Caff's Bora 4Motion

[Caffeine]

Hey guys and girls!

I loitered the site for a few weeks leading up to the purchase of my white 2001 VW Bora V6 4Motion.

*Warning: Long story about how i came to own the car*

Admittedly, i was in the market for an Alfa 156 V6 but i randomly searched "V6" on evilbay and spotted a really nice black 4Motion that had a video included in the description(you know the one).
After watching the video, i had changed my mind on the Alfa lol.
I put the car on my watch list to see what price it sold for for future reference and it sold for $6750ish and was relisted a day later due to the seller "not getting enough money for it"?! I know better than to deal with ebayers like that so i went on the hunt for another example without to idiot seller.

I watched 3 or 4 of them for a few more weeks to guage the amount of interest their was in such a car.
I really wanted to buy a metalic blue with beige leather example in Adelaide but the seller would not answer my text message, emails or phone calls

I ended up striking a deal for a silver with black leather model in Parramatta and went about booking a flight for my brother and myself, taking the day off work and gathering the cashola.
We both went flew to Sydney and caught a $75 taxi to the seller in Parramatta on the proviso that the car drove as well as it looked from the extra photo's i had the seller send me.
Upon arrival, i found the seller had already warmed up the engine and it it was also wet. Knowing a lot of the tricks of the trade, alarms immediately went off in my head. There was an oil leak from the rear of the gearbox when i looked under the car and when he lifted the bonnet, i noticed some DIY electrical work. On startup, it almost did not want to idle and was rather lumpy. I decided to take the car for a drive anyway...
The car would not engage 1st gear and when it finally did, it then refused to go into reverse. He tried showing me the "trick" to getting it into gear but it need a lot of force to do so. So yeah, i basically flew 1000km on his word that the car was faultless. Needless to say, i walked away from it after being insulted by the Lebanese guy trying to sell it to me.

I called in a favor from an old friend in Canberra as i used to live there a few years ago. He picked us up that evening and while i waited, i hit the evilbays and Gumtree in a mad scramble to buy a car. At that point, Alfas were back on the cards and were actually priority. I spotted a newly listed white 2001 Bora V6 4Motion in Murranbateman which is about 20km outside of Canberra so i gave the guy a call and organized to view the car in the morning.
The car was owned by a 21 year old who wanted to "upgrade" to a Commodore. The car looked ok so i took it for a drive. Other than some slightly sloppy suspension, a cracked windscreen and an odd rattle in the rear(suspected exhaust rattle of some sort), the car was good. There was a huge difference in shifter feel between this car and the silver one i had seen the day before. I could actually feel the gates and when it engaged a gear instead of just slopping around in there.

Dealt with the guys father as the guy was recovering from his 21st birthday party the night before. The advertised price was $6500 but i organized to view the car based on me only being able to offer the same $5k that the Parramatta guy was asking. His father told me that he was hoping that i actually had more money and that after seeing and driving the car, i would be willing to offer more than the $5k i had on me. I was not... Not that i did not want to, i did not have anymore money available to me.
I flashed the $5k and told his father that i was headed back into Canberra with plans to have lunch with my father who traveled in for the day from Goulburn. After that, i was booking my train/plain ride back up north.
We got 1 km away before i received the phone call from his son telling me to turn around and pick my new car up

*End long story*

So there ya have it!

I drove it home to the Ballina Byron region which gave me a fair indication of the condition of the car. We figured out that it needed all suspension looked at and the crack in the windscreen meant that i would have to replace that before i could blue slip the car.
On the drive home, i went over the log books. The car was purchased in Parramatta in October 2001 and the log book had been maintained till late 2011. Everything post 2011 was handed to me in a paper folder. I found out that the car has had receipts for $11,500 spent on driveline replacement since 2011 including diff, gearbox, flywheel, clutch, drive shafts, tail shaft and a bunch of other stuff so that made me happy to know that i should not have to spend any large amounts of money in those areas any time soon(touch wood).

