« Reply #43 on: 23 July 2017, 15:01 »
Sounds more like he bought a shed to me.
ive got a 2005 leon which has been in the family since new. Yes ive done some work to it. A CV joint, bottom arms(bushes) track rod ends and a wheel barring in the past 6 years ive had it. But the parts are cheap, a total cost of less than £100 so far. To have this as a backup car and one i use in the winters, tips and dirty jobs costs me less than £500 a year inc insurance, tax, mot etc, depreciation has being next to nothing In my ownership. Yet people will run new cars and have issues as can often be seen on this site and pay £2-300 a month.
I know a couple friends of friends who have bought mk5 R32s in the past 6 months who have had no issues but I know they did their homework first and checked the cars for common issues first including what you listed.
The car is actually quite a tidy original one but unfortunately they're getting quite old now and if you want to get them back into mint condition then unless you've been lucky enough to find one with an enthusiast owner who has spent far more than regular maintenance on it then you're looking at spending a good few quid.
This particular example has all its original paint, no rusty wings and a decent history but until you've got the thing up on a ramp you can't be sure everything underneath is like new. A lot of the money, in fact most of the money has gone on labour charges using the top local indie guy so we're talking not far off VW dealer money and using all original VW parts. It soon mounts up.
i'm selling my 06 mk5 in a couple of months, full sh but needs cambelt doing and a few little bits and only has 61k miles, anyone know what it would be worth... i'd keep her but i need a car with auto high beam 
Spending £30k to get auto high beam could be deemed a bit excessive!

Good mk5's still have a decent following and don't hang about in the classifieds long. Depending on what else needs doing to the car you've got to be looking at between £4k and £6k I'd think.

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‘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