Mk2 Jetta, What do I need to know.

So I visited a college friend in Cape Cod this past week. He’s a big VW guy. As long as I’ve known him he’s had some 80’s VAG product of some sort. 

Long story short, I took interest in his ‘91 Jetta GL. He thought about it for a while and decided he needed to thin the herd and just gave me the car. So now I’m an owner of an ‘80s VW. Don’t know if I’m crazy or what. 

Anyways, the chassis itself has 277k on it and is actually fairly clean for a New England car, though the paint is tired. It does have a few spots of surface rust bubbling up on the deck lid around the license plate surround. He said the underside looks pretty good, no major rust. It needs a few here’s and there’s, but nothing major. 

It’s a 1.8L w/5-Speed. Timing belt and Water Pump were replaced about 10k ago. There’s about 40k on the clutch. It does run and drive! 

It has a bunch of modifications and this is what he told me:

1.8L motor with a milled and ported 2.0L Crossflow head. 

Polyurethane Bushings up front. 

Neuspeed lowering springs. 

Mk3 Front Brakes

Mk3 Transmission 

GTI 16v Grille with Kamai lower grille insert.

Factory BBS wheels 

Factory Recaro seats. 

Techtonics 2.25” Stainless exhaust. 

So anyways, I have to go back out and pick it up at some point, but overall it seems like a pretty nice car. 

I've had two. Good stuff: more practical and modern than the Mk1, and better than the Mk3 in almost every concievable way. Fun to drive and gets good MPG. Big aftermarket.

Bad stuff: they rust. The rear brake calipers will seize if you look at them from the wrong angle. Electrical system is flaky even in the best of times, make sure all the grounds are cleaned thoroughly. Random things will break at random times, seemingly without reason (window regulators, starters, ignition switches, door handles, etc).

Good beasties  - I have had three of them.  Happy to help with a few bits of needed.  My last on was a carat with a 2.0 3A bubble block in that same blue.

offer still stands.

In reply to Mndsm :

Yeah I'm still keeping it.

That’s a nice car with nice mods.

There solid fairly light cars with decent power. Rust is the killer in the NE, and electrical can be a pain in my experience. VW still stocks stuff and the aftermarket is still pretty good. Lots of VW forums but I general only visit those when I have too. 

Be carefully as once you get one they multiply. (My driveway has 3 VW’s currently and I use to consider myself a V8 rwd guy)

I didn't really have problems with the electrics in my Golf, but it was a US build car.  VW sourced a lot of components for the cars locally, so German built cars are different from US built are different from Mexico etc.  (Or was it Brazil?)

You will have to rebuild the shift linkage frequently.  It's a somewhat bizarre linkage contraption that works brilliantly to isloate shifter motion from drivetrain rock.  It also relies not just on two or three Tinkertoy rods that wear rapidly, but also the main rod coming forward from the shifter slides/rotates in a bushing that likes to fail, and then there's the infamous "golf ball" on the end that I got fed up with and machined a solid one out of a hockey puck (drilled through the center, inserted bolt and nut, chucked the bolt in a drill press, and used a file to get the right shape).  Best "mod" ever.

Color me jealous!   Nice looking car and they do have their quirks.  I drove a 1986 GTi 8v for a couple of years.  No AC, manual steering, manual sunroof and windows.  It was still a fun car.  There are solid bushing kits for the shifter (USRT)  and get a weighted shift link from an A3 Golf/Jetta 4 cylinder.  Fix what breaks and drive the car.  

noddaz

Parts are cheap, too.  I brought an A2 back to life for a friend.  Two axles, waterpump and pump housing, and a timing belt.  Parts cost was $180.

I'm a bit jealous, truth be told.  That generation was the last of the "good" VWs in my opinion.

Nice. I'm starting work on a '91 Golf, but haven't learned much more worth sharing other than that they are cool cars and put together much better than the Mk4s. We need a side view that shows those wheels.

Nice car! Congratulations. I almost bought a GLI of that generation about 15 years ago, I remember it having really nice driving dynamics. 

rattfink81 said:

That’s a nice car with nice mods.

There solid fairly light cars with decent power. Rust is the killer in the NE, and electrical can be a pain in my experience. VW still stocks stuff and the aftermarket is still pretty good. Lots of VW forums but I general only visit those when I have too. 

Be carefully as once you get one they multiply. (My driveway has 3 VW’s currently and I use to consider myself a V8 rwd guy)

Well this one’s coming home with me to the Midwest, it actually will have a garage it can be in. 

