BUYING A BEETLE

Valance, spare wheel well, bumper mounting. B. Flitch, wing inner and outer edges, plus around headlamp bowls. C. '.13' post base. D. Sill/heater channel assembly. E. Rear body mounting. F. Bumper mounting. G. Valance. H. Air grille, windscreen surround. I. Roof pillars, scuttle. J. Luggage (also engine) bay sealing strip retainer. K. ' A' post. L. Heelboard (inside car).

APPRAISING THE BEETLE -BODYWORK

Because the Beetle is blessed with that rugged spine chassis, the strength of many pressings and assemblies-particularly the sill / heater channel assemblies - is arguably not quite so vital as is the case with their.
A quick tour of the Beetle rot spots.equivalent on monocoque bodied cars. However, the only real difference between the two is that the Beetle with rotten sills but a sound spine chassis is unlikely to suffer any distortion capable of moving suspension mounting points, whereas the monocoque bodyshell with rotten sills can easily be bent to the point that the. suspension mountings are moved - which makes the cars unsafe to drive and which means that repairs have to be carried out with the aid of a jig (McPherson strut Beetles do rely on the flitch panel for the top damper mounting, so the foregoing is not really. applicable to them). The actual work entailed in rectifying bodyrot on the Beetle can be as difficult and time-consuming as the same work on any other car. When assessing the bodywork of a Beetle which you intend to buy, therefore, it pays to be as thorough as if it were any other car.
The suspension mounting points of the Beetle can, it should be pointed out, be bent in a frontal collision. A bent front axle is a sure sign that'not only has the car been involved in a heavy collision but also that the damage rectification was less than thorough.
Do bear in mind that it is usually more difficult and time-consuming to repair bodged previous bodywork repairs than it is to deal with honest to goodness rot. Furthermore, there can be little more dispiriting than to discover that a car is heavily bodged only after you have started work on what you believed to be a straightforward restoration. Once you discover just one shoddy bodywork repair, then you really have no option but to strip the entire body down in order that you can find all similarly bodged panels.

HOW MUCH?

A Beetle, like any classic car, has three values. There is the value to the seller, the value to the buyer and, usually somewhere in between, the purchase price. Beetles cannot have such accurate published value guides as current and recent cars; Beetles are now old cars, and the value of the individual example will be most heavily influenced by its condition irrespective of any arbitrary figure which might be ascribed to its particular year and which. model it is.
The entire classic / recreational car market is in a constant state of flux, so it is important that you base any cash offers for Beetles with current pricing trends in mind. There are several ways of obtaining current information. Some classic car magazines include value guides and, whilst these can sometimes prove mildly wrong, they do, over a period of some months, serve to show which way the market is moving.
Some vendors will base their asking price on an insurance valuation. Valuations which are carried out for insurance purposes are not to be taken too seriously. Some of the figures involved are arrived at by a valuer whose only experience of the individual car is a set of photographs - and you cannot tell the condition and hence the value of a car simply by looking at photographs. Apart from any other consideration, who is to say that the car in the photographs is not another example in better condition and only wearing the number plates from the actual vehicle? Some agreed values might be based on some kind of report prepared by a garage business or other valuer on behalf of the insurance company, but they cannot be relied upon as a true indication of the value of the car because you cannot rule out the possibility of. some degree of collusion between the vendor and the valuer.
More accurate pricing information is usually available from owner's clubs, which may either be published by the club magazines or, in some circumstances, given out on request. Alternatively, a local club will doubtless contain some members who keep an eye on Beetle prices, and they may be persuaded to share their information with a fellow member.
If you have the time and inclination, then following advertisements across a wide range of advertising platforms (Beetle / VW magazines, local newspapers and regional advertisement-only publications) will enable you to build up a picture of what money is being asked for what cars. . Concentrate only on the particular Beetle which interests you, and within a couple of months you could be as knowledgeable about Beetle values as any authority.
The author prefers to utilise the following method to value cars.
Firstly, he decides how much he can afford, then how much he would consider a fair price to pay for the car he is seeking in the condition he requires. When viewing a car, he lists all of the components which need renewal, plus any other work which needs carrying out (or which will require attention in the near future); he prices this and subtracts the total from the amount he considers a fair value for the car when all of the repairs have been carried out, to arrive at the value of the car to him.
Don't accept a receipt for your cheque or cash (pay by cheque if possible) from the vendor of the car if it includes the words 'sold as seen'. This is a rather tacky and not entirely effective get-out which some people employ when they want to shift a car which they know to have some serious (but undisclosed) fault, intended to put you off pursuing your complaint when said fault comes to light. In the UK, it is an offence for anyone to misrepresent an unroadworthy vehicle as fit for the road during a transaction, so keep hold of any published advertisement as proof of misrepresentation should a car described as being in 'good' condition turn out to be unsafe.
Do bear in mind that many of the Beetles which come to the market receive some sort of mechanical attention just before they are offered for sale. The work carried out could have been to a poor standard; in particular fixings might not be correctly torqued or perhaps fitted without shake-proof washers, and these can come loose in a short space of time – perhaps even whilst you drive the car to your home from the vendor's.
If, at this stage, you don't feel that you are yet qualified to carry out checks on the car yourself, get your local professional mechanic to give the car a once-over. An experienced mechanic should be able to spot any potentially dangerous fault on any car; alternatively, subjecting the car to an MOT roadworthiness test should not only unearth problems but also give you proof of their existence on the failure sheet, which will list any faults.
The checks and service routines recommended here are all covered in detail within the following chapters of this book. As ever, the author recommends that you also refer to a good workshop manual.

