You Know You're An Automotive Masochist If:

"crown victor victoria" (cvv)
03/05/2014 at 17:53 • Filed to: None

You !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ...
That you plan to drive ~75 miles per day...

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

And it's a VOLKSWAGEN !

HA HA HA I AM SURE THIS CAR WILL GIVE ME THOUSANDS OF TROUBLE-FREE MILES AND WILL HAVE NO BIZARRE, UNIDENTIFIABLE MECHANICAL ISSUES WHATSOEVER! HA HA HA HARDER, MISTRESS! WHIP ME HARDER!

SR20 and pls disregard Mardi Gras beads:

DISCUSSION (18)

jkm7680 > crown victor victoria
03/05/2014 at 17:55

After the things that I've done to rental cars, and things I have found in them. I found a pile of vomit under the backseat floor mat. That isn't pleasant at all. Now where is that naughty nurse costume?

phenotyp > crown victor victoria
03/05/2014 at 18:03

Let me add to the list: You buy a 6-year-old V-8 BMW. You get it inspected. Other than a little oil seep around the cylinder head gaskets, you're told it looks good. You buy it.

Then you (and, the warranty you thankfully bought) put $7500 worth of engine-out replacement of every goddamn piece of rubber in and around the engine, as well as the belts and engine mounts that were ruined by oil that turns out was leaking worse than Julian Assange, the TPMS brain that was shorted out, adjust the idle speed and mixture, reset all the engine and transmission adaptations, and new lifters, all of which leaves you without the car for 8.5 weeks and counting.

Yeah.

I'm smrt.

Aya, Almost Has A Cosmo With Toyota Engine Owned by a BMW. > crown victor victoria
03/05/2014 at 18:06

I Once consider this.

I saw a 2003 Mercedes C200 with a Manual at the rentals, and it's for sale!
A Manual Mercedes!
For 5 grand! ( I live in Indonesia, so we have lot of import taxes)
It's only done 250k kms, it has almost nothing it it, but i do want that.

crowmolly > crown victor victoria
03/05/2014 at 18:06

If you buy a semi-valuable pre-1980 car from one of the northern states without using a spot-rot.

That's like banging a street walker without a bag.

In, say, Bangkok.

crown victor victoria > crowmolly
03/05/2014 at 18:14

This guy saw Hertz duty in San Antonio, TX. The dealership also had several Jetta SportWagens of the same 2013 vintage that were stationed in Wisconsin. I steered clear of those, but they all sold anyway. I mean you can see this information in the free Carfax! I guess some people are even bigger risk takers than I am.

pdx107 > crown victor victoria
03/05/2014 at 18:22

Bought a rental, and had it for 130k miles over 10 trouble free years, well except the power window motor breaking.

All the other issues were due to the deer I hit. Oops

crown victor victoria > phenotyp
03/05/2014 at 18:26

Oof, that's rough. I briefly considered a 1997 540i that looked ok but had a zillion miles on it. I assumed there would be parts failures at roughly the same interval as fill-ups. I am hoping I can cash in on the 6k miles of remaining bumper-to-bumper warranty on the Golf before anything truly expensive happens to me.

And, as if to show me the error of my ways, on the 3rd day of ownership the "EPC" warning light comes on, but did not return after shutting the car off. I checked all the usual anxious VW owner haunts online: Golfmk6.com, VWVortex, Volkswagenownersclub.com and from what I found it was no big deal. Or at least people were not freaking out when it happened to them. I guess something has to catch on fire or grenade to get a VW owner out of bed these days.

I'm taking it in regardless because of aforementioned remaining warranty.

crown victor victoria > pdx107
03/05/2014 at 18:39

It's looking like I'll be piling close to 20k miles a year on this, so I don't know what I am in for. There's a 72k powertrain warranty on these, so that would get me a year and a half of use with some kind of factory support if it proves unreliable.

People hate on the 2.5L 5 cylinder, though I like certain aspects of the engine. It's only roughly as powerful as any other manufacturer's 4-cylinder of the same era and probably gets worse fuel economy, but I'm seeing 34 MPG average on two tanks of gas so far, which is 3 MPG over the EPA rating. I could do some strategic mods and probably push that up a bit more, but wouldn't do anything for a while.

I really want to ditch the steelies, but all the OEM alloys are heavy as hell and even most aftermarket stuff is barely lighter than what I have now, if at all.

pdx107 > crown victor victoria
03/05/2014 at 18:45

Truthfully id be more alarmed that it is a vw than the fact it was a rental to be honest.

crown victor victoria > jkm7680
03/05/2014 at 18:50

I'm sure that a lot of rental cars get thrashed, but I don't think that is true for all of them. In the post I linked to above, nearly everybody who had owned one had positive things to say.

