In the seemingly never-ending saga of trying to find a convertible that a) is in our price range, b) SWMBO likes (hint: if it's blue there's a better than 50% chance she will assuming it's not an Eclipse or Sebring), and c) the seller will actually communicate with us and actually sell us the car, I came across this when searching last night:
http://knoxville.craigslist.org/cto/5109232039.html
SWMBO has generally been opposed to the New Beetle convertibles, and I'm not the most fond of them myself- but this one she likes (duh, it's blue...) and it's priced quiet low due to the transmission issue. Listing is a bit questionable since they didn't make a 2.0 turbo- just the 1.8T, 2.0 NA, and the TDI. Assuming I can find a transmission in a junkyard, anyone know how hard it is to swap them?
Those transmissions are CRAP. Mk4s typically go to the junkyard for one of three reasons: sludge (1.8T only), broken timing belts, or bad auto transmissions. I wouldn't even bother since any junkyard transmission will just break again, if it isn't already slipping or broken. The Mk4s were well known for transmissions crapping out just after 100k, which is (probably not coincidentally) right when the powertrain warranty ended.
If you want to get this going your only safe option is a new transmission, which kills the value proposition just about instantly.
In reply to SlickDizzy:
Duly noted and thus discounted as an option- thanks!
Any 1.8t that dies of sludge is going to be in a neglected car that will soon die of other problems.
The automatic issue is mainly the torque converter. The rest is the crappy VW fluid and the obstinately European policy of "changing fluids is environmentally unfriendly so you shouldn't do that, just buy a new car when it breaks"