I priced a windscreen from the local VW reseller. The price was $425 for the glass alone!?!??!
Had a local glass guy replace it and the gel pack(?) for $330 in the end just to get it done. Apparently the gel pack has something to do with the automatic wipers but i don't even know how to enable that function lol. Have to look it up.

I have posted a few question regarding wheels and suspension in the forums and i had initially intended to place an ECS order from the US of A but with the help of you guys, i realized that i had been loking at parts from the Jetta VR6 list and not the R32 list. It was then it became apparent that my ECS order was about to double in price
I dropped into the local Super el Cheapo, i ordered front and rear "sports" suspension, rack ends, control arms and strut tops. The total was around the $800 region but they told me that the parts would be available for pickup on Monday or Tuesday.

There was also a cracked side mirror housing which played with my OCD so i went about finding a replacement. I ended up buying a pair of carbon fiber full replacement housings(not snap on covers) for $125 off evilbay(sorry if i outbid any of you guys for those lol).

I also picked up a second hand grill from Gumtree as the standard grill had been hit with a matt black pressure pack at some stage and was starting to flake. It looks like an Oettinger replica to me but it has a "Kamei" badge attached to the mesh. I fitted it today but im not sure how i feel about it to be honest. I will wait and decide if i will paint the grill, wrap it with a carbon fiber resin kit or leave it black in hope that it suits the car when i finally fit some wheels which i had planned to be gloss black.

Planned modifications:
Headlight lens fix/replacement
18" black centered, dished wheels with a polished rim
Suspension mods to suit the wheels(springs initially and coilovers if the springs don't cut it)
Replace the interior wood grain trim with wither carbon examples or brushed aluminum
Cat back exhaust
Possibly a carbon fiber boot lid spoiler(if i retain the carbon theme)
Paint(needs some spots repaired along with some front bar re-aligning)
New chrome exterior trim
Front seat retrim

Not looking to reinvent the wheel with my build, just looking for something that is nice and rewarding to drive and does not attract too much attention for all the wrong reasons.
On that note, please PLEASE tell me if i am making my ride too ricey. I went down the Euro track to space myself from my Japanese automotive past so forgive me if i revert to that momentarily, i will try not to though

Thats it for now. If i am not too busy with work or my sim racing, i will try to keep my thread up to date when i do anything with the car.

Any and all comments or advise is appreciated

Pic dump!

[Bernoulli]

I was in the same situation as you, looking at Alfas until I stumbled across a 4motion Bora on eBay... I'd never heard of them!

Yours looks nice mate, will be keen to see your progress with it.

[Caffeine]

Thanks Bernoulli,

I would have got an Alfa if every second search result was not about the lack of reliablity.
Even though black leather or white paint were my least preferred options, i don't regret buying the car

Can anyone comment on my ride height and headlights appearing to be factory spec?

[Bernoulli]

Both look ok to me? Here's mine... Don't have a better pic on my phone of the ride hight.

[blake_]

Can anyone comment on my ride height and headlights appearing to be factory spec?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9940[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]9941[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]9942[/ATTACH]

On headlights, looks like a half joey mod on stock 4mo headlights?

[dylan8]

yep headlights have been half done. this car rings a bell for some reason...

[Caffeine]

Thanks Bournoulli.
Thats a real clean 4Mo you have there mate. Your car also helped me see that my new grill is not a Oettinger copy but something different.
Still not sure i like it black. I will probably end up painting it white.

@ dylan8
Joey modding is just painting certain parts of the inner light right?
I figured they had been painted but though i should ask the people in the know in case VW did something i had not seen yet.

Quick update.

The shocks ordered from Supercheap were not the right part

I was trying to diagnose an odd rubber sounding squeak coming the front left wheel when i found that the bolt that goes through the bottom of the strut had all but fallen out!?
It was not even finger tight. It was about 5 threads from completely exiting the car. I had a wheel alignment and suspension check done about 3 weeks ago. That is something i though they would have picked up on? Or maybe they cause it somehow?

