My 1st VW (Mk3 VR6)

[decksla]

hi all (from Melbourne)

picked up my first vee dub last night. 94 Mk3 VR6 Golf.

PROS:
build quality. still very tight for such an old car
engine, nice and torquey
looks pretty cool
handles ok "havent had a chance to really test it"
only 120,000ks with service books!
price! i only paid $5500!!

CONS (mainly little ones):
ABS light JUST started to go on.
Cruise Control doesnt seem to work (havent fully checked everything, like fuses etc, picked it up quite late)
Cigarette lighter doesnt work (as above)
One of the indicator lights is blown (as above)
no Road Worthy (but he had one and wasnt willing to part with it at the price i paid. He was going OS this Friday and couldnt take the risk of NOT selling it)
it's GREEN!!! AARRGGHHH!!!

INITIALS THOUGHTS (based on about 2 hours driving):
extremely nice to drive and super smooth engine. i find more pulling power from the higher gears than the lower.
friggen heavy for a car quoted as being around 1200kgs.
super front heavy (like my old GTiR) but i guess its cuz of the huge engine and the sad old dampers
aftermarket support is limited but surprisingly well priced (i only plan to do handling mods - wheels and sus, short shifter, and mini stereo upgrade. its my daily and my new business car)
Interior at night is really dark. not sure if im missing lights but i can see all the controls, but the overall feel is dark.
gearbox has good solid feel and shifting. spacing is huge but a diesel geek i guess will sort that out.

ill post up some pics after the RWC and REG and once it gets clean. There are no mods at all other than the a Sony CD player. Im not keen on tinkering with the engine (been there, done that, love it, cant afford it) so im hoping to get some good reliability from it. The car has all books for its 120k and apart from the usual wear around the leather wheel, stick and seats, its in great nick.

Wanna say that this is easily the most informative site ive come across in relation to these cars. info is hard to come by and so i think ill be frequenting this site quite a bit

talk to you all soon
dEx

[KI11Z]

wow, sounds like a steal! and a colour concept at that! nice find and looking forward to your "minor mods"

[revnit]

120.000kms on a vr6 that is awesome!!! its hard to find one under 200.000kms there a great car had mine for a few months now as a daily travel 800kms a weeks hasn't missed a beat except for a burst waterline this morning haha but its old its expected, mines just cracked 240.000kms

[Treza360]

Nice work mate and well done. I'm a bit confused about the rwc thing? Why if you have one wouldn't you hand it over?
The a busted indicator would also be cause for a rwc fail up here in QLD. Also up here it is illegal to sell a registered vehicle without a RWC. So yeah, a bit confused?
But nice find anyway and welcome aboard. Hopefully all those niggly little things are easy to fix and you can haver her up and running nicely in no time.
Cheers,
Trent

[V®6]

Congrats on your 1st VW decksla, I am in the same boat as yourself.

I have just recently as of a month ago bought my 1st VW which turns out is also a '94 MK3 VR6.

Sounds like you've picked up a bargain for the amount of km's and the price.

Welcome to the forum, everyone here is very helpful and friendly

[Golf Houso]

Whats wrong with Green!?! Good work there, now and go and have a VW specialist take a look at it, I hate to say it but there might be a bit more wrong with it for that price than you may have first imagined...

[decksla]

in vic you dont need to sell a car with a road worthy.

its a catch 22 really. if you know a "good" mechanic then you can get one relatively easy. on the flip side, if you dont know a mechanic but the guy selling does then you could be in for a bit of trouble down the track.

i think the guy was calling my bluff. i quickly lost interest in HIS rwc when he introduced me to his friend who was his mechanic. not that i trust him, but its quite easy for friends to put pen to paper.

so far things i can see for rwc, tiny crack in the windshield, indicator light, accelerator pedal rubber.

green? man, i cant think of a wheel colour that i like. black so far is my choice, and im a jdm guy at heart so all i want to do is put race wheels on there. plus the black striping makes it worse

i eventually will make it my promo car for the business (nothing to do with cars, more computers) and so want to put some race livery on it with nice wheels and a good stance. even with this blank green canvas its hard to make it look "race"

help?

[Golf Houso]

Green and black works excellently, I've seen it on A3's and TT's not to mention my car as well:

[Mrk_Mickey]

Nice steal dude! Welcome to the forums, and may I say what a welcome for another VW nutter (you will be, don't worry) starting with a VR.

How on this earth did you pick it up for so cheap?!?! I thought I got a good deal on mine, but I'm replacing a few parts here and there (some for the hell of it too) so you've definitely beaten me hah.

May I please suggest blacken your bumpers and get black wheels and be proud? Green, especially dragon green, is an AWESOME colour for a VR6, especially with tasteful and simple modifications. Whack some Kiwi shoe polish on your bumpers STAT, and you're set

Oh, and.....
PICS OR BAN! hehe

[decksla]

i dont mind your green one houso.

also what wheels would one generally put on a mk3? 17? 18? i dont think ive seen a mk3 with 18's unless they look small in the wheel well.

housos look no more than 16 to me and after looking at countless pics the majority seem to be 16, with some 17.

is it a scrub issue??

