO of course, things can be taken away or added...

Any questions just ask, car is located just west of Pittsburgh PA.
 
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SLF-951

Active member
Joined
Mar 12, 2011
Location
Pittsburgh PA
TDI
MK3 Jetta. MK4 Jetta Wagon
So maybe those crazy prices I've seen on other wagons are just that... Crazy ! Lets try 5500 obo.
 

SLF-951

Active member
Joined
Mar 12, 2011
Location
Pittsburgh PA
TDI
MK3 Jetta. MK4 Jetta Wagon
And a blower motor last summer...

I'll probably end up ordering some fresh coil overs and take it to the tint shop soon and keep on running it. 300k was my original goal to make the time and cash investment worth it when the project started.
 

SLF-951

Active member
Joined
Mar 12, 2011
Location
Pittsburgh PA
TDI
MK3 Jetta. MK4 Jetta Wagon
Maybe if I found another car to replace it with. The original intent to sell was to move into a Jetta or Golf sportwagen and get rid of this and my Impreza wagon.

I put the new rotors on a couple weeks ago and saw that the boot on the driver side cv is starting to go. It should also get another set of tie rods and a fresh alignment.
 

benIV

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2009
Location
Southeast NC
TDI
2003 PG 5m Jetta GL Sedan, 2003 RS 5m Jetta GLS Wagon (Golf Variant)
Rust free?? How'd you manage that in PA lol. Beautiful wagon though. Always wanted a red one. GLWS. Wish I had the 5500 and an extra spot in the garage. 3 TDI's would be fun and this one is a beaut.
 
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SLF-951

Active member
Joined
Mar 12, 2011
Location
Pittsburgh PA
TDI
MK3 Jetta. MK4 Jetta Wagon
The car has only been here for 5-6 years. I've had it since late 18, usually run the Subaru if I know it's going to snow. Either way, I clean any of my cars as soon as possible after a snow/salt drive. Seems to help a lot. It's not perfect by any means, was used to keep my then new Impreza off of the construction sites. Thanks for the compliment though, I wasn't so excited about the red initially, but it's grown on me. Definitely a nice color for this car.
 

benIV

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2009
Location
Southeast NC
TDI
2003 PG 5m Jetta GL Sedan, 2003 RS 5m Jetta GLS Wagon (Golf Variant)
so are you asking 5500 for everything, including the other motor et Al.? what clutch is in it? Still slipping in 1.5-2 tune?
 

SLF-951

Active member
Joined
Mar 12, 2011
Location
Pittsburgh PA
TDI
MK3 Jetta. MK4 Jetta Wagon
5500 for the car, the way it sits. I didn't plan on upping the power of the car, so went with a stock single mass conversion at the time. It only slips if asking for full power in top gear at lower speeds. I guess I should have gone with the "clutch saver" tune. It doesn't slip at all with the stage 1, and they aren't much different power wise, but the delivery of the torque is way more aggressive. I've been running the 1.5 tune for that past 4-5 tanks and with driving with a lighter foot due to that stock clutch, my last tank got my best ever for this car at 44.6.
 
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