Shiny New Toy
Monday, August 4th, 2008
Not a mini— that dream is dead. Instead it’s a 2002 Volkwagen Lupo, a small car of which I had never even heard until I saw this one (and so very sensibly decided to buy it).
Features
- room for two real people in the front and up to three cardboard cutouts in the back.
- MiniDisc player— which is such a relief because I had heard a rumor that the format was dying.
- Airbag brand dashboard and seats
- charcoal and red color scheme— no poxy mid-grey plastic/upholstery
- breathing holes
- cup holders! As someone who has managed to spill coffee on the inside of a windscreen, these bring me great satisfaction.
- no lame-o glove box— who needs those!
I bought it in an online auction* having looked at it in real life for about 10 minutes and driven it back and forth a distance of 2 metres or so. It was pissing with rain during the hours of inspection, so I hoped that not too many people would show up and I might get a better deal with less competition. In the end (ie the last 5 minutes of the auction, of course) it turned out a few others were interested, so I didn’t quite get it for the song I was hoping, but it still felt like a pretty good deal at NZ$6050.
Problems
- Passenger window not working… not sure if this is going to be expensive to repair, but not a huge priority right now (I was aware of it at time of sale)
- Loss of engine power/smoothness after leaving it parked in the rain. This seems to have been a problem with wet contacts/sparkplugs— a few spritzes of WD40 has kept this problem from recurring (Auckland is very soggy lately)
- I still can’t work out how to set the damn clock [UPDATE: see comments] Being an import from Japan (obviously not made there) it did not come with an owner’s manual, and I can’t seem to find an English one online because VW are total dicks like that it seems— Major kudos to anyone who can point me in the right direction there
__________
* to anyone in Auckland who wants to try their luck with a cheap import: I bought this car through www.oval.co.nz, a business that imports used cars from Japan and sells them directly on TradeMe** without detailing or servicing.
** TradeMe is a daggy but awesome auction site whose popularity has thus far prevented the evil eBay from gaining a foothold in New Zealand.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:26 am
On my 2004 GTI, you set the clock by twisting the tripometer reset stem. Twist left to set hours and twist right to set minutes.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Hooray for a veedub! I’ve not driven a modern small VW, but the older ones had two holes near the clock, jamming a pen/pointy thing in either hole would advance the clock.
As for the door, I had a similar problem with my old polo and the easiest option was just to get a second hand door.
Car ain’t pimped untill you’re running with different colored doors ;)
August 4th, 2008 at 9:51 am
According to clublupo.co.uk a Polo mk5 manual will cover most things; failing that, you buy a CD via eBay. ClubLupo has some useful info here tinyurl.com/5rf4pe
August 4th, 2008 at 10:26 am
I love my 2003 VW Jetta, I hope you have similar luck with your vehicle. My clock sets the same as Paul mentioned. Near the clock are some stems sticking out and you twist it to move the clock in various directions.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
ah, reminds me of my old red kombi, those were the days…
August 5th, 2008 at 12:20 am
thanks for all the advice :) Especially to fuzz– It turns out that two of the hex screws surrounding the tacho bezel are in fact secret buttons, and can be pressed with a pointy thing to advance hours and minutes respectively. Had you not mentioned the buttons it would never have occurred to me to start jabbing at screws.
Sneaky Volkswagen designers!
August 6th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Congrats on the new wheels. As a german gentleman once said to me ‘VW ist ein gutes Auto’.
I find it interesting how same-name cars grow with time so they have to keep introducing smaller models. The original golf was smaller than current polos. Where did they get the name for this one though? A wolf in sheep’s clothing (sans cellulite)? Seems appropriate for a micro car!
August 6th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Sadly, the Lupo model is no more (although the name may be reused for a future VW model) it has been succeeded by the less interestingly named Fox.
August 10th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Just filled up my first tank: 29.3 litres with 370km on the tripometer = 7.9L/100km or 30mpg — a little disappointing really, but then I did drive quite a distance with the engine misfiring as mentioned in post, so hopefully next tank will be an improvement.
Also, it’s an auto rather than a manual (or CVT) so I can’t really expect 40mpg unfortunately.