« Reply #4 on: 01 September 2015, 13:47 »
As above, turbocharging is both the best and the worst things that happened with these cars.
You lose the instant response and character of the engine with turbocharging but when you want a bit more power out of the unit you can spend £500 - 700 on a remap and get an instant 40 - 50bhp plus lots more torque. When you think back to the mk1 you'd need at least £1000 (which would be double maybe now in real terms) just to modify the cylinder head and cam to give you extra power, which would be invariably mostly be at the top end, so then you'd need to add at least another £1500 to get the bottom end bored out to 1.9 or 2.0 so you then had decent torque to make it a much quicker on road performer. Been there and written the book.
So what we can see from the figures it that the power to weight is quite similar so the car retains a similar character of sorts; and when you consider the massive weight gain it shows how modern electronics mean that VW can still get similar fuel consumption figures out of the bigger engined heavier car.
With the mk1 it was the bodywork that rotted away making the car end up in scrap yards. The bodies tend to be much better built on the later cars (galvanised) but it's the electronic and engine failures that make it an unviable repair once it gets a few years old - you can't take a component out and replace or repair bits of it any more, instead the plethora of electronic units cost hundreds and hundreds at least to replace once they become defective meaning vehicles out of warranty are a ticking time bomb before something VERY expensive goes on them. That's why big old VW's, Audis and BMW's not to mention bigger French cars and Jap stuff depreciate so very heavily on their running and repair 'cost of ownership' liklihood. Along with affordable finance and throwaway society encouraged by the government(s) taxing older cars that aren't "green" enough despite the factories churning out probably chucking out god knows what into the atmosphere, never mind the raw materials production...
Therefore in real terms a new or newish GTI nowadays is probably far more affordable than when the mk1 was around for normal human beings, with a much higher spec to go with the extra weight.
Thankfully they come with a 3 year warranty now too unlike the 1 year with the mk1.
Logged
‘25 8.5R, ‘23 8R, ‘20 8CS, ‘19 135iX, ‘19 TCR, ‘17 Ed40, ‘17 GTD, ‘15 7R, ‘13 GTI PP, ‘11 GTI, ‘09 GTI, ‘98 Ibiza Cupra, ‘05 GTI, ‘06 Polo GTI, ‘04 GT TDI, ‘05 Fabia vRS, ‘02 GTI T, ‘03 Ibiza TDI 130, ‘01 Leon 180, ‘89 mk2 16v, ‘99 Ibiza TDI, ‘96 VR6, ‘98 Ibiza TDI, ‘92 VR6, ‘88 mk2 8v, ‘92 Polo G40, ‘91 mk2 8v, ‘89 mk2 8v, 205 GTI 1.9, ‘83 mk1 GTI, ‘80 Scirocco GTI, plus some others I’ve forgotten
