Disturbing money spending habit

[dinkus 10]

I'm worried. I just spent £170 with GSF and going to spend another £300 with VAG... yet I'm in a good, even excited mood about it.

 

After a few hours hard graft it will mean that my C will no longer handle like a sloppy turd :D

 

I guess the joy of spending money on your C wears off for a while? :lol:

[Jim 2]

Yeah - it does.

 

Especially when its a few grand in a one year to pay for things that you were never expecting.

 

Ask Phil K about it - his 2.0 16v, one of the models you would expect to give you the least amount of troubles, has been a money pit for him.

[PhatVR6 0]

tell me about it. I spent £500 at the dealers in seals, gaskets, bolts, clips and other assorted nonsense when VR'ing mine....

[Robbo149 0]

Too right Jim... I was quite giddy spending bits & bobs on my C when I first got it, I'm now up to nearly 2 grand, & I haven't had it a year yet! Half of that went on the usual VR6 overhaul - recon head, timing chains & tensioners, clutch. But then other stuff started going wrong! I've since had a new coil pack, plugs, leads & I'm currently replacing most of the cooling system! I wish I could have spent all that on mods!

 

Cheers,

Robbo

[Joe M 0]

jimsG60, Must be a 2.0 16v thing, wasnt yours the same? I know mine was. :roll:

[Kevin Bacon 5]

VAG get the red carpet out everytime I go there........ which was today incidentally..... the *whole* wiper assembly, less motor......£45!! I'm not joking......

 

Instead of all these monthly bills..... wouldn't it be good to just drive the car to Karmann/VW and just get everything done in one hit?

 

K

[Jim 2]

jimsG60, Must be a 2.0 16v thing, wasnt yours the same? I know mine was. :roll:

 

Yep - mine cost around £2000 in a year. Admittedly some of it wasn't *essential* but.. I got rather noisy tappets tackled, new windscreen (leaking water all over the place), new exhaust (backbox fell off, and centre section was shot), a whopping £400 service with brake discs & pads and numerous other bits and pieces.

 

I've read many times that build quality on earlier Corrado's is supposed to be much better than on later ones... seems to be reflected in the fact that so many 1.8 16v's are going so well still with huge mileage on them... don't quote me on that though :)

 

kevhaywire - wouldn't it be awesome to have a complete rebuild including every nut and washer on every single part of the car - the cost would be astronomical, but if I won the lottery, I think i'd do it!

[dinkus 10]

Well I'm budgeting £2k for my first year of VR ownership to get it into tip top condition, and I've got a parts list totalling £1450 so far, so it looks about right. Luckily I've been reading on here so I knew what to expect, how much it would cost and where to get it from.

 

Just called VW in Stortford and by mentioning that I had a CCGB membership he gave took the price down from £98 to £70 :D I'll be using them again! In fairness it was for brake disks and a sensor, so he probably gave me the Parts Club rate on the disks, but even so I'm well impressed.

 

Good job too really, cos I still need a poop load more parts from them that they don't have in stock yet.

[vr6storm 0]

wait til you get just "slightly" bitten by the modding bug.............

[Kevin Bacon 5]

I've spent about £2K in a year Dinkus - on general parts that is, so you're not far off with that estimate. Have also spend £3K on mods...... and feck me it was worth it. The car is sublime now :lol:

 

It does help if you get steering racks off ebay and AMD remaps and throttle bodies dirt cheap though :wink:

[dinkus 10]

Kev, I must say your C does sound sodding fantastic :D

 

I'm not a big fan on the whole modding thing tho... my aim is to get it looking (and handling) like new again, although I've already bought Pagid FR pads (with VAG disks as suggested by yourself) and I think I'll put a K&N panel filter in next time it needs replacing.

 

A new set of VAG rear shocks are going on at some point tho, so no lowering for me. I live in Essex, so I gotta do my best to distance myself from the Nova's ;)

[Robbo149 0]

Oh... I forgot to mention rear axle bushes, shocks, wishbone bushes, brakes, exhaust, new foglight, alloys, tyres, M3 rear lights, Momo wheel, etc, etc,....

 

Robbo

[vr6storm 0]

 

I'm not a big fan on the whole modding thing tho... my aim is to get it looking (and handling) like new again, although I've already bought Pagid FR pads (with VAG disks as suggested by yourself) and I think I'll put a K&N panel filter in next time it needs replacing.

 

A new set of VAG rear shocks are going on at some point tho, so no lowering for me. I live in Essex, so I gotta do my best to distance myself from the Nova's ;)

 

 

funny that.........but neither was i into this modding malarkey.........tbh mine is just subtle mods.....BTW my very first mod was.....a K&N panel filter......so you have been warned :lol: :lol: :lol:

[dinkus 10]

So far my list is for...

Serpentine Belt & Tensioner

New rubber all round

New pads all round

New disks all round

Top strut mounts

Rear axle bushes

Rear shocks

Misc sensors

Bits of misc trim

Swissol

 

Also likely to need a new CV boot and front engine mount in the not too distant future.

 

Luckily my mate has an almost full set of tools and some mechanical knowledge, so he's gonna do the easier stuff and I pay him in new tools so he can do the harder stuff :D 8)

[coullstar 0]

Jesus, you guys have spent more money keeping the car going than I did buying mine and keeping it running for 3 months. Touch wood there is nothing needed in the foreseeable future either. Looks like the early 16v were built ok then.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Roddy's right, I bought mine with a view of keeping it standard, but, oh no. That VW 'something' soon starts bashing the old wallet.

 

You start off small, a loom here, panel filter there but the first time you hit a big dip mid bend and feel the chassis get completely out of shape, and you will, you start planning the suspension upgrades....

 

And then when you've got a tighter chassis, hmmm, it could handle loads more power...... and thus the cycle of modding ensues.......

 

There's no escaping from it..... you WILL be modding it before the year's out. I guarantee it :lol:

[dinkus 10]

Yeah mine cost over £5k to buy as well.

 

Saying that it is still drivable at the moment, but if the work isn't done sooner rather than later it's just going to be a bigger bill. It will also tighten the handling up a treat to make it back to how it should be.

 

It's all good, I was budgeting for it, so it's not a shock, I just wasn't expecting to spend the whole £2k straight off :lol:

[aposegil 0]

can i join this conversation??? :mrgreen: count my car as a normal corrado??? :D :lol:

[Scott 0]

Perhaps now is the time to mention that I have spent including parts, servicing, valetting, etc, etc....

 

£456.78

 

in 18 months :oops:

 

ahem. :shock:

 

Although its all about to change...... I blame Kev myself :lol:

[dazzyvr6 0]

in the best part of 3 years i spent next to nothing repairing mine,only needed to change wear and tear items..but in the last year or so ive spent best part of 4k on wheels,coilovers etc..spent nearly 1k on a set of leather seats :shock:

[Kevin Bacon 5]

I blame Kev myself :lol:

 

Blame away mate, everybody else blames me for their pricey purchases :lol:

[aposegil 0]

I blame Kev myself :lol:

 

Blame away mate, everybody else blames me for their pricey purchases :lol:

 

i dont blame you mate if it makes u feel any better :D

[PhatVR6 0]

I've only had mine 6 months and I've easily spent £1500 on it, and that's not counting the engine and gearbox and wheels which I already had.

 

Thank f*ck it was only £3100 and is now worth at least twice that.

[dinkus 10]

Mine probably won't increase much in value, but it certainly won't go down any.

 

I'm not particularly bothered about how much it's worth though, because I plan on keeping it a fair while yet :D

[Robbo149 0]

That's my only consolation - I bought it cheap, so I shouldn't lose on it.... much.

 

Robbo