A new car, well new to me.... :-)

Soooo, i bought this....

The Pasta Wagon was on borrowed time ever since the need for an extra child carrying space became an issue and also since it never really shook of the problems that arose after the last visit to the workshop. It needs a service, brake fluid change, 4 tyres, the fuel pump has started whining a bit when the tank gets low, it uses a stupid amount of oil, there is always some error code logged in the system, it generally just isn't very exciting to drive, own or work on.
The Pasta Wagon is off to the auction house that we just happen to have as next door neighbours. I really don't have time to sell a car and deal with the inevitable idiots who will pretend to want to buy it. Plus if the engine blows up after i sell it it won't be my problem it will be the auction companies problem. I might not get a s much for it as i would a private sale but ooooohhhh so much less hassle it should be.

So back to the albeit temporary replacement... Another VW but this time a Golf from 1991 ! so ten years in the right direction.

The guy bought it new in 1991, he was 70 years old then.
His son was now selling it on his behalf but it was badly advertised with no real description and only three small pictures of the exterior, other than stating a low mileage the only other "selling" points were that the cam belt needed changing and that the rear bumper had no insides, it is just the plastic cover, steel part has been cut out! Odd.

Anyway his mistake was my gain.

Here we have a 1991 Golf CL 1.6 which has done only 47200km from new! (ca. 29000 miles)

It was delivered from the dealers without a radio too! How fantastic is that.
Factory slide sunroof too, which I must admit I didn't see until after I picked it up and Silje pointed it out.
It starts effortlessly, but there is no PAS so takes a bit of getting used to after far too many miles in a modern.

As bought.

There is indeed no record of the cam belt ever being changed so that is obviously priority number one to get done.

It has a few parking dents on the rear quarters and the rear panel but otherwise is completely rust free. The old guy kept all the paperwork so I even have the original bill of sale, this also shows that the extra lights in the grill were added by the dealer before delivery.

It seems he'd had a go at giving it a good polish a few years ago but not cleaned it off the plastic on the doors and bumpers, hence the white staining.

When I picked it up it still had what I think were the original Michelen ZX L tyres, (according to the DOT codes on the side walls) except for one at the rear which was a newer Falken from 2005. So I needed new tyres ASAP. I did drive it the 5kms or so home on the Michelins though without any problems.

Week 48 1990 !!

So a quick trawl of the local ads threw up 4 nearly new tyres on MK3 golf rims so the added bonus of an increase from 13" to 14". They are ET45 though against the ET38 originally on the car. The seller lived 5 minutes drive away so I picked them up after bartering 1000 kroner off the asking price. I think they look quite good.

A quick switcheroo

After a quick clean up it looked like this. I'm happy.



I have already changed the gloopy coolant and swapped the thermostat for good measure (another free ads bargain)

I have also sourced a secondhand bumper for the pricely sum of 100 kroner and it is booked in for the cam belt change on friday (i really don't have time to do that myself plus it wasn't as expensive as i feared, the VW garage even gave me a 15% old car discount, wow) now i just need a bit of free time to change the bumper, do a bit of dent removal, give it a proper wash and some rustproofing and i'm ready for summer motoring.