I won't say that every former rental car is a good second-hand purchase, but if you have it looked at and do your homework they can be reliable bargains.

crown victor victoria > pdx107
03/05/2014 at 18:58

haha I know. I've owned them before though and I have a soft spot for them. I had a MKIV that was just like this one so maybe it was partly nostalgia. But I am aware of their quirks. We're in the 2nd to last model year on MKVIs so most of the really weird stuff has been worked out. The 2.5L is also pretty durable, but I don't know what to expect out of the DSG long-term. Gonna have to ask some friends and do a little research.

Anyway, the used market where I am is a living hell, and this was one of very few options I was ready to consider. I didn't want a truck or an SUV, I didn't want something with over 100k miles and I didn't want something more than 5 years old, and there was little that met all 3 criteria that didn't have some other issue.

RafelX > phenotyp
03/05/2014 at 18:58

Well, you're at least smarter than me.

Back in early '09, I was in the market for a new car and the Pontiac G8 was the object of my affection. I had a limit of $25k to spend, which at the time meant I could get a new base v-6 or a used v-8 G8 GT. Obviously getting the GT was a no-brainer, and there were plenty of sub 5k miles GM certified cars available. BUT (there's always a but), they were all former rentals. I still wanted to pull the trigger, but the thought of what kind of potential abuse those cars suffered in the rental fleet made me look elsewhere.

Which led me to an 05 BMW 545 6-speed with only 33k miles for $24k. So I go the the dealer and my first question to the salesman was why it was so cheap. It was a lemon buy back for the front power windows. The spirit of Jezza overcame me and I thought to myself "Power windows? how hard can it be?" I take the car on a test drive and allow myself to be seduced by the power, which causes me not to think straight when the check-engine light comes on. I figure I what can go wrong on a 33k mile car and plus I still have a years worth of warranty.

The check-engine light was for a VANOS issue that involved taking the engine apart, but apart from that and the guaranteed to fail coolant expansion tank, the car was trouble free for the next 4 years. In the last 18 months though, I've replaced a catalytic converter (under warranty), coolant pipe, water pump, control arms, and other things I can't remember at the moment, and now I need new front struts. I can't help but wonder if the G8 would have actually been the better decision.

jkm7680 > crown victor victoria
03/05/2014 at 18:59

Yeah, rental car abuse is going down, John Phillips from C and D had an article about how people are no longer using the headliner as a napkin, putting the car in reverse at 50 mph, etc. It does seem, well most of the rentals that I've had had been abused in some way or another, with the exception of some brand new cars. I'd say, as low mileage as possible, and maybe even test drive a new version of the same car, just to make sure that there is nothing noticeably wrong with it while driving.

crowmolly > crown victor victoria
03/06/2014 at 10:03

You know what else is cool?

I'm betting your car came with a compact spare tire.

So you have a "Hertz Donut".

crown victor victoria > crowmolly
03/06/2014 at 10:27

It did, but I think I'm going to take it out and put a patch kit in to cut the weight a bit. And since it has chunky little 15" wheels to begin with, I think that would give me Hertz Cream Filled Donuts if I ever had to use it.

phenotyp > crown victor victoria
03/06/2014 at 12:44

Yeah, having any kind of factory warranty is huge. But at the rate you're gonna go, won't those 6K miles go by pretty damn fast?

I guess you'd better drive the shit out of it, and rattle all the breaky stuff loose as soon as you can.

phenotyp > RafelX
03/06/2014 at 12:50

Well... I can't say who's smarter, but I'm pretty sure it's not me. Either way, looks like we both got pulled in by those V8 sirens. I was trying to explain the Jekyll-Hyde nature of the 550's engine to a friend of mine last night. He has pretty much zero experience with anything more than FWD 4-cyls. The engine's perfectly happy below 2000 RPM all day long. It's just like, "I got this." 2-3K RPM, and it sorta rolls its eyes, and asks if you're really sure you want to do this. 3+K RPM? OH, YOU WANT A REDLINE MOTHERFUCKER? BAM!

.. Which is to say, it's pretty fuckin fun.

crown victor victoria > phenotyp
03/06/2014 at 13:39

yeah I have about 4 weeks until I hit 36,000. There's a 72,000 powertrain warranty beyond that, but stuff like water pumps/fuel pumps won't be covered on that. AFAIK those are common points of failure for these, but neither is especially difficult to replace.

I have a mechanic I trust, but either of those looks like a job I could do on my own to save the cost of labor.