Avoid any car with an N/A 1.8 20V. The engine is SHIT! I literally mean that, I sold my GT to get an A3 because I wanted some refinement. The car itself was ok, but the engine was a complete bag of wank. No torque at low revs so the only way to make it go at all was to thrape its arse, and then the fuel economy just went out of the window.

VW themselves admitted it was a crap engine when they quietly dropped it and went back to the good old 2.0 8V with a crossflow head. The only decent 1.8 20V is one with a turbo bolted to it.

Incidentally, I put up with the A3 for all of 6 weeks then managed to wangle a straight swap for a Corrado 2.0 8V. The Corrado is slower in all respects on paper but feels so much faster. Plus the drive is a whole load more fun, and, well its a Corrado :)

If you've got £2k to spend there are far better alternatives. If you're not great with cars then something like a sorted GT would be a great buy, you can get a minter for £1k, which leaves you a grand change, and the cars themselves are so simple that you can teach yourself a lot about them just by owning one. They're very reliable and are a lot of fun even as standard. Just watch the handling Or spend some ££ on a subframe and wishbone kit.

Tom

Thank's so much for the reply Tom, exacly the kind of stuff i needed to be told! You just saved me a couple of grand! Thanks my man!

No worries! Just don't want someone to make the same mistake as me, although I was lucky because I got a cracking Corrado out of the deal, but it could have been a lot worse!

In principle the 1.8 20V is great, it just doesn't work in practice really, and as people have said the A3 is a pretty boring drive, its just too remote from the road to be involving in any way unfortunately.

I hope you manage to find something to suit your needs.

Tom

get the vr, you know it makes sense.