# Buying a Used Beetle - What should I look for?



## tjjoiner (Jul 25, 2012)

Hey Guys --

OK, so my wife was in an accident last week (12/4) and her little '97 Escort was totaled. It still drove fine, but the insurance company decided that the cost to repair was more than the value of the car. We had been thinking of buying a newer, safer car for my wife anyway. We just didn't know we'd be doing that so soon. Cars are replaceable, though, whereas my beautiful wife is not. She's OK and that's the important thing.

Well, after a bit of searching, I found a 2001 Beetle today in the local newspaper. It's yellow, automatic (neither of us can drive manual, though we'd both really like to learn how), has a sunroof, and the odometer is at 106,000 miles. The owner is asking $4900 OBO.

That's all we know so far as we haven't seen it in person, but that's going to change tomorrow morning when we check it out. Before we go, though, what should we look for? Any problem areas? I've got VAG-COM installed on my wife's laptop. Think the seller would object to us hooking the Beetle up and scanning for codes?


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## 05yellowbeetle (Jan 12, 2012)

Glad your wife is ok 

If the seller objects i wouldnt buy the car.

2 big things:
Timing belt / water pump should have been changed already and depending on when it it was done, it is getting close again. The water pump failed on my '98 at 60000 miles about 8 yrs old. Changed it on my '05 at 64000 miles, 6 years old.

2nd thing is the auto transmission which is known to fail because vw never really specified a time to change fluid or made it accessible to change.

That said, im on my 3rd beetle and love them, my '05 has over 80000 miles since ibought him 5 yrs ago. Only issue was valve body replacement by vw at 70000 miles.


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## tjjoiner (Jul 25, 2012)

It sounds like I should check for the same issues I encountered with my Jetta -- bought it and a few weeks later, the PCV hoses completely crumbled away and the transmission begain having the cold start/no upshift issue. I'll be sure to peek under the hood. Thanks!!


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## IHC (Aug 15, 2011)

Other things , non mechanical, are plugged sunroof drains . Look for windows that fog over on the inside , check the carpets for moisture. Also crushed rocker panels are only cosmetic, but are expensive to repair if you dont like looking at them.


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## tjjoiner (Jul 25, 2012)

Cosmetically, the Beetle was in great condition. It drove smoothly and my wife was really excited about it (she's always wanted a Beetle) until we noticed that the ABS light and air bag lights stayed on. When we asked the owners about it, they told us the lights were there when they bought it 3 years ago and never looked into the problem. With that, we cut our test drive short and told the owner that we'd come back later.

We brought my wife's VAGCOM-loaded laptop with us on our second test drive, however I couldn't get it to connect. Kept getting the "no response from controller" message, which I found out was because of the aftermarket CD player (something about the way it's wired). That didn't matter, though, because my wife's mind was already made up.

:thumbdown:

We passed on the Bug figuring it was better to play it safe. The air bag and ABS lights could have been a minor problem or something big, but we wouldn't have found out until after we bought it and I got the CD player rewired to do a scan. We also wondered why the owners never did anything about the lights in the 3 years they owned it and thought if they neglected those problems, they probably neglected to check things like the oil, ATF, timing belt, etc.


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## marcelozaupa (Sep 8, 2008)

If you buying a used vw, you always will find a list one ligth ON in the dash. Most vw owners ignore some of those ligths, cause the costly repair. ABS ligths as well brake ligths could be a worn brake pads, or a abs module. If the price on the car was rigth, i would taje a chance.. BTW, learn how to drive stick and get your self a stick vw. Automatic trannys r notorious to fail.


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## Rockerchick (May 10, 2005)

That's not true at all. I have zero lights on in the dash of my GTI and my Beetle always had the lights taken care of quickly. Any VW owner worth buying one from won't have lights on for years. 

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk 2


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## tjjoiner (Jul 25, 2012)

I think that a responsible owner of ANY car -- doesn't have to be exclusive to VWs and VW owners -- would at the very least go to AutoZone (O'Reilley, Advance, NAPA, etc.), a mechanic, or the dealership to find out what the problem is. What turned my wife and I away from the Beetle wasn't that there were MILs (*M*alfunction *I*ndicator *L*ights, for those of you just tuning in). It's that there were lights on and the owners couldn't tell us why.

As I said previously, the owners told us they had the car for 3 years, the lights were already on when they bought it, and that they never had them checked out because it didn't seem to be a problem. If they had the car for that long and NEVER looked into why the lights were on then what other things did they neglect to do (oil changes, transmission fluid serviced, timing belt replaced, brake pads, etc.)?

Yeah, I thought it would have been cool to have his and hers VWs in the driveway (I told the misses we could be like ketchup and mustard -- my red Jetta, her yellow Beetle), but sometimes, you've just got to put what you REALLY want aside and look at things from a more practical viewpoint.

Oh and my wife picked the '05 Hyundai Elantra GT. Of the dozen or so cars we tested, it was in the best condition, mechanically and physically.


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## marcelozaupa (Sep 8, 2008)

I have no ligths in my A4 sedan, no ligths on my A4 wagon, no ligths on my 03 beetle, no ligths on my 06 f150, no lithgs in my 01 e-350....Dont get me wrong, im not saying to go ahead and buy the car, what im saying is tat i have been around vws for a long time, and a lot of then have ligths on....and like i said, if te price is rigth, it may be worth buying and taking care of the issue, and as well do the tming belt and water pump....


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