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The end of Lupo/Arosa as a regular car?


mk2
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I dunno if anyone else has noticed- in recent times, there have suddenly been many more regular regular Lupos coming up for sale (not Gti). Various reasons as always, but often they all require "some work" to get them back to good condition. Kinda uneconomical to have repaired situation. For example to professionally repair and respray a door costs about a 1/3 the value of the car.

Which tells me that they're still used as a regular car that non-mechanically minded owners drive. And owners have to take them to mechanics to get work done. Enthusiasts generally do most of their own work.

Our little cars are average age of 20 now, which is pretty good for a car in regular use, but I think people are now dumping cars on the market as it's time to move on. 

Just my opinion, or has anyone else noticed?

Edited by mk2
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Not followed prices for the ordinary base ‘go to work Cars’ as I usually follow what I own. From what I can gather I do agree they have got to the end of the line for the mechanically ignorant/incapable self maintenance owners. Does that mean precious cars to the crusher now? The thing is other than the gti’s and slowly following Tdi’s the rest are still in transition state so prices still are down. New service parts are also still cheap which must come to an end at some point. 
Would you think it could turn cult status like the sixties fiat 500? 

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I think it could go "cult", but very much depends on fuel penalties after ICE car phaseout.

If the rest of the UK goes the way of London, where anyone who owns a classic car now has to pay silly money everyday just to have it in the zone, it will kill off just about all fuel based cars, except for things like supercars which are status symbols. Older non compliant emission sticker Lupos are presently being dumped (on the market). I can't visit London anymore (in any of my Lupos).

Gtis will probably follow the same trend, but will still be worth more- and then become museum pieces once petrol stations start vanishing- in only about 10 years. I reckon diesel will be around forever, but penalties for using non electric will be the final nail.

I'm into mk2 golfs and just about all the people I know who have them have them stored and SORNed. And they have been for ages. Why have a car you like if you don't enjoy it...?

Used marketplace Lupos (& Arosas) seem to be dropping fast in value because for the same money (£500-1500), you can buy a reasonable "1st" car or runabout that is maybe 6 or 7 years newer; with cheaper or equal maintenance costs, fewer age related problems and with a compliant emission sticker. 🤷🏻‍♀️ It's politics.

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A friend of mine has a lupo sport and was using it daily up until recently when the gearbox went. If anyone knows where to get a Vw etb gearbox he would like to fix it.

In London with ulez the lupos where on the cusp. So earlier ones are not compliant but later ones are. One definitely got scrapped because of that and thsy did offer it for sale but no takers.

Also with some parts being not available  (even on hertiage) that may also be a factor too

Edited by lupo1.0se
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I think there are some great 20 year old cars keep popping up,one owner sub 30k miles used for a supermarket shop once a week then sat in there garage,at at £1500 I’d have more enjoyment with that than a 7 year old car,luckily I’m not in London or near a big city.

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I still see Lupos out in the wild in Brighton and on my travels, can't remember the last time I saw a Mk 1 Arosa though, and even the mk2 is few and far between. Haven't seen another GTI for years! That said my GTI has sat for most of the past year, I charged the battery up in the summer and used it for about a week and then (after another battery charge) took it to north London the other weekend to blow away the cobwebs. And to it's credit, after a few choppy miles to clear the system it didn't skip a beat and I'm tempted to take it again when I'm back up in a week or so - great for a car that'll be 20 this year!

The issue is that dealers are trying to charge £1500 for basic examples complete with dents, and daring to call that a bargain, when the reality is a 10 year old 107 or Ka will cost you not much more, be in a significantly lower tax bracket, and cheaper to run.

 

 

 

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I am lucky to have a 51 plate Lupo which is ULEZ compliant, probably one of the few cars in London of that age driven inside the zone.

Sadly, because of where I live I do not have a safe parking spot, and so my street parked car has accumulated a lot of dings and scratches courtesy of people who don't know how to drive, or couldn't care less about other peoples property.

It was a challenging decision to keep the car on the road when the cat was nicked back in Dec 2020, especially as Toyota were offering £2k p/x against a Yaris, but would cost an extra £20k! So I spent the money, and haven't regretted that decision.

Anyway, the long and short of it is I deem the car as zero value. But the fact is it drives well and I use it as my shopping basket, and wrack up a magnificient 2k miles a year max means I will drive it to its death (currently on 53k)!

Sure it isn't the best of cars (face it, the 1.4 16v clackety engine is never going to win any prizes) but the way I have kept the mechanicals maintained means I still get to enjoy it when out and about.