Security

In the UK, a vehicle checking service long available to commercial business has, at the time of writing, been extended to private citizens. HPI Autodata (Tel. 0722 422422) will check the identity of a vehicle, they will check whether it is stolen or the subject of outstanding finance, and whether it has been involved in a major (recorded by insurance company) collision. If you have trouble getting through on the telephone number given here, your local Trading Standards Office should be able to furnish an up to date number.

General car auctions

Nobody visits general car auctions expecting to see good examples of the Beetle, and so nobody much bothers to enter them in general auctions. Occasionally, a company liquidation or the auctioning of goods and chattels from an estate might see a Beetle being entered into a general car auction, but in the main any Beetles at all which are found at an auction will be there simply because they proved impossible to. sell elsewhere. Avoid these events.

Classic car

Ringing is far more likely to be encountered with later cars in most of the Beetle's markets, because there are so many still in circulation that finding a ringer of a particular year and colour is not too difficult. Of course, with the prices of all Beetles likely to continue rising there could come a day when it would be financially attractive for a thief to go to the trouble of respraying a ringer (if he was unable to steal one in the right colour) to match the seemingly 'legitimate' documentation he cars on the grounds of poor bodywork with a minimal visual inspection, and most auctioneers seem to build a `cooling off' period into their terms of business contract so that if the loom catches fire when you turn on the ignition to drive the car away, you can back out of the deal.
Classic car auctions attract many very knowledgeable people (and a great number who merely kick tyres and check to see whether the ash tray is full). By listening to the comments of the more expert appraisals, you can glean much useful information about individual cars. Be careful not to get caught doing this, just in case the person giving you a free lesson in car appraisal notices you and starts giving out false information!
Auctions are terrible places for impetuous people to shop. In the heat of the moment many buyers get completely carried away and really require a level headed assistant to help them keep their feet firmly on the ground. Try to take along an experienced Beetle enthusiast who can give you reasoned advice, just in case your enthusiasm takes over your own sense of reasoning.

