LMS - New Beetle, and may the gods have mercy upon me

A certain dear family member is clearly and utterly disinterested in anything remotely car related.... EXCEPT a Beetle, ideally pink but red or orange will do.  Thus for reasons best left to your imagination, I find myself casually shopping for one of these pigboats.

I've gathered that they don't have the greatest reputation, and something about removing the entire front clip to replace a bulb.  I've owned a dozen or more German cars and know enough not to try to defend this purchase on logical grounds.

My instincts are leading me to the later 1.8T cars, because BOOST and who needs 5-cyl reliability?  My preliminary research indicates that you could not get a DSG box with a gas engine in the US.  That's too bad, I like VW's DSG a lot.  Sadly neither TDi nor 3-pedal cars are a good match for this application.   Budget is $10k - less is better but more isn't ruled-out.  Agnostic with regard to coupe/conv. - as long as I don't have to replace a top (PTSD - 3X previous VW conv owner).  Light duty - maybe add 10,000 miles over the next 3-4 years.

I would have routine hooning and tinkering rights - maybe a mild tune, RSB, wheels and tires... will Mk7 big brakes bolt on to this barge?

So imagine you're out to build a pink Beetle for your Granny, but you want to borrow it on Sundays for autocross.  Where would you start?  What would you try to avoid?  

I know nothing other than Porsche turbo twists look hot on them

I'd go with the hardtop for this situation simply because it should be less expensive to purchase and there's no potential repairs to make regarding the roof.  
A normally aspirated motor would be less complex as well and *perhaps* offer more reliability.

Inexpensive to purchase and maintain, and reliable seem to be what's most important for the potential owner.

Nonetheless, I'm posting a "did you even read the requirements?" pic of one cool Beetle design from a few years ago. 
 

In reply to bludroptop :

So are you buying this for you or your family member?  Why spend money and risk reliability on the turbo model for someone who only likes the looks of the car?  I'm betting the base performance is more than fine for most traffic, especially for a person who isn't actually interested in cars.

Let alone the lower cost of living with it- fuel economy and insurance.

I rented a 2.5 automatic one once and it was actually pretty good.  Otherwise I'm not sure, I would avoid the others except the manual diesel ones but that won't work for what you need.  The 1.8t seems a bit much for a non car person, they did come in orange from the factory though.

Clarification - the car would live here and I would share it... it would replace a perfectly fine and boring existing Granny car.  And its going to be mostly depreciated already.  I'll get most of my money back when we move on - cost of doing business is factored into the fun potential.  

Slippery - you made me look.  I was going to need a moment if these cars were 5x130, but no.  Agree that one looks sweet.

Given your/her use case (and speaking as a recovering former VW owner) I vote for sticking with aspro (2.slow or 2.five) and bone friggin' stock. Just make sure the suspension is tight (bushings, dampers, etc) and put some summer sport tires on it.

I support the fast beetle option as the 1.8t can be rowdy and reliable (german reliable) for very little money.  The convertibles are really cool places to be if you find one.

I've never played with that generation, but my understanding is it's basically a Golf that somebody sawzalled the body off of and dropped the Beetle on top of. And, like most hat cars, that causes all sorts of maintenance and service nightmares. Per's wife had one when he worked here, and I vaguely remember it taking a whole afternoon to change the headlight bulb. 

In reply to Tom Suddard :

Even on my MK4 GTI I had to remove the entire front bumper to change a headlight bulb so I think that is just a feature in that era of VW. I will say I loved my MK4 GTI with the VR6 but I would not call it reliable, tons of small stuff to fix all the time. 

The usual complaints I've heard besides the body design making things less accessible have involved power windows (not that window regulators are especially tough to replace) and automatic transmissions. Are you sure three pedals isn't an option?

So my wife's 2014 has 60K miles on it now and has ZERO electrical or mechanical failures from VW. We did have some transmission lines and AC lines chewed on by rats at one point but other then that its been a really good car. 

