Striker223

I've been looking for one of these for a while to try a bunch of new things, diesel, manual, fail wheel drive, and high mpg. Finally found one in good enough shape that I'm happy, there is no underside rust at all somehow and no tears in the leather!

Took about 5 months of searching but we now have a 60-70mpg manual tiny car that makes turbo and chatter noises. My wife is already bothering me to allow her to daily it since she has deemed it "cute and free to fuel"

Ill post pictures and general restoration progress as I go, it's a 2001 Jetta GLS TDI 5 speed with the ALH engine and 310k mile. Already had the EGR deleted so I don't need to do that anymore, plan is a stage 3 build and replacement of anything damaged on top of a full consumable refresh.

My first impression are that of surprise at how high quality everything is, the door feel is like a car 4 classes higher and the trunk has full carpet and a metal sill. The corolla/civic/cobalt etc have nothing even remotely close to this nice and it's very surprising.....the gen after this is way cheaper. This is the first MK4 I've been around as well, all the others have been MK5/6/7s

jwong77

Congrats! Not familiar with this car, any pics?

Margate330

Me either but it sounds good.

Looking forward to a review.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

and thread title says MK4 ALH TDI



so what is it?

jetta? golf?

anyway, congrats! a 23yr old car with 310k miles on it, thanks goodness you're a mechanic with german car expertise!

Margate330

I was going to ask that too but didn't wanna feel dumb, AGAIN Haha 😂

The car gurus think we all have these abbreviations memorized.
#wedont

I'm trying to use proper hashtags like my friend Bit. Haha

Stroock639

i think he's talking about one of these



too soon junior!!! nice going i look forward to your future plans with this

Striker223

Sorry lol! I'll have pictures up in a second, and to be fair I totally did say what it is in the post guys!

Shockingly good condition, I was somewhat misled here since he claimed 230k miles in his add but I showed up to over 310k That did allow me to name my price though so it was 50% off

The ultra rare JET model

Somehow it's not been crashed, 2 owner.

I am stunned at the lack of tears, door panel is screwed up but unlike the cloth versions the leather ones are relatively easy to reglue since they don't tear

Needs cleaned, I'm going to do a full paint correction as well.

Front fenders are junk but the rest is great, underside as less rust than my LS460 aka none. I am not sure how but I am happy to have this be the case, I suspect it's from continuous oil leaks

Nicely trimmed, the fold down seats all have individual lock cylinders as does the trunk/gas release like the LS430 did

Comes with a huge amount of free parts, all struts, front complete knuckles, a spare clutch, and all 4 wheels brakes plus parking brake. Huge selling point for me since I always replace that stuff on my new to me cars

I love the chart given here, lets you know what to set tires for given load for a nice ride. I'll likely just go around at full load for MPG reasons

Lenses are okay, I will be upgrading to factory HIDs though and replacing the lenses with glass instead

Clatter factory, stupid easy to work on and insanely reliable. Currently some idiot (unknown who) ruined the engine harness at the glow plug connector and needle lift sensor so it's defaulting to pure mechanical mode.

Even has a free set of 4 tires.....that I will not be using since I choose life.

Nearly polar opposite ends of the spectrum....only way this gets worse is if I had a Bentley. Still, $1100 is not bad for 50+ mpg and a hell of a fun experience!

Striker223

You guys are getting to see a car before I do anything to it as well lol!

It will get all the usual repairs/cleaning to look correct and drive correct again, for this car in particular I am going stage 3 to raise power from 90/155@1900/3750 crank to 125/250 wheel so I don't go insane driving it. Diesels also have a nearly linear increase of MPG with power so I should also be able to break into the low 70mpg range on the highway and very easily maintain 60 or so without effort, part of the reason I bought this was to have fun with a different type of performance than usual for me. I will also be adding a full undertray to this to low drag as much as I can toward that goal.

Also, here is a list of all the options that I can get for it that were euro only.....tell me what you guys think I should get other than my must haves.

DIS display with trip computer (I am getting this)
Exterior temp sensor (I am getting this)
Comfort blinker (I am getting this)
Rain sensing wipers (Probably getting this)
HID headlights (I am getting this)
Headlight washers
Memory seat (I am getting this)
Sport suspension
Parking sensors (I want these, may get them)
Heated windscreen washer jets
Integrated pop up child seat
Satellite Navigation
Automatic climate control (I am getting this)
4motion (extremely difficult, plz no)
Power folding mirrors (I probably will get these)
Heated rear seats
Wood trim, including the steering wheel, shift ****, center stack, ash tray and leading edge of grab handles (I am getting this)
Leather wrapped hand brake (I am getting this)
Silk Nappa seats with or without Alcantara inserts in sport seats or Recaro seats
TV tuner for sat nav
Rear sunshade (I am getting this)
Integrated phone
Automatic headlight leveling

jwong77

This is great project. I always like that era of VW design. I think this was when Piech ran things there and they produced the Pheoton.

I sure wish I had your mechanics skillset. I struggle to do simple things like change the diff fluid in my S2000 :P

Striker223

Thank you much for the complements! These are very easy to work on though, I kind of bought this to have a "break" and just own something that doesn't make me angry like the Jeep sometimes does or require a lot of care. This engine is one of the best ever made to just work and I find mechanical injection systems neat. The insane MPG is just a nice side effect and should be fun to see if I can break the 1000 mile in one tank barrier.

This is most certainly the era they overkilled everything, it's very nice IMO and a stark difference vs a MK5.

TheRas900

The interior lighting on these were so neat when they came out. The interiors felt really high end, much better than the new VW products.

jwong77

I remember they had red backlighting, I thought it looked cool too.

Fizzboy7

I had many of those Jettas as loaners when I owned my Passat. That was by far the best time for VW products. Like the Passat, the Jetta was really well built and had the same build quality as more expensive models. Only downside was the back seat was tiny. I think maybe even smaller than the model it replaced. But the compact dimensions is what made that sedan so chic. The GLX trim was really slick.
One particular cool memory was dropping off my Passat for service and getting a brand new orange-red Jetta for the day. It still had the plastic wrapped around everything, which gave me the fun of PDI-ing it.
Dashboard lighting was amazing on both cars. No one else dared using dark blue as a color. I always got teased the inside of my car was like a nightclub or disco. Some great (party like it's) 1999 memories!

Lwerewolf

Oh boy, a 1.9tdi bora. Das auto. Let's see if you can take the meme onslaught

Let's start.

Get a remap and fly it to the moon

...then level up and get an ibiza

Striker223

Nice lol! I am aiming for zero smoke/correct combustion, when I see someone rolling coal I just see a improperly tuned engine