Hiya guys.

I'm going to be buying a new car when my insurance is up in the summer and I've been looking at either a mk4 golf GT Tdi or a Audi A3 Tdi. They both seem to go for the same amount of money and are about the same to insure so i was just hoping to get some extra opinions as I've never driven/ owned either.

Ill be looking at the older ones with higher mileage as i haven't got a huge budget (£2000) but i hoping that due to them being VAG diesels they will be able to cope with high mileage?

So yea, anything anyone has to separate these two cars would be great really, and if anyone can think of anything better i can get for £2000 that is a diesel that would be great too!

Thanks in advance.

Ey oop!

I have a GT TDI , tis a very nice car . Try to get a PD130 engine for the best compromise of performance and reliabilty.

I looked at A3's when shopping for mine and I will say that i prefer the golf's interior by a long way, the interiors on A3's tend not to have aged so well.

That said, if I were you, I'd push your budget as much as you can and try to find an A3 TDI Quattro....I'd trade my golf for one in a heartbeat! The plantedness of the quattro *cough Haldex cough* system with all that torque would make it a seriously good drive. TDI quattro's are pretty rare mind, so be prepared to have to hunt around.

Thanks a lot for the reply bud!

The quattro does look really nice but i think its going to be way out of my price range as I'm on a student loan. I have heard a lot of good things about the PD130 so it might be wroth my while stretching my budget to get one of those but my insurance may go up then.

When did they introduce the PD engines and how are they different to the normal diesel engines they had in the golf like the 110 or the 115 for example?

Cheers.

The PD or "pumpe duse" engine use a high pressure camshaft operated unit injector in each cylinder, unlike swirl or common rail diesel engines.

VW made 4 different "PD" outputs : PD100, 115, 130 & 150 (in PS, and 1.2 for bhp) . All other diesel engines were non-PD. The PD 115 was the earliest incarnation of this engine and the first GT TDI, and was plagued by problems with the VNT (ie N75 valve failure, turbo vanes jamming open) . These issues were resolved by 2002 when they replaced it with the PD130. The PD150 was also introduced in the later spec (2002).

NB: The TDI 90 & 110 are not PD engines. They can easily be run on chip fat though!

Make sure you get a 6 speed gearbox on yours too as it makes so much sense with these torquey motors and turns them into really great long distance cruising cars.

Edited 19 May, 201115 yr by dirt_monkey