First thing I must tell you is, if you do not have a mechanical inclination, or do not know someone who does, do not buy a Rabbit.  This is not to imply that a Rabbit is a money pit, but look at the facts:  Rabbits are old.  All but the Convertible was discontinued in 1984.  There aren't many cars out there on the road that are 15 years old or older.  Parts need to be come by in most creative manners.  Normal channels for parts supply the VW owner with substandard parts that are guaranteed to fail prematurely.  Mechanics in garages are likely to charge extra for VW work since the cars do not have your "typical" carburetor or throttle body injection or electronic multiport injection and their old "Snap On" diagnostic tools do not apply to their systems.  If you happen upon a VW specialist, you will probably pay more for their services because they off a specialized skill.

Do Rabbits have a bad reputation?  Well, YES!  And there is a very good reason for this.  When you have a car that was made to be inexpensive, yet the parts required to extend it's life are expensive, you have a precarious dilemma.  Enter the cheap part.  Come 100,000 miles pretty much all but the engine has been replaced.  Knowing that the typical auto owner buys parts from Auto Zone, Discount Auto Parts, has car fixed buy Pep Boys or Sears and you have cars that are driving around with cheap parts that are guaranteed to prematurely wear out and it turn piss off many owners and mechanics.

Here's what I do:  First off, I'm not made of money.  Heck, if I was rich, I would have a G60 Rabbit with gull wing doors and get all of my parts from the dealer.  I'm not rich (he he... NOT EVEN CLOSE!).  The first place I look is the junkyard.  Pickings can be slim on a 15 year old or older car, but half of the time a used OE part or dealer installed part will have enough life left in it to out live a brand new generic part.  When I can not find a good used part, I will check two places:  Napa and some specialty VW stores.  Here in Tampa we have "Total Performance" which is a VW specialty shop and "Bay Area Imports" which is a German/Japanese parts house.  Most cities have businesses like these to cater to the VW enthusiast.  If I can't find what I'm looking for at this point, I will go to the dealer.  Unless I'm looking for something like a tube of RTV or a thermostat, I'm not buying from an auto parts discount store.

What To Look For:

Other than the obvious (bouncing on the bumpers, looking underneath the car for rust), always look at the boots on all of the suspension parts.  Check the CV boots, tie rod boots, ball joint boots.  Check for any rips or cracking.   Also, while you are under the car, check the part of the frame where the two fuel lines go through.   See if there is any wear around the bend of this steel line.  Also, make sure there is a rubber grommet around these line so they may not be damaged in the future.  Replacement of this grommet can be a pain since it requires removing these fuel lines.

Also, check the injectors.  I don't mean for you to pull them out and check the spray pattern right there on the spot but to wiggle them in their ports and to see if they can be easily removed without tools.  Start the car and then shut it off when it gets warm.  Hear any hissing coming from the injector ports?  If so, each injector port is a vacuum leak.  The O Rings are likely cracked or dry rotted. 

Another thing to do is to test drive the car.  Do a hard right turn.  If the car stalls out, then there is a hose inside the gas tank that will need to be replaced.   This is a MAJOR pain in the ass, and you can try to fix it from under the back seat, but it's actually easier if you just drop the tank, since dropping the tank only requires you drop the back end of the rear axle (only a couple bolts) and then if you have the tank off the car, you might as well contemplate replacing it since you have it off now anyway!  Tanks aren't that expensive.

Another problem with Rabbits is the heater core.  These are poor simply by design but is actually common with MOST cars.  Stagnant coolant can cause rust in the core.  If you have no heat, this is probably why.  Another major problem that happens is when you buy a Rabbit from someone who has not used the heat in a very long time and there is no coolant trapped in the core except for in the very outside passages.  When you slide the HEAT switch to the right, a rush of hot coolant fills the core.  The rusty core can not handle this burst of pressure you have given it and... SPOOSH!... you're dealing with a wet floor board and a core that will HAVE to be replaced. 

Buying The High Mileage Rabbit:

Other than the above, you will have to take in consideration that the engine is probably pretty worn.  Bearings may need to be replaced and piston rings and pins may need to be replaced.  You can check the compression in the car, but I would assume that a car with 120,000 miles or more is going to need some motor TLC.  Even if you've never overhauled a motor before, a little mechanical inclination and a good book (I like the Poor Richard Rabbit book fro John Muir Press.  It doesn't seem to be in circulation anymore, but you can find a few other books that'll help on my main page) is all that is required to drop the oil pan and pull the head on a VW and then do the necessary work.  Sure, pulling the motor is the proper way and replacing engine parts is an easier task to tackle once the motor is lifted, but it is not necessary.  

Unlike some Mazdas, GMs and some other popular cars, there are no sub frames or suspension parts to be removed to access the underside of the motor.  Removal of the head is limited only by a few coolant hoses and some vacuum lines, and unlike Honda's, there are so few vacuum lines (I have all of three on mine) that VW has even chosen to diagram them on the inside of the hood!

You may want to check to see if you have a blown head gasket.  To do so, check for oil in your coolant or coolant in your oil and check for the smell of burnt coolant in your exhaust.  Also, you can check for low compression in one or more cylinders or coolant on a spark plug.

Buying The Low Mileage Rabbit:

One would think that buying a low mileage Rabbit would be an opportunity presented by the Gods, but this is actually not the case.  Maintenance items that would have been changed by now on higher mileage cars have not yet been replaced on the low mileage Rabbits and if there was no such thing as dry rot, this would not be a big deal.  Many times the rubber boots of the car are dried and cracking, some to the point of being ripped.  If you're lucky, the damage is limited to just cracking or fresh tears and the damaged boots can be replaced without replacing the part (i.e.:  slap some new grease on the CV joint and put a new boot on it). 

Another thing to look at is the shocks and struts.  A driver using a car in normal use would notice shock and strut wear and likely (unless they were negligent) replace any faulty hardware.  A car that sits can have it's shocks and struts gradually leak to a point of ineffectiveness and will leave you with the repair bill. 

Another thing to be aware of, and is not so easy to assess at time of purchase, is the level of corrosion in the electronics.  Often, rotten windshield gaskets result in wet fuse panels.  Contacts on the coil, fan switches, and fuel injection electronics can have corrosion that can result in intermittent behavior.  This is actually not such a difficult problem to overcome as much as it is simply time consuming.  One would need to take a can of CRC Contact Cleaner and blast clean all contacts and then spray on a nice coat of Tri Flow, Boeshield or Finish Line (something more tenacious then WD40.  When in doubt, hit a bike shop.  The lubes there HAVE to be more tenacious!  They are going on bicycle chains!).  The fuse panel actually does come off of the fire wall without too much hassle and I've even been known to remove the driver's door for a more comfortable angle on the situation!

Submissions Welcome!

If you can think of anything I may have missed that is "typical" of a used bunny, please feel free to email me!  I'm always willing to make this big ol' website BIGGER!