Silver 2000 VW GTI VR6 GLX For Sale

Having recently gotten our new 2008 R32 it’s time to sell our 2000 GTI. It’s been a good car, and if we hadn’t liked the car we wouldn’t be getting the R32.

It is pretty much loaded:

  • VR6 (6 cylinder) engine
  • Leather seats
  • Climate control (set a temperature and forget it)
  • Auto dimming rear view mirror
  • Rain sensing wipers
  • Front and side airbags
  • Alloy wheels
  • Premium sound with CD player

It has just over 67,000 miles, has a 5 speed manual transmision, is in great mechanical condition, and has NO RATTLES!

In addition it has mud flaps (to keep the car cleaner), a trailer hitch (you can tow up to 1,500 lbs), and a VW roof rack.

Asking Price: $7,900 (priced below blue book value for a quick sale)

2000 GTI Front & Side

2000 GTI Back & Side

2000 GTI Side

2000 GTI Front

2000 GTI Odometer

2000 GTI Console

2000 GTI Front Seats

2000 GTI Back Seat

Contact me at jay@slicksurface.com or 917/447-2572 if you’re interested…

Update: The car has been sold. There was actually a bidding war for the car (nearly everyone who saw it wanted it), and it wound up going for more than the asking price.

Our R32 In Canada

Dan and I (and the dogs) went to Toronto this past weekend. The craziness started with the Canadian border guard who didn’t seem to know what a temporary tag was and thought we were driving an unlicensed car. Then a few miles down the road this kid in the back seat of a Lexus SUV had his window rolled down and was pointing and smiling at our car (guess he knew what it was).

But the funniest thing was taking it to the local dealer – Yorkdale VW. When we were there over Christmas we saw a black, low-profile roof rack on a GTI which looked a lot better than the standard, chunky thing that VW sells. The dealer here in the US didn’t know how to get one so I figured the VW dealer in Toronto could get one…

So I get this guy in the parts department who tries to help me, but he’s junior and looking at all the wrong pages in the catalogs. So he goes and gets help from the more senior guy who’s on the phone. He asks what type of car I have and I say an ’08 R32. “You have a 2008 R32 here?”, “Yeah…” I say… “I’m creaming my pants right now…” he responds…

He comes out to the car to take a look, and while we’re walking through the shop he tells a couple guys there’s an ’08 R32 outside… When we get out there there’s already someone looking at the car (probably a sales guy or manager). The parts guy and I take a quick look at the car and then head back inside. We look through the computer to see if we can find the low profile roof rack, but can’t find one – even for an ’07 GTI.

On my way back out to the car I see a bunch of guys looking at it. The manager says, “I could make a $100 if you stayed here another 15 minutes – just in charging the guys to look at the car.” Later I think it’s more like he’s losing a $100 since they’re not working…

I get out the car and there’s at least 8 guys standing around looking at it. One of them asks me to pop the hood, I do… They ask how much horsepower it has – one guy thought it had 280 – I say 250. They talk about how VW could fit a 3.6 liter engine in there and make an incredibly fast car. I didn’t correct them (the 3.6 liter won’t fit in there). The funny part was how respectful of the car they were – it was like they were afraid to touch it. I wouldn’t have cared – I even left it unlocked when I went back in with the parts guy figuring some of them would want to look inside, but no one did…

I barely had enough time to get home and change for Dan’s grandmother’s funeral, so I excused myself, closed the hood and left… Too bad I didn’t have more time. I really wanted to get some of their dealer plates and a pic of it in front of their showroom so I could do fake “look, you can get R32s in Canada” post… But I didn’t have the time…

We Finally Got our .:R32

Took possession of our .:R32 last night. The session with our sales guy went really well, after some “drama” last week when the car came in and we went to look at it.

I think the drama last week was due to a number of factors. First, it was the last day of the month and they wanted to close deals. It seemed like every sales guy (and their dogs) were at the dealership making it a bit of zoo. Second, there was just simple miscommunication (things were on the wrong line of the invoice, etc.) Then there were a few jerks around there, and unfortunately our sales guy shared an office with one. And lastly, they mishandled the financing. Their first offer was for 7.5x% through VW Credit, then they went down to 6.89% through some bank whose name I didn’t recognize (we wound up getting 6.49% through our bank – Chase).

