$5,555
Chicago, Illinois
Category
-
Mileage
66500
Posted Over 1 Month
I am the original owner of this smoke-free, garage-kept VW. Note that this is a DIESEL car, and as such gets great mileage and has good performance. The 1998 New Beetle was the first car to use VW's A4 platform (the Golf and Jetta got it in 1999). 1998 TDI engines are ALH engines, which are great engines to tune. This car has such a tuned engine. Even with the tune, I still get 40mpg around the city, and in the 50s on the highway. This summer, with the A/C blasting and driving in the mountains between Chicago and Alabama, I was getting 55 mpg. This car drives like a little sports car. As they say, people buy horsepower and drive torque. Out of the box, the TDIs are 90HP. I had mine up on the dyno a few years ago, and it measured 134 HP and 272 ft-lbs of torque. Note that the base 2015 Porsche 911 gets 287 ft-lbs of torque. The performance changes were done by JasonTDI in Madison, WI. The car has been maintained by the excellent European American Motors in Chicago. All oil changes were done with diesel-spec synthetic oil, API CH-4 or better. The car has 2 sets of tires and wheels:Eagle RSAs on the original alloysDunlop winter tires on steel wheelsHere is the list of performance enhancements:Rocketchip RC3 custom tuneGarret VNT-17/22 Hybrid TurboSprint 520 injectorsTDI Parts custom SS exhaustKoni orange shocksheavy-duty clutchIn addition to that, the car has:TDI FrostHeater engine heatersteel skid plateThe short list of what's not working is indeed short:heated seatsremote trunk unlock on key fobcustom instruments (see below)This summer, I had the A/C recharged, so that's working well. A couple years ago, I had the headliner replaced (it was coming down), so that's in good shape. The interior is in very good shape for the age. There are some wear marks on the steering wheel and door handles. The driver's mat has taken some abuse. I had some excellent custom gauges installed in a cool 3-pod container in the dash. Sadly, one of the gauges blew and took the others with it. Currently, they're still installed, but i have the original dash panel and that can easily be restored. Or, you could buy new gauges and get some cool readouts going. There are already sensors installed for oil temp, oil pressure, water temp, turbo boost, and battery charge. I also have an uninstalled sensor for exhaust temp (never ended up tapping the manifold to get it installed), but you can have it if you want it. Also, I still have the original VNT-15 turbo, which you can have if you want. But note that i was having some trouble with it, solved with the 17/22 upgrade. This is no ordinary diesel Beetle. With the tuning, this car goes like mad. The 17/22 turbo provides a huge burst through 3rd gear. Even when in 5th, the turbo can get the car 20mph faster in short order. It has to be driven to fully appreciate what it can do. (The mechanics at European tell me how much they enjoy taking it out for the road test!)
Trim 2 door hatchback
