2000 VW New Beetle GLS

f150smith · 04-12-05, 12:55

Hello autopians.

I'm looking at buying my 18y/o a used 2000 VW Beetle with less thank30k miles on it. Do any of you have any experience with the new model beetles. Any comcerns with the mechanical or reliablitly aspects of these new "bugs". It is bright yellow with leather interior and appears to be in sound cosmetic and mechanical condition. Any input both good and bad would be appreciated

Thanks

Al

mtwedt · 04-12-05, 04:03

I bought my 18 year old a 2000 GL with 22K on it in excellent condition. It an incredibly solid, heavy car for the size and I was happy with the crach test ratings and side airbags as well as the panic alarm on the key fob ( a classmate of my daughter's was attacked with a hammer in shopping mall parking lot in broad daylight and used her panic alarm to attract attention, which it did) They are fun to drive and have a remarkable amount of room and flexiblity in the interior. The salesman at the dealership said the tape player could not be changed out to a CD player because of the curved line of the console where the deck resides. I had a nice little single CD player installed by Car
Toys for about 220.00 and it fits beautifully in there. It gets excellent gas mileage and gets into small spaces with ease. Girls love these cars. The 30K service was 440.00 which I thought was rather spendy. I've had to have the rear brakes done a 32K, which I thought was ridiculous and told my daughter to focus on proper downshifting. The tires on these cars are 16"! More expensive to replace and certainly more work to clean around! There has been no engine type trouble at all in 1 1/2 years of ownership. I agreed to buy it for its safety, reliablilty and good mileage...all of which it has delievered. It is not the cheapest car to maintain obviously. Since it is German, it is somewhat overengineered, which adds to maintenance costs. The most painful thing about it is the way my daughter treats it. She says she loves her car and then does not take car of it. I detailed her car earlier this year and it took me about 30 hours spread over 5 days! The car comes complete with German clearcoat!

AndyA6 · 04-12-05, 04:12

You might want to check some other websites such as vwvortex.com

f150smith · 04-13-05, 08:20

Thanks for the replies. I will do a goggle and also search the vwvortex site.

KevinA · 04-13-05, 08:40

I had a 2000 Beetle with the turbo engine. The Beetle is a great car when everything works, but I had to bring it in to the dealer more times in the two years I owned it than all of my other cars combined.

There seemed to be something wrong all the time - some sort of valve went out and cause a check engine light, the power window regulator broke, the latch on the arm rest broke and they had to replace the entire arm rest. Once the warrenty was over, it was gone.

I did love how it drove though. I just don't have the funds to support a German car habit.

GoodnClean · 04-14-05, 02:35

My mom had a Turbo Beetle. Fun car but what a service nightmare. Not only are service costs CRAZY for a $20,000 vehicle (makes my Lexus look cheap to service) but reliability was poor. They sold it at 30k because of all the problems, cracked block, leaking gas tank, all kinds of sensor malfunctions, interior plastics that peeled and terrible customer service to try and get it all cared for.

bjmiga · 04-14-05, 03:47

My wife is on her second New Beetle. She had a 2000 that she racked up 78k on in 4 years, no problems at all - just standard maintainance. We got rid of the car last fall for an 04 New Beetle Convertable. No issues so far on the new car either. Both cars have been the N/A version, so I don't know about the reliability of the turbos.