SA To Buy or Not To Buy VR6

[stevoooish]

Hi all,

I have never owned a WV but I am looking at buying a 1995 VR6.
200,000kms
The bad:
no heater core
Rear central not in function
3 x electric windows dont work
un known brake fail front left. Most likely disk or caliper fracture

The good:
Serviced
great panels
good interior
great paint
new ac comp

Love some feedback should I enter into this unknown territory.?
What do u think it would be worth as owner said "make me an offer"?

Many thanks

[stevoooish]

Bumpti

[The_Hawk]

A VR6 is going to be expensive to maintain. But that sound!!! It's awesome.

Off the top of my head:

* Electric regulators are about $250 each NEW (don't screw about with 2nd hand) assuming the motors are still good.
* The heater core is very cheap... getting at it is a real pain. Expect to pay near $1,000 for someone else to do it for you or a good weekend doing it yourself.
* Central locking is driven by an air pump. It's either the pump failing OR the are lines cracked. You can try and track down which pipes are busted to fix it through trial and error and/or replace the pump... plan B is after market remote central locking.
* Brake Fail??? Do you have any more details?

Other likely things to go soon if they haven't already been replaced:
* Coil Pack
* Leads
* Crack Pipe
* Water Pump
* AC Compressor
* Fuel Pump

(With the exception of the crack pipe I replaced all of those parts (including the heater core and window regs) in my VR6 before moving it on).

To be fair it's an almost 20 year old car and once most of these things are fixed you should get another 10 years out of them without issue. You just have to be prepared for things to start falling over. In many respect buying a VR6 with issues gives you negotiating leverage and a known place of where to start rather than a surprise when that *mint* VR starts falling about on day 4.

Is it Auto or Manual? The auto's tend to fail and be very expensive to repair or you look at a manual conversion.
Does it have any rego? Not sure how things work in SA? Pink Slip? Road worthy? Testing etc?

Given a decent example is ~$5k and your at least a few grand in the hole fixing up the known issues I'd be wanting it for under $2k before I'd personally want to take a punt. But then that's probably a bit cheeky Can't hurt to offer silly low money though, it at least gives you a starting point to work up from and you never know they may take it just to get it off their driveway.

[stevoooish]

Fantastic information. Thank you The_Hawk