[MrWhosane]

I'm looking to purchase my car pretty soon, with my driving test booked for next month. Hopefully I'll pass, if I don't, I'll think of that later.

Anyway, I'm thinking of getting a VW Bora, such as:

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classifi...1501?logcode=p

or

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classifi...1501?logcode=p

The first one being a 2 litre is suprisingly cheap to insure. Got a quote of £1200 fully comp with 3 named drivers with Young Drivers (Co-Op).

It looks quite good too in the SE spec, rather than base S spec on the 1.6.

Does anyone have any thoughts on Bora's, or are they just s***. Any common faults etc, as they seem to be quite cheap and look good!

[fruit_n_veg]

VW Golf with a boot, essentially. Newer VWs seem to just be a slightly different balance in terms of faults - less of them but when they do, they go with a vengeance.

[Herr]

(Original post by MrWhosane)
I'm looking to purchase my car pretty soon, with my driving test booked for next month. Hopefully I'll pass, if I don't, I'll think of that later.

Anyway, I'm thinking of getting a VW Bora, such as:

The first one being a 2 litre is suprisingly cheap to insure. Got a quote of £1200 fully comp with 3 named drivers with Young Drivers (Co-Op).

It looks quite good too in the SE spec, rather than base S spec on the 1.6.

Does anyone have any thoughts on Bora's, or are they just s***. Any common faults etc, as they seem to be quite cheap and look good!

I had one of these when it was new, they were extremely popular in USA at that time and for some reason remains an under-appreciated car in UK.

I would say it is still a very good car till today and generally that was the car that VW built to establish itself as a company no longer being "The People's car" but "The People's Mercedes" hence a lot of finishing on that car went upmarket and was generally a very well built car.

Admittedly for a 2.0l car it was rather abysmal with regard to power though it is adequate. A solid engine though and I won't worry about reliability with this engine as it is very easy to fix if something did go wrong and for the most part nothing goes wrong with it.

Common faults, generally there isn't any but do look out for wear and tear especially with regard to the the power steering and their brake servos do tend to leak. If I were to buy one I would never buy one that was built in South Africa or Brazil, I'll look out for one that was assembled in Germany as these had far better build quality, you could check where it was built by the chassis number which would start with SA.

My former car is still being driven by a distant relation, has done 240k miles since 1999, last I checked it hasn't required anything other than the usual servicing plus wear and tear parts.

[GTAMADDOG]

My sisters boyfriend has one and it's a decent car, but it does seem to like killing sensors. Electric window mechanisms can be dodgy as well. The 2.0 won't be that quick as it's the same engine used in the MK3 Golf GTI which wasn't exactly spritely to start with so the extra weight of the MK4 platform won't help things. If it's a first car though, there are much worse things you could be buying. Just make sure all the electrics work and all the lights come up and go off on the dashboard as they should like you would with any car and you can't go too far wrong.

I do know my sisters boyfriend does 500 miles a week in his due to his work and it seems to hold up quite well despite its age.

[FXX]

I own a Mk4 Golf with the 2.0 lump. As people say, it isn't quick, which helps insurance (though I wouldn't describe it as slow, and I can keep up with my friends Astra VXR on country roads), but that isn't the problem so much. It's more the fuel economy for the relative level of performance. On a long cruise I'll get 38mpg, but around town it dips well into the 20s.

It's a very comfortable, very reliable car. Just make sure the cambelt was changed at 60,000 miles - if not, it's a ~£350 job. Apart from that the engine won't let you down.