Private sale

The private vendor is often sought out by potential buyers because it is assumed that the prices involved in a private transaction will always be lower than those asked by dealers. Not necessarily so, for a variety of reasons. Many vendors, misinterpreting (genuinely or otherwise) classic car value guides or insurance agreed values, ascribe ridiculously high values to their cars. Many vendors are loathe to sell their beloved Beetles but are forced to by financial circumstances beyond their control and such people are prone to add a degree of 'sentimental' value to the actual value of the car when arriving at an asking price. Some private vendors are simply avaricious and are prepared to keep their Beetles on the market until they find a buyer foolish enough to pay their inflated asking prices.
Buying from a private vendor can sometimes resultin your getting a bargain, but the practice does carry huge risks. Private vendors of many products, certainly within the UK, are not subject to the stringent consumer protection laws by which a business selling the same item would have to abide. In the case of a privately sold motor vehicle it is still (at the time of writing) an offence to misrepresent it, but unless the misrepresentation has been published in an advertisement then there is no proof of any such offence. If the vendor gives you a verbal rather than a written assurance that the bodywork is sound yet the car breaks its back on the first hump back bridge you drive it over then you won't be able to claim that the car was misrepresented. It is, however, an offence in the UK to sell a motor vehicle which is in a dangerous, unroadworthy condition, but unless you can prove that the car in question was unroadworthy at the actual time of purchase then it is very difficult to take any action against the vendor.
A private vendor will usually assume that, once money has changed hands and the car is your property and you have driven it away, he or she has no further liability for the car. If you put your foot through the floor the first time you use the brakes then you may have great difficulty in gaining any form of redress without resorting to the legal system.
Beetles are now extremely tempting targets for thieves. Not only do the cars command attractive prices and usually find a ready market, but even broken down for spares they are worth real money. Most of the classic cars which are stolen and subsequently offered for sale (certainly in the UK) appear to be the subject of a type of organised crime called 'ringing'. In this, a car of a specific year and colour is stolen. In order to sell the car, the thief has to give it a new identity, which he can do in one of two ways. Firstly, he can take the registration document and number. engine and any other identification numbers of a scrapped example of the vehicle and merely replace the various identification plates on the stolen car (the 'ringer'). Secondly, he can apply for a duplicate registration document for an existing and perfectly legitimate example of the car (usually one which lives many miles away from the scene of the sale), then buy number plates and other identification plates to create another seemingly legitimate example.