Anyway, thats when i pulled out the replacement strut to make sure they had given me the right part as somehow, i knew they would not deliver. I'm pretty sure it is the wrong part as there was no way of connecting that rod from the sway bar(?) to the shock tower.

That gave me a bad taste in my mouth as i had just spent $800ish dollars at Supercheap so i could have all the parts for the weekend so i can start getting the car ready for a Blue slip. I am taking all the parts back in attempt of getting all my money back tomorrow after work.
If that works out, i think i will do what i should have done in the first place and just order from ECS or this Seb guy i keep hearing about.

I noticed an add in the for sale forums regarding an EOI on wrecking an A3. I'm guess that none of the suspension would be any good to me?

[dylan8]

Sounds like you have none 4mo/r32/s3/tt 4mo struts. All other fwd cars have sway bar connection to the control arm.
Yeah someone has just painted them aftermarket, although I do believe some late gli boras came with the lights have painted (doubt yours would be those as your beam pattern would be way off)

[Caffeine]

I spent an hour arguing with the manager from Supercheap this afternoon getting my refund.
The guy was fine with refunding the parts till he looked at the price. Then he became a Fu*king looser!
Got the money after a whole lot of him calling all sorts of people in an attempt to have them tell me that they were the right parts. All the while, i kept offering to take him out to the carpark and show him the difference. Anyway, done now

Now i need to speak to this Seb guy before i order from ECS. I did see his mobile number on the forums somewhere recently but can not find it for the life of me now? Can anyone give me his number or pass mine onto him for me?

[dylan8]

Iv had a blank on his forum name. Euro something?, trickysimon might know.
Otherwise check out Tim at dub addiction, although he is in Vic

[Bernoulli]

https://www.facebook.com/EuroAutomotiveGirraween - has his mobile on that page

[Caffeine]

So it has been a while since i updated my thread.

I purchased factory struts/shocks from my local VW dealer as i was sick of local sellers not wanting/being able to sell me the correct parts. The car has now been blue slipped and now has NSW rego
It cost an arm and a leg but it had to be done before the ACT rego ran out and all tempts at buying anything else from anyone else failed. It was a case of do it or be without a car till the suspension could be sorted enough to pass rego.
The car passed without changing the strut tops somehow. Must have been a squeak free afternoon for them lol.

Now it is time for some better suspension

It took a while to find the right parts from the right supplier that was willing to deal with me. It seems i had some bad luck with people wanting to sell me things locally. Either they took a week to reply to my emails/messages or they simply did not return emails at all so they left me no choice but to hit the International parts distributors.
I initially made a purchase from FK but they messaged me back after payment to tell me that the coilovers i purchased had just ran out of stock and would not be available for 8 weeks. After going through the other options, my order was simply canceled with a general explanation. I did not bother reordering and waited 2 weeks to get my paypal refund.

Eventually i ordered from ECS like i should have done 2 months ago instead of attempting to buy local.

ST X Performance coilovers with fixed dampening were my first choice but after ordering, i was informed that ECS have a deal with ST whereby they will not sell their products to buyers outside of the USA. The same applied to KW products unfortunately.

Koni 1150 series were my second choice but the sale price had returned to the regular price the day prior to my order mix up so they had returned to $1411.00 which was outside of my budget.

H&R Street Performance with adjustable dampening is what i ended up purchasing. Unfortunately, they had to get them in stock before shipping so i had to wait 10 days.

Along with the coilovers, i also purchased the following...
Headlight lens replacements(i had the foggies).
Ariel replacement (mine had snapped off).
Cabin filter replacement.
ECS Billet Hood pull(currently latch is zip tied)
Strut top Nut Wrench(may as well for $16 while i am ordering)
Factory replacement strut tops and bearings.

