What's up m247? I'm a VW guy by nature, mk2 jetta's to be precise, but I'm looking to get out of my mk2 and into a p5. The quick and dirty of it is that my mk2 coupe is sitting on coilovers, aftermarket tt exhaust, Neuspeed intake and the interior right now is at bare minimum. Carpet, seats, dash, no speakers, head unit, AC has been deleted as well as all for the euro console and the cluster is a euro cluster so everything reads in kilometers.
Fun car in good weather and smooth roads, and dailying it, even in the coldest parts of Northeast winters has not been too bad. The problem is I'm going to need something a bit more... refined, as I'm transferring to a new college and will be commuting. I don't want to lose the fun of my vw but at the same time I don't want another mk2. I'm a little worn out on them and their gearboxes are not built well for city traffic, which I'll be dealing with now (sitting in traffic in downtown Philadelphia on new years eve SUCKS, trust me lol. Any VW clutch from pre-04 just isn't smooth at all in stop and go/slow moving traffic). So I started looking at what else was out there, and what I can get on a college budget and still have mod options for later down the road if I so choose, and the MP5 is where I ended up. Ride is stiff (but doubtfully as stiff as my current setup... I can tell what year a penny was minted right now) and the low stock stance looks great, plenty of mod options, in my price range and will have novel things for everyday longer commutes such as ABS, AC and even a stereo system!
Anyway, my main reason for posting is to pick your brains on what the biggest quirks of the p5 that I should be looking out for when I start going out and looking at a couple of these, and what questions I should be asking (beyond the basics). I've read up through here a bit and elsewhere, but I want to make sure I cover my bases before I end up having to start throwing parts/$$ at things that I should've known to look for before I bought the thing. Did that with my first vw and learned from my mistake the hard way (though it also gave me an excuse to open up my factory service manual and learn about everything there is to know, which proved to be very useful for the two mk2's I have owned since my original).
Any and all help is very much appreciated. I'll probably be buying within the next month, have to get the mk2 sold first, which means finishing some of the small projects I never got around to since it's the winter and I don't have a garage, just a very, very cold driveway.
Fun car in good weather and smooth roads, and dailying it, even in the coldest parts of Northeast winters has not been too bad. The problem is I'm going to need something a bit more... refined, as I'm transferring to a new college and will be commuting. I don't want to lose the fun of my vw but at the same time I don't want another mk2. I'm a little worn out on them and their gearboxes are not built well for city traffic, which I'll be dealing with now (sitting in traffic in downtown Philadelphia on new years eve SUCKS, trust me lol. Any VW clutch from pre-04 just isn't smooth at all in stop and go/slow moving traffic). So I started looking at what else was out there, and what I can get on a college budget and still have mod options for later down the road if I so choose, and the MP5 is where I ended up. Ride is stiff (but doubtfully as stiff as my current setup... I can tell what year a penny was minted right now) and the low stock stance looks great, plenty of mod options, in my price range and will have novel things for everyday longer commutes such as ABS, AC and even a stereo system!
Anyway, my main reason for posting is to pick your brains on what the biggest quirks of the p5 that I should be looking out for when I start going out and looking at a couple of these, and what questions I should be asking (beyond the basics). I've read up through here a bit and elsewhere, but I want to make sure I cover my bases before I end up having to start throwing parts/$$ at things that I should've known to look for before I bought the thing. Did that with my first vw and learned from my mistake the hard way (though it also gave me an excuse to open up my factory service manual and learn about everything there is to know, which proved to be very useful for the two mk2's I have owned since my original).
Any and all help is very much appreciated. I'll probably be buying within the next month, have to get the mk2 sold first, which means finishing some of the small projects I never got around to since it's the winter and I don't have a garage, just a very, very cold driveway.