WHERE OT LOOK

When you have decided which variety of Beetle you desire, the problem arises of where to begin looking for our dream car, who to buy it from and roughly how flinch to pay. Beetles are, of course, widely advertised in ational magazines, and this might at first sight appear as good a place as any to begin your search. Unfortunately, because such magazines are distributed nationally, they attract advertisements from all over the country. If you are in the market for a comparatively rare original UK RHD Karmann convertible then the national press might offer the best (perhaps the only) solution because it will be the only place where you can find a reasonable selection to choose from, but if you seek one of the more common variants then you might as well begin looking nearer home, and with good reason.Vendors of Beetles often arrive at their asking prices by following one of the published 'classic car value guides' in a classic car magazine (although some are misguided by agreed value insurance figures – more on this later). These can cause the buyer certain problems. Firstly, the guides often differ from each other in the values they ascribe to particular cars (the author has seen two guides which were published at the same time give one valuation of 5q per cent more than the other for the same car!) and secondly, they generally value the cars as belonging to one of three groups according to their condition. Group '1' or 'A' usually refers to very clean and original cars with little or no rust and reliable mechanical and electrical components (but not pristine concourse winners). Group '2' or 'W usually refers to cars which run and possess the relevant certificate of roadworthiness (the MOT certificate in the UK) but which would benefit from a certain amount of mild mechanical repair and/or a small amount of bodywork attention. Group '3' or 'C' cars are described as those which may or may not be runners and may or may not possess a current certificate of roadworthiness, but which do require fairly extensive mechanical and body repair to make them really usable.Problems arise because a vendor often wrongly assumes that his or her group 3 or C car is actually a group 2/B. and asks the appropriate price as indicated in a value guide. It will not be until you come to actually examine the car that the mistake, or sometimes the deliberate misrepresentation, will come to light. This is not too annoying if you have travelled only a short distance to view the car, but following a long and totally wasted drive it can be infuriating.
If you are looking for a reasonably prolific Beetle variant then you will save much time, money and temper by only travelling to view cars situated fairly close to your home. In this case it is best to confine your search initially to local newspapers and other publications. Word of mouth is also an excellent way of finding a local car, because one of the people you inform that you want a Beetle might just know where one is available. Going out and finding a Beetle before it is advertised for sale also brings the benefit of allowing you to make an offer for the car without having other potential buyers hovering in the background ready to outbid you, which can often happen if you and theyboth answer an advertisement and turn up for a viewing at the same time.Another advantage of viewing locally rather than in the national media is that many of the cars you see advertised will not be owned by Beetle enthusiasts, and the prices asked can sometimes be far more reasonable,because the non-enthusiast does not always attach any
special 'classic' or other value to his or her Beetle; to such people, their Beetle is simply a car– not a classic, not a cult car.In the UK, regional advertisement-only publications which specialise in used cars offer other useful media to study. These usually feature far more Beetles than
local media, giving a far better selection at the cost of having to travel further within the region to view likely cars.Instead of viewing advertisements for Beetles, you could always place a 'wanted' advert yourself, and this should generate a selection of available cars for you to choose from. The greatest benefit of placing a 'wanted' advert is that you will often attract responses from people who would not advertise their Beetle for sale but who would instead part-exchange the car or perhaps sell it to a relative or friend. You may also attract responses from people who were not previously thinking of selling their Beetle – in both cases, you alone will be viewing the car and there will not be the possibility of other potential buyers appearing on the scene to outbid you.The author has noticed general pricing trendsapplying to cars according to which media they are advertised in. National magazine advertised cars tend towards the top end of their expected price range,especially cars which are advertised in the more 'up­market' magazines which have pages full of advertisements for affordable classic cars yet glossy editorial features on Ferraris and pre-war blown Bentleys. There are some 'man in the street' type classic magazines which seek to assure readers that their own car is a classic (and that therefore they should continue to buy the magazine), and the advertisements in these tend to feature less extravagantly priced cars. The UK Beetle/VW press appears at the time of writing to include the widest selection of sensibly priced cars, and is probably the best national shop window.
The prices asked for cars in regional advertisement-only publications, in common with local newspapers, are in general realistic, although the occasional silly price creeps in from time to time.If you wish to see the very largest selection of Beetles for sale then visit one of the larger Beetle shows which are held throughout the summer months. Rather than having just a photograph by which to judge the car before embarking on a buying expedition, you have the cars there in the flesh. Don't, incidentally, hand over money at the show (unless you are buying from a known bona-fide dealer), but arrange to visit the vendor and carry out the transaction at his or her own house. The reasons for this advice will become clear later in this chapter.There are five sources of Beetles. I. The vast majority of Beetles which are bought and sold pass from one private vendor to another. 2. An increasing number of Beetles are sold by dealers who specialise in classic cars. a particular marque or preferably a particular model. 3. Relatively few Beetles nowadays find their way on to general car dealers' pitches. 4. The Classic Car auction is a relatively modern but growing phenomenon at which more and more classic cars seem to be traded. S. General motor auctions very occasionally have a good Beetle.Each potential source of Beetles has points both in and against its favour, and each will be briefly discussed in the order in which they appear above.

Shifter

A button press method is time to reverse gear and then just press 2 people think you are the first DDS CI legends Cal look later said Gene berg to continue with a similar mechanism, but accurate.

VW Engine Interchange Manual.

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In 1967 has changed the details of the crank re-PN 311 105 101F, the oil path to True Cross drill a result is. To resolve the oil issue. Feed Charlie software not all moderately.