But he made up for it last night. I’m thinking he must have read my rant on VWVortex ’cause we went into another office (away from the rude guy), and he was pretty meticulous. It also helped that the place was quieter and calmer…

We’re doing a road trip to Toronto this weekend, so we’ll have pictures of the car early next week…

Knowing I was just going to stick it in the parking garage for a few days, we drove around last night. I took it pretty easy since I was just getting used to the car and it’s still in it’s break in period – not to mention that I’m a bit petrified of potholes with the 18″ rims…

All in all, it’s a pretty slick car. Sounds great, seems really solid (critics would say it feels heavy). The few times I pushed it a little it felt really surefooted. However, while I’d read someone who said it felt go-cart-like, it didn’t. The Mini Cooper S felt like a go-cart, the R32 feels too big and substantial for that… Then again the Mini was too much work to drive and I used to like to get back into the GTI and feel real power and more pampering… The R32 is like our old GTI, only on steroids…

Why We Buy VWs

I’ve owned just a few of cars over the years:

Of those 7, 5 have been VWs… Initially it was just ’cause I needed a cheap car and my brother-in-law had one, but now it’s a lot more than that…

The 1980 Honda we bought used and it was a nightmare. I was in college in Austin and the thing kept breaking down and it was out of warranty and the repairs were expensive and my parents just didn’t understand how much of my money the car was eating up… When someone rear ended me while I was sitting at a red light and the car was totaled I was actually pretty happy not to have the expense of a car.

After that bad experience I wasn’t exactly running back to Japanese cars even though my parents had always had good luck with Toyotas. The ’97 Golf I bought ’cause I wanted an inexpensive car that looked decent… I test drove the Golf and a Jeep Wrangler and the Golf was a lot more fun to drive, so I got it. I liked the car well enough that I was pretty sure my next car would be a VW…

Then Ellen DeGeneres came out on TV. You might not think that it would have an impact on car buying, but for gay men (like me) it definitely did. Ellen’s coming out was a huge deal. Gay people didn’t have the visibility back then that they do now and advertisers were scared and started pulling their ads from her show.

So what did VW do? They took the spot right after her character came out and started a new ad campaign with the following ad:

The straight world didn’t really think too much about it, but gay men and lesbians took notice. It wasn’t enough to get lesbians away from Subaru (who’s had the lesbian icon Martina Navratilova as their spokesperson), but it solidified gay men’s love for VW.

Yes, there are bumps along the road, like when a sales guy from Potamkin (the VW dealer in Manhattan) woke me up one morning and proceeded to call me a “fucking faggot” and then hang up on me after I told him I didn’t think much of his dealership because when I tried to buy the Golf from them in ’97 they refused to tell me the details of the financing until after I had signed the document to purchase the car (VW customer service had the sales manager at Potamkin call me to apologize for the sales guys comments).

And we’ve had at least one really frustrating problem with our GTI – a plastic part in the door kept breaking which would drop the window into the door meaning the car wasn’t wasn’t secure and couldn’t be left in anything other than an attended garage. It happened 3 or 4 times and was always hugely inconvenient. They did eventually figure out how to fix it and it hasn’t been a problem since.

And the Passat we never should have bought… It had constant problems and they were really expensive to fix. We would have spent less if we had bought a new car. But what I didn’t appreciate at the time was how hard of a life it had had – which isn’t something I can hold against VW.

But all in all I love VW. The design of their cars is still pretty good (though not always the best), and I like the level of fit and finish, and I feel like you get a really solid car for the money.

And of course the R32 is just special… It’s going to be a blast to own and if anything serious ever happens to it (knock wood), I’ll be really upset.

Our car is on it’s way…

Back in February we ordered a new VW R32. I just found out from Brendan at Boardwalk VW in Redwood City, CA that 1) the car was “born” on Dan’s 40th birthday (6/15/07), and 2) that it will be at the port on 7/6/07. Brendan’s not our dealer, but he’s been really generous with all the people on VW Vortex who’ve pre-ordered their R32s – letting them know the status of their cars. He even found out the VIN number for us… WVWKC71KX8W021052…

But other people are saying that VW will be holding the cars at port and not releasing them until August since they want to do a proper ‘launch’ for the car and not have the cars trickle out one at a time… While I’m not happy the car will be sitting in the hot sun for the better part of a month, at least we should get it early in August… Hopefully we’ll be able to take it to Canada when we go up to renew Dan’s visa in mid-August…