[Mrk_Mickey]

You're right about Houso's wheels. They're 16" x 6.5" i THINK (shoot me if I'm wrong Branko!)

There's a whole heap of different facts and opinions out there to do with wheels on mk3's.

If you're riding on stock suspension, then basically the only scrubbing you will get from wheels is if you go into your body (towards the suspension) more or you change your rolling diameter. When upgrading to bigger wheels, it's most logical to keep stock rolling diameter so as to keep your speedometer accurate, so the actual circumference of the wheel and tyre combination does not change and hence has the same characteristics as your previous, and will not scrub if the previous didn't.

If you're on coilovers, then a lot of rubbing/scrubbing will more commonly occur on your wheel arches. When you drop the car to near-tyre height, your tyres might get in the way of the arches under heavy cornering or bumps in the road. There's not much to do about this other than to jack up your coils a bit and don't let it scrub!

If you're using a lowered suspension setup that ISN'T a coilover, you will still have spring seats (the bit of the strut that lets the spring sit it's ass on it, and it sticks out heaps!) that may fowl your wheels if they come in too far. This can't really be helped because most suspension setups aren't height adjustable if they're not coilovers. Best thing to do is get smaller wheels unfortunately!

A very common rule to abide by is the +1 rule for golf generations. This is what's considered the maximum GOOD wheel setup on the golfs:
mk1= 15" wheel
mk2= 16" wheel
mk3= 17" wheel
mk4= 18" wheel
mk5= 19" wheel

And in my personal opinion, I think 16's on a mk3 with a decent drop looks best. 17's can sometimes look too big, and 15's can sometimes look too small. That said, there are definitely exceptions to that (like euro_tassie_mk1's VR with 17" BBS, or rayray086's 15" mk4 widened steel-wheels).

Have fun finding your preferred combination

[decksla]

wow what a pain.

im quite sure il will go down the coilover path before the wheels.

i do have my heart set on 17's but inside im bleeding as the price difference to 18's is virtually nill from some wheels.

that being the case (small wheels = easier life) what is the usual methods of non scrubbingness? roll arches? lower offset with stretched tyres? modded inner guards?

*sigh*

anyone use wheel adaptors?

[VR6child]

for me its not just a case of 17's and 18's being impractical. it's only my opinion, but i think 17 is the absolute maximum that looks good on a mk3. as said before, with 17 you have to change the rolling diameter, and for me, mk3s running 18's seem to look goofy with such big wheels, not to mention you can't go as low with wheels of this size. i think often 17's can look good, but sometimes ive seen them turn out a disaster. just from a cosmetic point of view, i think 15 and 16 inches are good sizes. Also, 14" is definitely not out of the question either i have seen that pulled off also

[rayray086]

Welcome to the forums

To put simply, you just can't go as low on 17's

[Golf Houso]

You're right about Houso's wheels. They're 16" x 6.5" i THINK (shoot me if I'm wrong Branko!)

There's a whole heap of different facts and opinions out there to do with wheels on mk3's.

If you're riding on stock suspension, then basically the only scrubbing you will get from wheels is if you go into your body (towards the suspension) more or you change your rolling diameter. When upgrading to bigger wheels, it's most logical to keep stock rolling diameter so as to keep your speedometer accurate, so the actual circumference of the wheel and tyre combination does not change and hence has the same characteristics as your previous, and will not scrub if the previous didn't.

If you're on coilovers, then a lot of rubbing/scrubbing will more commonly occur on your wheel arches. When you drop the car to near-tyre height, your tyres might get in the way of the arches under heavy cornering or bumps in the road. There's not much to do about this other than to jack up your coils a bit and don't let it scrub!

If you're using a lowered suspension setup that ISN'T a coilover, you will still have spring seats (the bit of the strut that lets the spring sit it's ass on it, and it sticks out heaps!) that may fowl your wheels if they come in too far. This can't really be helped because most suspension setups aren't height adjustable if they're not coilovers. Best thing to do is get smaller wheels unfortunately!

A very common rule to abide by is the +1 rule for golf generations. This is what's considered the maximum GOOD wheel setup on the golfs:
mk1= 15" wheel
mk2= 16" wheel
mk3= 17" wheel
mk4= 18" wheel
mk5= 19" wheel

And in my personal opinion, I think 16's on a mk3 with a decent drop looks best. 17's can sometimes look too big, and 15's can sometimes look too small. That said, there are definitely exceptions to that (like euro_tassie_mk1's VR with 17" BBS, or rayray086's 15" mk4 widened steel-wheels).

Have fun finding your preferred combination

Very good post, mine are 16x7, like the wheels you Mickey will be getting soon, same offsets as well ET38 all round!

Scrubbing shouldn't be an issue, we're not those guys who roll on 20's with corollas and e30 BMW's dropped into the guards. Its more an issue of tire width, as long as you don't go over 215, mind you 195/205 is better, you will not have a scrubbing issue at all. And as mentioned before, smaller wheels mean that you can go lower without scrubbing, as many people here will height adjustable suspension will attest to.