History

For vehicle time line tables, see: Volkswagen (timeline), In the early 1930s German auto industry was still largely composed of luxury models, and the average German rarely could afford something more than a motorcycle. Seeking a potential new market, some car makers began independent "peoples' car" projects - Mercedes' 170H, Adler's AutoBahn, Steyr 55, Hanomag 1,3L, among others. The trend was not new, as Béla Barényi is credited with having conceived the basic design in the middle 1920's. Josef Ganz developed the Standard Superior (going as far as advertising it as the "German Volkswagen"). Also, in Czechoslovakia, the Hans Ledwinka's penned Tatra 77, a very popular car amongst the German elite, was becoming smaller and more affordable at each revision. In 1933, with many of the above projects still in development or early stages of production, Adolf Hitler declared his intentions for a state-sponsored "Volkswagen" program. Hitler required a basic vehicle capable of transporting two adults and three children at 100 km/h (62 mph). The "People's Car" would be available to citizens of the Third Reich through a savings scheme at 990 Reichsmark, about the price of a small motorcycle (an average income being around 32RM a week).Despite heavy lobbying in favor of one of the existing projects, Hitler chose to sponsor an all new, state owned factory. The engineer chosen for the task was Ferdinand Porsche. By then an already famed engineer, Porsche was the designer of the Mercedes 170H, and worked at Steyr for quite some time in the late 1920s. When he opened his own design studio he landed two separate "Auto für Jedermann" (car for everybody) projects with NSU and Zündapp, both motorcycle manufacturers. Neither project come to fruition, stalling at prototype phase, but the basic concept remained in Porsche's mind time enough, so on 22 June 1934, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche agreed to create the "People's Car" for Hitler.Changes included better fuel efficiency, reliability, ease of use, and economically efficient repairs and parts. The intention was that ordinary Europeans would buy the car by means of a savings scheme ("Fünf Mark die Woche musst Du sparen, willst Du im eigenen Wagen fahren" — "Save five Marks a week, if you want to drive your own car"), which around 336,000 people eventually paid into. Volkswagen honored its savings agreements in West Germany (but not in East Germany) after World War II[citation needed]. Prototypes of the car called the "KdF-Wagen" (German: Kraft durch Freude — "strength through joy"), appeared from 1936 onwards (the first cars had been produced in Stuttgart). The car already had its distinctive round shape and air-cooled, flat-four, rear-mounted engine. The VW car was just one of many KdF programs which included things such as tours and outings. The prefix Volks— ("People's") was not just applied to cars, but also to other products in Europe; the "Volksempfänger" radio receiver for instance. On 28 May 1937, the Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH (sometimes abbreviated to Gezuvor) was established by the Deutsche Arbeitsfront. It was later renamed "Volkswagenwerk GmbH" on 16 September 1938.Erwin Komenda, the longstanding Auto Union chief designer, developed the car body of the prototype, which was recognizably the Beetle known today. It was one of the first to be evolved with the aid of a wind tunnel, in use in Germany since the early 1920s.The building of the new factory started 26 May 1938 in the new town of KdF-Stadt, now called Wolfsburg, which had been purpose-built for the factory workers. This factory had only produced a handful of cars by the time war started in 1939. None was actually delivered to any holder of the completed saving stamp books, though one Type 1 Cabriolet was presented to Hitler on 20 April 1938 (his 49th birthday).War meant production changed to military vehicles, the Type 82 Kübelwagen ("Bucket car") utility vehicle (VW's most common wartime model), and the amphibious Schwimmwagen which were used to equip the German forces..

Volkswagen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"VW" redirects here. For the airline using IATA designator VW, see Aeromar.This article is about Volkswagen Passenger Cars. For the business group, see Volkswagen Group. For Volkswagen vans, trucks and buses, see Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles.Volkswagen (often abbreviated to VW) is an automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Volkswagen was originally founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront). Volkswagen is the original marque within the Volkswagen Group, which includes the car marques Audi, Bentley Motors, Bugatti Automobiles, Automobili Lamborghini, SEAT, Škoda Auto and heavy goods vehicle manufacturer Scania. In 2009, the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG endorsed the creation of an integrated automotive group with Porsche under the leadership of Volkswagen.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, in which it is pronounced . Its current tagline or slogan is Das Auto (in English The Car). Its previous German tagline was Aus Liebe zum Automobil, which translates to: Out of Love for the Car, or, For Love of the Automobile, as translated by VW in other languages.In November 2009, Volkswagen and Porsche overtook Toyota to become the world's largest car manufacturing group in terms of production.