This is really just going to be a “beater”. I don’t want to use my truck for car things when I’m off the road, so this will be nice to run errands in and such. 

I loved my mk2 GTI. 

These were my favorite places, but that was over 20 years ago:

Techtonics Tuning

Parts4vws

You have me looking at craigslist and vwvortex forums classifieds. These cars dried up. 

Slippery said:

I loved my mk2 GTI. 

These were my favorite places, but that was over 20 years ago:

Techtonics Tuning

Parts4vws

Thanks for those links, I bookmarked both of them!

Slippery said:

You have me looking at craigslist and vwvortex forums classifieds. These cars dried up. 

People parting out good cars because they don't feel like fixing them will do that.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid said:

In reply to Mndsm :

Yeah I'm still keeping it.

I'll double that. I need me a Gramma cah.

They are one of those cars that everyone should own. They don't do anything well besides ooze character, but everything it does do it does "good enough." You'll work on it a lot, and curse at it a lot, but you'll love it. My first VW was a MK2, a '91 GLI I bought back in 2001. I cherished that car but even at 10 years old it was a nightmare of epic proportions. I didn't learn from the experience and bought a '97 GTI VR6 that was also dumb as balls but made delightful sounds. 

Short version: The Mk2 experience is basically the E30 experience but slower and more things break off in your hands.

In reply to ebelements :

I have owned my mk2 over a decade. I’ve had everything apart multiple times and it’s had been both diesel and gas with multiple turbo set ups on each.

They are a fun car that are getting harder to find. Check the sub frame for rust. Throw a cam in the 8v if it doesn’t already have one and enjoy the ownership experience. Also buy an AAA membership.

A good friend of mine was into the Mk2 Jetta scene back in the late 90's when we were in high school. He had a 1988 GL in the same blue color as the one you posted, another blue 2 door with an automatic (sacrilege!), and a black 1991 GLI.

Out of all of them, the original 1988 GL was the best and most dependable of the bunch. It was a 5-speed car, and we beat the ever loving crap out of it every single day. Our favorite thing to do was to engage "Rally Mode". Our town was digging up and repaving a lot of streets at the time, and he would do this thing where he would jack up the headrests on the seats as soon as the tires touched gravel, and I'd start barking out turn navigation while he mashed the gas pedal. That car took every ounce of abuse without a second thought and kept asking for more. It was also the king of "rollback burnouts", where you roll back down a hill and pop the clutch to get the tires spinning. We once did one so ridiculous that we had to get out of the car from all the rubber smoke, laughing hysterically. It died an untimely death when he was away at college and his sister was driving it and T-boned a Suburban. She hit it dead center and knocked the Suburban on its side!

I don't remember much about the 2-door, other than it had some stupid illegal "rainbow" headlights and that we got it up to 100mph on the highway once. He didn't keep it for long after finding the GLI.

The GLI, on the other hand, was plagued with issues. He had problems with the brakes first; it kept locking up calipers. Then, the cylinder head needed to be rebuilt. And to add insult to injury, the syncros in the transmission started to go. It had half the mileage that the '88 GL had, and it was a massive disappointment.

To me, the Mk2 cars were good cars. They were simple, fun cars, especially the 8V ones. I say go for it.

So I went back to pick the car up this week and unfortunately a massive snafu with U-Haul, I wasn’t able to bring the car home, luckily I was able to take a trailer out and make some money, so it wasn’t all for nothing.

My buddy left me the key and the title, so I went back and started it up and let it run for a while. Runs great, moves under its own power, so I’m not worried about that. 

So the previous owner that my buddy sold the car to before he bought it back, decided to put Chinese HID headlights in there, so those are going to go. Plus, they only come on when the brights are turned on, so that will have to be sorted out. On top of that, both headlights are clouded up and one has condensation on the inside. Both of the spotlights have conveniently dechromed their reflectors, so all the lights will have to be replaced. The fog lights also don’t work, so I’ll have to look into that. 

Rust wise, this was the extent of it. I looked underneath the back and besides surface rust on the pinch welds and such, it was pretty clean. 

The interior definitely needs new carpet and at some point critters got in it, so it stinks a little. No radio and missing door speakers, though it’s wired and ready to go. The blower motor for the heater doesn’t work, but I can deal with that later. All the seats however are in really good shape. Dashboard is cracked, but it looks like replacements are of no avail. 

Trunk has no carpet, so I’ll have to figure that out as well. I also get a spare BBS wheel. 

Hopefully I’ll get this thing titled soon so I can rent a tow dolly and then I can go pick it up in the next few weeks. 

Any update on this?