I was not sure if i needed these in addition to the coilover kit and my current strut tops squish, sqeel and squeek really bad so i figured it would be wise to have them around regardless.
My order is set to ship Monday US time and if the USPS shipping quoted time is to be believed, i could have the shipment by Friday which means i could possibly be fitting the parts withing a few days which coincides with my birthday! yay!

Other than all that news, i replaced the centre console latch and springs with a $3 ebay unit. Best $3 i have spent on the car so far lol.

I also found some 2004 Jetta tailights on ebay.com that i picked up for what i would call an acceptable price considering the $60 postage price so in they went.

I am still not sold on the grill style or color...

Oh yeah! and yesterday after work i dropped into the local exhaust shop and had the factory rear can hacked off and replaced with a right to left strait though(ish) muffler and dual 2" tips. The decision to do this was entirely based on me barely being able to hear the car and nothing to do with any possible power increase. To be completely honest, i have not even looked to see what size inlet or outlet the muffler had but the shop told me that it was the same diameter as the factory piping(whatever that is). They did mention that there was a really badly beaten section of piping between the resinator and the rear muffle. Apparently it has a really flat bottom
I will be paying the exhaust shop another visit to get that sorted some time in the non too distant future.

Needless to say, i can now hear the car and some of the potentially awesome sound the VW V6 is known for. It is a little bit "boomy" down low which i do not like at all but it does have some nice growl above 2500rpm and then again at around 4000rpm. I have not revved it over 5500rpm as yet lol.
I am considering deleting the resinator or at least flanging either side of it so i can try a few different options in there. When initialy considering a new exhaust and thinking about the possible end result in exhaust note, i thought i would hate the crackling and popping related to not have a res but now i am thinking that might solve my "boomy" note albeit with a possibility of being more annoying but i am willing to try it out.

Not much else to report for now until my ECS order arrives so i will just put up a pic of the new tailights which also includes the new white plates that i opted for...

[djorkboy]

So this is my old car. Still miss it every day, even after all the trouble it caused me.

I bought it from a German guy in Bilgola in June 2011, he was selling it because his daughter was about to get her Ps and he didn't want her driving a car that fast. It had just got a new clutch and some suspension work done before I bought it. It had 167,000kms on it at that point. I had looked at much lower mileage Boras but they all seemed thrashed.

In the 17 months I owned it I had the rear diff rebuilt twice (first guy managed to press the bearings in crooked), engine mounts replaced after the engine tried to get out (guy who changed the clutch forgot to put two of the bolts back in), all the worn bushes replaced, Haldex serviced and more.

I discovered after buying it that all of the recent services had been done by a mechanic who believed that anything done at service interval other than an oil change and maybe some spark plugs was just the evil car companies trying to rip you off. I had it serviced at Canberra VW Centre Belconnen and did 5000km oil changes myself.

All up I spent about $7000 on the car in the time I owned it. I painted the grille because I think body coloured grille's are an abomination best left in the 90s, would have to sand it and touch up every few months. This was just before the plastidip craze. I also did the Joey mod headlights. The original headlights were foggy so I found a pair of almost brand new ones on eBay for $200 (thank-you mis-spelled eBay listing), and did the joey mod on them. I also removed the badges from the boot, never seen a road car with some much writing on it, still have all the letters in my toolbox.

When I bought the car I had a nice cushy corporate job in Sydney with a cruisy 30km daily commute, but 6 months later I was in Canberra starting up a new business and driving 500-700kms a week. I probably wouldn't have bought the car if I had known where I was going to end up.