Bajas

Because Bajas consist of the basic Beetle bodywork with sundry GRP bolt-on and bonded panels which contribute nothing to the strength of the body as a whole, the cars' body/chassis can be appraised using exactly the same routines as for a standard Beetle. The main point to bear in mind when looking for a Baja is that some – by no means all – will have seen some fairly heavy duty off-road use, and the worst of these could have camouflaged underbody/steering/suspension damage, in addition to which, breathing in dust-laden air will have done nothing for the engine unless good air filters were fitted. Check for off-road damage (including camouflaged damage to the roof and pillars which results if the car is rolled and, of course, damage to the floorpans, frame head, suspension and steering) and, because it is nigh-on impossible to clean all traces of fine dirt from a car, check for traces of this in nooks and crannies. Most Bajas are probably – like all off-road vehicles – never used other than on tarmac, and it is better to select such a car than one which has seen use in the rough. There is a good selection of cars with this popular modification, so don't be rushed into buying.
Because the Baja is usually raised to increase ground clearance, the effects of transaxle jacking on single-joint drive shaft cars are exaggerated, and the presence of a 'camber control' device should be reassuring! The so-called 'Z' bar fitted to the 1500cc Beetle is not, as widely supposed, an anti-roll bar nor is it an 'equaliser' (as the author has seen it erroneously described). The Z bar only acts when the transaxle tries to lift itself from the axle shafts and, as such, it is an anti-jacking device. The 1500cc Beetle is a good candidate for the Baja conversion because of this.
Be especially careful when assessing a Baja for road legality. In particular and with regard to the UK MOT Roadworthiness test, the wheels must not protrude beyond the wheel arches and no moving part of the engine should be exposed.

`Lookers'

By definition, a 'looker' will have a very smart external appearance, and some might appear to have an almost perfect finish both outside and in. Irrespective of the sumptuousness and quality of the interior and the deepness of the gloss of the paintwork, such cars can in fact be heavily bodged examples of basically rotten bodyshells. Because the cars look so good, the asking price, and therefore the stakes, are high. Try to ignore the flash and get down to the basics – give the car the most thorough bodywork and mechanical examination.Check that beautiful bodywork with a magnet to discover whether it is steel or GRP and body filler! There is nothing wrong with the use of body filler, but if the magnet shows no attraction whatever to a panel thenthis tells you that the thickness of the filler is so great that the car has been bodged and the filler is likely to drop out at some time in the future because so great a thickness cannot flex with the panel.
The price asked for a looker which has a lot of expensive accessories will sometimes reflect the costs of those accessories, but there is generally no need to pay anything like such a high price. Apart from the very finest exceptions, the values realised by any non­standard Beetles rarely exceed and sometimes fall far below the value of a standard car in similar condition.
There is always a wide selection of custom Beetles offered for sale in the UK, and so there is no artificial pressure for you to hurry when making a buying decision.

Convertibles

Convertible Beetles come in three varieties; Karmann originals, professional conversions and DIY jobs.Karmann convertibles are always towards the very top end of the Beetle price range, so expect to have to pay a lot for one and assess the car as carefully as you can for the usual signs of accident damage and corrosion. Do
check for authenticity, because there is money to be made from dressing up a DIY conversion as a Karmann original and selling it at a high price.
There are many companies which offer a professional conversion service for the standard Beetle and, whilst cars converted in this way will not be so expensive or exclusive as a Karmann, they offer exactly the same function at a far lower price. Because the roof panels of saloon cars generally contribute greatly to the strength and rigidity of the cars, it is vital that any saloon which is made into a convertible receives some extra strengthening. In the case of a Beetle, the immensely strong chassis/floorpan assembly arguably lessens the need for extra strengthening, but the author would recommend that widely available strengthening members are welded to the sill assembly and to the A post (to prevent scuttle shake). Professional conversion companies should do this as a matter of course, but it pays to check. The strength offered by the sill/heater channel assembly of converted cars is of the greatest importance in preventing the bodyshell from twisting, and so this area should be assessed very thoroughly.
Most DIY saloon to open top conversions will be basedun a commercially manufactured kit. If you are looking for a car which is based on a particular kit then a visit to one of the larger Beetle events will enable you to talk to existing owners of converted cars and to learn enough about them to be able to assess the build quality. If you are thinking of buying any home-built convertible then the first thing you should ask is whether it is based on a kit and, if so, which? Treat non-kit DIY conversions with caution.

bar

On torsion bar suspension cars, check the front beams for any signs of collision damage, because this can adversely affect the suspension geometry. You'll need to raise the front of the car and use a torch for illumination in order to see the beams. Another sure sign of front-end collision include corrugated flitch panels – turn the steering to full lock and take a look inside the front wings above and to the rear of the bumper mounts.