As I described in my first post about myself, I have been without a “fun” car for some time. In high school I was an avid fan of Volkswagens. I owned a MK4 GTI 1.8t auto, and a MK4 GTI 2.8 VR6 5-Speed. Both cars have a special place in my heart. The 1.8t because it was my first car and started my love for the Wolfsburg brand. The VR6 because it was the first car that felt truly fast and the amazing “Wookie” sound of the exhaust. After leaving for college, the GTI was no longer financially feasible for me. Being a full-time student, the required premium fuel and constant repairs were too much for a broke college kid. Long story short, I had to swallow my pride and sell my baby. I ended up getting something economical, something I thought I would never own, a Chevy Equinox. A car fan owning a crossover is basically ego death. Let it be known that the car was extremely reliable. Transporting me multiple trips across the country and through treacherous weather, the car never stranded me.  

              Going into my last semester of school I started looking for a new car. Something that will fill the vacancy in my heart left by my VR6. I knew I wanted another VW. During my 4-year hiatus in ownership, I still closely followed market trends and what the community was saying about my beloved brand. Even though I was finishing up my collegiate career, I still did not have too much money to spend. I was originally looking at buying a MK5 GTI or Jetta. Something with the 2.0t. I came across an issue, finding a clean example was deeming difficult. Almost every MK5 I looked at was previously modified or had succumbed to the harsh Midwest winters and began to rust away. Another issue began to arise in my search for a clean example of a MK5. I was beginning to not like the styling of the hatchback or sedan. In high school, I was in love with MK5s. A friend of mine owned one and I wanted to upgrade my VR6 desperately to one. Now 4 years later, in my book I believe the styling has not aged well. The MK5 is beginning to look dated and show its age. While the older MK4 with its boxier styling has started to look even more appealing to me. I began to look for a clean example of a MK4 GTI or Jetta. A task that I thought would be even harder than finding a clean MK5. It ended up not being as difficult as I thought. I found a clean Jetta from California with only 75k on it. I immediately messaged the seller to schedule a test drive. The only modifications the car had, were that it was sitting on coil overs and an upgraded pioneer radio. 2 modifications that I would do quite early in the ownership myself. Test driving it, brought me back to my youth. The car was so zippy. Also, with a clean Carfax showing that the timing belt and water pump had been serviced the summer before gave me reassurance that the car would give me no trouble.

I bought the car.

Driving it home, I could not have been happier. Finally, being back in a Volkswagen after 4 years of boring crossover. But, the excitement of owning a new car quickly wore off.  I will talk about the first couple weeks of ownership in next week’s post on tachtalk.com.

See you next week,

Luke