Should it achieve the optimistically anticipated cult status, then no doubt it may appear on Wheeler Dealers or Car SOS (dreaming on) and then money is no object restoring the dings, dents, flaked laquer and dodgy door locks.

Will upate you all in 5 years, hopefully.

 

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On 2/1/2022 at 12:59 PM, mickster said:

I still see Lupos out in the wild in Brighton and on my travels, can't remember the last time I saw a Mk 1 Arosa though, and even the mk2 is few and far between. Haven't seen another GTI for years! That said my GTI has sat for most of the past year, I charged the battery up in the summer and used it for about a week and then (after another battery charge) took it to north London the other weekend to blow away the cobwebs. And to it's credit, after a few choppy miles to clear the system it didn't skip a beat and I'm tempted to take it again when I'm back up in a week or so - great for a car that'll be 20 this year!

The issue is that dealers are trying to charge £1500 for basic examples complete with dents, and daring to call that a bargain, when the reality is a 10 year old 107 or Ka will cost you not much more, be in a significantly lower tax bracket, and cheaper to run.

 

 

 

With regards to the dealers charging £1500. I guess the reason for that is due to the fox being not that great..... probably.

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On 2/4/2022 at 7:36 PM, lupo1.0se said:

With regards to the dealers charging £1500. I guess the reason for that is due to the fox being not that great..... probably.

I was passionately against the Fox for many years but my sister has a 1.4l urban and I’m completely converted. It is a car built to a budget and has none of the charm of the Loop, but it is solid and well designed inside for practicality. The prices dealers are asking for a Fox are even worse!

The Lupo GTI deserves to be a prized classic one day, as easy and fun to drive as my UP GTI is it is very much like the Fox in that it has been built to a very tight budget.

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I wonder if the tide will turn when some of these electric cars start to be of the age that they need new batteries. At this point in time it puts many of them in the "uneconomical to repair" category. I can foresee the price of used E-cars dropping drastically after a certain age point. Unless the government starts a program to assist with that expense...

In your country with it's mild climate and especially in the city, electric is a viable option but where I live it is not. Distances are too great for them to be much more than a rich man's novelty, an expensive lawn ornament for the elite.

At this point there is no talk in Canada of banning fossil fueled cars. Our government is presently on the war path to ban right hand drive cars. Some insurance companies refuse to insure them anymore. 

That said, I would very much still LOVE for someone to hook me up with a Lupo TDI! That would be just awesome! I love my Jetta TDIs but you cannot buy a 2 door and the 4 door cars are just plane difficult for taller people to get in and out of. Our Lupo is so much better in that regard!

Edited by oprn
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i dont agree these cars will reach any status.. only the GTI obviously.

Kids of today want tech.. and these cars are relics.. ask a 17year old what a tape player is.. or even CD.s... you have to manually turn the lights on! shock horror.

they will just fade into the background im afraid. ill keep mine for as long as its worth it to me. working from home means my mileage is way down so gets used and abused for tip runs,dog runs and the occasional 300 mile stint to my parents. 

never let me down, and doesnt need to be replaced

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/7/2022 at 1:43 AM, mickster said:

I was passionately against the Fox for many years but my sister has a 1.4l urban and I’m completely converted. It is a car built to a budget and has none of the charm of the Loop, but it is solid and well designed inside for practicality. The prices dealers are asking for a Fox are even worse!

The Lupo GTI deserves to be a prized classic one day, as easy and fun to drive as my UP GTI is it is very much like the Fox in that it has been built to a very tight budget.

The Lupo GTi already kind of is going that way. It was not that long ago you could pick up a low mileage example for around £7000 (2/3 years ago). No chance now. Even now they are starting around the 3k mark for ones with Mileage etc.

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The concerning thing for me is VW are rapidly making GTi-specific parts obsolete.  My parts guy was saying it's the norm now for parts to be kept in circulation for 7-10 year old vehicles, but they don't really care about the relics any more (and fair enough to them, the demand will be non-existent!).  I had priced up a brand new red cam carrier only 2/3 years ago for £450, but now all out of stock in UK and Germany as they auctioned them all off.  Same story for cylinder heads and very specific LH thread bolts for holding camshafts, and even certain cam-alignment tools (you can guess I'm doing a cat cams upgrade ;)).  Funnily after keeping my eyes peeled on eBay for long enough, I found the red cam carrier floating about in Germany and paid £160 delivered - brand new, still in VW's packaging.  Xenon headlights are another worry for me - that's why I have an emergency second pair which I managed to get again from waiting long enough from eBay for about £150 for the pair.  Although Clayton Jones has done an LED conversion which takes some of the ballast complexity out of the equation, and I'll end up going down that way too I think!  Still there's levelling motors to contend with as my current lamps are not too great in that area, either!  And don't get me started on aluminium doors, wings and bonnet 😢

