Started out smoothly enough - visited a dealer near me in North London, had a nice test drive; black 2.0 GT, vienna. friendly staff, no hassles but the car had 45k miles and this was a bit too much for me. Somehow sub 30k seemed right. Shopped around and found one, 25k on the clock, test drove it and loved it (naturally!) but a few things caught my eye.
Firstly, I was under the impression all UK GTs shipped with Interlagos 18s, and these we Spa 17s, and the chrome on the exhaust pipe was kind of charcoaled and had lost it's shine. The lack of rear parking sensors bothered me, too, as rear visibility in the back concerned me, and it's going to spend a lot of it's time in the city where space is always tight. Still, lovely car though and with this mileage and black with leather very appealing.
I asked the salesman if he could pop some Interlagos' on and sort the parking sensors out for me - the North London dealership would take £500 off their sticker price so what could he do? Well, not change the wheels, as the car came 'as is' (a kind of package deal they obviously don't want to mess around with) and if I wanted sensors that would be the same as matching their £500 off. Hmm, not really, as theirs had the wheels and the sensors already on, I thought, plus the discount. Almost at the point of walking away I managed to wangle another £100 off, we shook hands, I paid the deposit. Chuffed. The wheels would cost me less in tyres and I'm bound to kerb them at some point anyway. Hey, I'm a realist and I park on city streets.
In the week it took them to put the sensors on I had a big hunt around and found loads of info on scirocco central, so thanks for the help, folks!
Turns out I think it's one of the pack cars mentioned in another post, and is a UK spec GT. Link: http://www.sciroccocentral.co.uk/forum/ ... oys#p95694" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Went to pick the car up, the salesman said, 'Have you seen this? Try and open the petrol flap.' So I pushed it ... and it opened. "Aah, um, that's not supposed to happen - it's meant to be locked. That's the first time I've ever seen that not work." Not a biggy, and covered by warranty so it can be done at any point, though could do without another trip out!
Drove off and home, and around for a couple of hundred miles over the next day and absolutely loved it - a blip on the throttle and the motorway traffic just slides away, and the heated Viennas are just awesome after my back-acheing Rover 200s nightmares. All was good, then someone jumped out in front of me without looking and I pushed the horn. Silence. A day later I noticed the black rubber trim above the driver's side door handle was flapping off the bodywork.
I started to think I'd spent all my hard-earned money on a Friday car. I mean, at what point in VW's god-knows-how-many-point inspection did someone not press the horn? That's an MOT fail. Checked it in with VW the next day in North London. The staff were great and really understood how my initial excitement of having this awesome car had slid away with these problems.
Two days later they'd put a new clip on the rubber window seal, a new motor in the petrol flap and fixed the horn - apparently it was an ill-fitted wire that had worn through. Any help here from a rocco central pro would be good - I don't know where the wiring routes to so if anyone can expand on this or let me know what may have caused it please let me know!
They couldn't clean the exhaust trim but suggested wire wool (which would surely scratch it, right?). Can anyone tell me what could be the cause of this charcoaling? May just replace them and see if it happens again?Anyway, my sweet black GT is back now and today the snow began to thaw! So if you see me gimme a flash - I'm in the right car with the wrong wheels!