When I sold the Bora at roughly 185,000kms in November 2012 it had the most savage lifter tick I have ever heard. Loud enough to hear it over the radio with all the windows up at any speed. In the mornings I would let it warm up for 20-30 minutes just so it would calm down a bit before I drove it. The buyer from Murrumbatemen told me it was for his then 17 year old son who was about to finish Year 12 (not sure how he made it to 21 in less than 2 years?) but I suspected that the father is actually a mechanic and wanted a car with low parts cost/high labour cost repairs that he could do himself. You haven't mentioned the ticking lifters and, if it was still there you surely would because it was LOUD, so I'm guessing they fixed it. The buyers (whose entire family of Mum, Dad and 4 or 5 kids, turned up in a trashed landcruiser to inspect the car) looked to me more 'broken down base model commodore with fake HSV bodykit and ridiculous 20 inch rims' than your usual Volkswagen buyer, they said the son had his heart set on a early WRX but had seen the listing for the VW and wanted to take a look.

Here's how it looked when I had it

[Caffeine]

hey djorkboy and thanks for the heads up.

I did actually come across your threads one day whilst googling candy white VW Bora for some ideas on wheels. I clicked on an image of a slightly off fitted front bumper that looked a lot like my car(or is it still your car? lol) I found it funny that it was on this forum the whole time lol. Dylan did mention that the car was ringing bells for him though.
Judging by your lack of recent activity on the forum, i decided not to bother you

The same guy sold the car to me. A bit of a rough guy buy seemed pretty genuine. I would have liked to meet his son so i had a better idea of how he might have driven the car but he was hungover and it was in his fathers name anyway so i did no need him to be there.
The old man also had a Peugeot 406 coupe there when i arrived. His son wanted to "upgrade" to a V8 commodore with the funds from the VW. Really wise decision on his part lol.

I read that you had sold the wheels prior to selling the car but the main differences were that it arrived with non smoked tail lights and the VW audio setup was not in it also. Just the factory stereo with a stacker full of scratched CDs. I would really like to know more about the navigation setup if you could remember?

The suspension was stuffed when i got it and if you read my entire thread, you'll know that i had some dramas getting the correct components. I eventually got some H&R adjustable street coilovers in there and it sits really nice now. Also feels a lot less boaty on the road without being too crashy on my country pothole ridden roads.
Then i had problems with a wheel shop. Pretty much got that sorted, just waiting for the wheels to be sent back with a more fitting(literally and figuratively) offset on them.

I put some cheap floor mats in on the weekend due to the carpet needing replacement. Out of sight, out of mind for that one!
I had the rear muffler replaced also for some more volume. It sounds ok but i noticed that there is some pretty badly beaten up section of pipe just before the rear silencer that needs replacing. I'll get that done at the same place i originally got the work done who also specialize in radiators. Hoping they can repair and re-gas the air con for me on the same visit.

Replaced the VW boot badge with a blacked out item and put the black grill in it. I still have the factory one that you painted but it really needs to be pulled apart and given a good sanding back.
The rear bar needs a respray. I can see from your photos that the paint was chipped off all the way back then so you'll know that the rear bar is actually gun metal grey under that white.

I have some new headlight lenses here ready to be fitted. I have to remove the front bar to fit them though so i can have a look at putting it back on strait. I'm hoping there is nothing bent under there that will stop it being aligned properly.

Thats about it for now. I want to have the front seats re-trimmed or replaced with R32 items at some point but i am in no hurry for that. It will be more of a right price thing when the time comes.

I will do some photo updates some time over the next week

[djorkboy]

I think I'll always see it as 'my car', at least until I get another one.

I would be interested in knowing how many kms it has on it now. The suspension was the best part of it when I had it, really taut for a stock set up. Definitely had no damage to the exhaust either, I spent enough time underneath the thing to know. Maybe our friend thought 4 wheel drive meant offroader

Still, as long as the engine is running well, sounds like the last owner fixed more than he broke.

The smoked tails and oem satnav unit got sold off before I sold the car, both to members on this forum. If you are keen on a satnav set up look for grtuned on the forum, he is the mkiv satnav guru and a genuinely nice guy.

It's great too see the car ended up with a fellow enthusiast, I'd love to see more photos.


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