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1 hour ago, cpcpeter said:

The concerning thing for me is VW are rapidly making GTi-specific parts obsolete.  My parts guy was saying it's the norm now for parts to be kept in circulation for 7-10 year old vehicles, but they don't really care about the relics any more (and fair enough to them, the demand will be non-existent!).  I had priced up a brand new red cam carrier only 2/3 years ago for £450, but now all out of stock in UK and Germany as they auctioned them all off.  Same story for cylinder heads and very specific LH thread bolts for holding camshafts, and even certain cam-alignment tools (you can guess I'm doing a cat cams upgrade ;)).  Funnily after keeping my eyes peeled on eBay for long enough, I found the red cam carrier floating about in Germany and paid £160 delivered - brand new, still in VW's packaging.  Xenon headlights are another worry for me - that's why I have an emergency second pair which I managed to get again from waiting long enough from eBay for about £150 for the pair.  Although Clayton Jones has done an LED conversion which takes some of the ballast complexity out of the equation, and I'll end up going down that way too I think!  Still there's levelling motors to contend with as my current lamps are not too great in that area, either!  And don't get me started on aluminium doors, wings and bonnet 😢

This is an issue for sure. Some have been moved over to hertiage where as other parts have not. Example. I can buy a front bumper (lower and upper) and grill. But yet i cannot buy the washer covers, lower covers or centre badge bits.

I am tempted to buy a few more bits and put them away like yourself and i don't blame you either.

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  • 2 months later...

thought I got real lucky picking up my 'Rosa TDI for a bargain price last week. Sure, its got plenty of scratches and scuffs, it wants a drivers side wing, but only a tiny scab of rust on the back arch on one side and its otherwise great. a couple of odd jobs to do (passenger window not working, new rear shocks) and it'll be a great daily. We've got a 20 plate focus st line x and to be honest, I prefer driving the Arosa. much more fun. They are definitely scarce now. I come from Vauxhalls really, had about a million Corsa C's and I loved that if you ever needed bits you could go to your nearest scrapyard and there'd be hundreds, now your lucky if theres 1 or 2. Lease deals and PCP for newly passed drivers has killed off the old first car market TBH, that and scrappage schemes.

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I miss seeing mk2 golfs on the road for the same reason. It's never the cost of parts to fix up cars, but the labour, when you get someone else to do everything for you. And no-one is interested in learning. I don't get it.

And we now have a clean air zone in Oxford town centre. When it happens in Reading, I'll be in trouble.

Edited by mk2
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1 hour ago, mk2 said:

I miss seeing mk2 golfs on the road for the same reason. It's never the cost of parts to fix up cars, but the labour, when you get someone else to do everything for you. And no-one is interested in learning. I don't get it.

And we now have a clean air zone in Oxford town centre. When it happens in Reading, I'll be in trouble.

I do deliveries and take great joy in driving past a mint pair of mk2s out in the sticks near where I live. Red one and a black one.

Onto your point though, I'm trying to learn more but I just lack confidence in my convictions to have a go at bigger jobs. I can do the basics, battery change, change an easy to reach sensor, change wheels etc. All the easy stuff but too scared to have a go at doing the bigger jobs. Especially things like bodywork.

Sure, I could just paint my car but I'd never be happy with a low quality-average finish, but likewise I couldn't justify spending the 2k or so it'd cost for a pro job. 

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Well paintwork and restoration is a real labour of love as it’s what I’m involved with. 

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I'm self taught, but I must be honest and say that I've had so many good tips and tricks from various paint sellers. Some really know their stuff. I now get a better result than most paint shops. :) Lots of disasters in the past though. Like completely start again. 

The spray kit isn't that pricey. But it does matter where you spray. I used to do everything outside, waiting for a grey day with no wind, or dust or insects, with low humidity and ideally above 10c. Car all ready. Rubbed down and masked up. Roll it out. Wipe and Tack-rag it down. Spray. Back under cover again. Close the door. Maybe 3h for a whole car. Basecoat and clear. All the primers and stuff are not critical as you need to wet sand it all down anyway.

But yeah, I also hate rebuilding rusty, nasty, holed panels. 

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