Hers is the EA888 1.8T and its a peppy little thing. Though it is geared for MPG above everything else so sport mode is a requirement for driving. We have done at least five or six San Diego to Las Vegas trips in it and got almost 38mpg with the AC on blast and not driving slow. 

It's a tall TT. First gen has it's teething issues. Second gen? Don't know. I left the service repair and VW profession before they came out. A friend in ATL used to track a Cosmic Green Beetle and terrorize BMWs and such at Atlanta Motorsports Park. But that had MOAR BOOOOST.

In reply to Tom Suddard :

The main annoying part is just the bumpers, you can take the whole cowl panel out pretty easy to reach the back of the engine.  The interior is very cheap and smells like crayons though, and they tend to have a lot of electrical problems.  I know someone still driving a diesel one with 400k though.

I would imagine the IS38 turbo that Golf R owners are replacing would also bolt to the 1.8t in the Beetle. That should make for a fun little rocket. The 2.5 is reliable as all get out though. 

If we're talking mods, go all in.   Apparently that 5 cylinder from the Audi RS3 fits. 😎

Its a mk4 where everything sucks. If you know that its not so bad. I avoided one for dd 1 but looking at one for dd2

If you want Granny to be happy, a performance version may turn her off completely.  It seems like you're trying to make a car do two mutually exclusive things, get another car for autocross duty.

Ex-SWMBO has a 2016.  It is a nightmare.  Radio will randomly turn itself on in the garage about once a month, and always on 105.7 which is a hard rock station.  Power ragtop only works about half the time because of all the nannies and sensors that tell it which cylinder to activate.  It drinks coolant and she gets a low coolant light about every 30 days.  They can't find any leaks and it's not going in the cylinders.  Pressure test holds overnight.

When I ran repair shops, 98-2003 VW was our bread and butter.  Constant repairs that were masked by German engineerink.  Some stuff is brilliantly easy, but most stuff is a nightmare.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

My wife had a 2002 Jetta that had more niggling issues than any car we've owned.  But she loved that thing.  

Anyway, internet "wizdumb" said at the time "that's what happens when you buy something made in Mexico."

My consistent response to those types of answers was "it's not an assembly issue, it stems from the design and engineering decisions made back in Germany."

Yep, Honda and Toyota and Mazda build cars in the US that hold up much better than GM and Fords. Mazda made some of the last gen 3s in Mexico and they are not problematic.

In the original posting I guessed this was going to be for a teen girl; and then you said Granny, which surprised me.  However, for someone elderly, the VW offers very good egress with its wide door and high seat. 

Conversely, the VW offers poor cargo loading.  The rear seat area is hard to reach and the hatch area has a long reach-over to get across the wide rear bumper.  

In reply to Coniglio Rampante :

Exactly.  Anybody can put a jigsaw puzzle together.  It's all about how well the puzzle was engineered.

Thanks for the great suggestions.  For the record, I've owned 3 VWs assembled in Puebla - all have been fantastic.  (Okay, #3 has only 1500 miles, but so far....!)  But I also owned a Rabbit that was screwed together in Pennsylvania so what do I know?

Thanks also to those who opined on whether a Beetle is the right tool for the job, although that's not the question I asked.  Some people gotta drive a Wrangler with ducks on the dash, no matter how impractical it may be for their needs.  This is a little like that.

Nothing here has dissuaded me from a 1.8T but I'll keep an open mind about the 5-cyl.

My wife had a 2000 and a 2002, both base 4 cyl. cars with manuals. No real issues with the '00 (but also no real options, and we didn't have it long). The '02 had blocked sunroof tubes (which flooded the driver's footwell), a failed window regulator, and it ate a throttle body.

I thought they were fun to drive, had great brakes (especially after I threw a set of Hawk HPS pads in '02), and were awesome in the snow on a set of Blizzaks.

For an older person, I think it's a great car. My wife was taking her mom to doctors appointments in hers - the wide door and a grab handle by the glove box made transfers easy, and a wheelchair fit nicely in the back with the rear seat folded down.