Faults:

Bulkhead cracked where clutch cable passes through.

General Comments:

Very cheap, attractive and reasonably quick car.

Mine cost just over £500, in excellent condition with a CD player.

It is extremely reliable and really economical if you keep it below 80mph.

If you want to blow people away at the lights, don't change up until you are over 4000rpm, below 3000ish acceleration is not exactly shattering...

All Sciroccos seem to suffer from a weakness in the bulkhead where the clutch cable goes through. Eventually the bulkhead cracks and you have no clutch!

Look under the bonnet and see if a reinforcing plate has bee fitted to the bulkhead, if not, just go to URO or German and Swedish and buy one (about £10). This the only real congenital defect these things suffer from.

Overall the car is bombproof, pretty to look at, comfortable (unless your in the back - headroom is quite stingy) and cheap to run. Engine is good for about 180000 miles too!

Faults:

Current Scirocco has been perfect so far.

No failures that has stopped the car doing its job.

Gearbox linkages failed, they have nasty plastic joints and these wear out so they pop off. (Common problem) Replaced for less than £20 for the two items, from a Volkswagen dealer.

Window winder fell apart, replaced from my written off Scirocco Scala!.

Clutch cable became unbearably stiff, replaced and very light now.

Accelerator cable, also heavy, due to be replaced.

Annoying clicking noise from rear turned out to be the handbrake cable mount had failed, and cable was rubbing on rear wheel.

General Comments:

Great fun, value car. My current car only cost be £50, due to it being un-road worthy. It cost about £250 to put it right and MOT it. Now it's a shining example of a car that definitely didn't deserve its original scrap-yard fate!.

My previous car was the 1.8 carb Scirocco, which was also fun, until written off by someone not looking where they were driving. But the extra power of the Injection model makes a car that still catches a few other newer cars out by how quick it is.

Power improvements have come from breather tweaks, and Janspeed sports exhaust system.

Alloy wheels tend to corrode.

Brakes are absolutely pants, need major upgrade to make them something I can have confidence in.

Fuel consumption is incredibly low for a car of this age and level of performance.

Would recommend a Scirocco to anyone that needs a good, reliable sports coupe for very little money. It still looks sexy, and gets noticed when clean and polished.