Looking for a Diesel VW, anyone know anything about them?

Looking to buy a 91 with a 1.6 Diesel this afternoon, has 130k miles and asking price is 1600. Car goes through a lot of coolant so I'm guessing it needs a head gasket. Should I pass because of it? Price seem slow for one of these.

Floaters used to have a diesel rabbit.

Dude, run as far away as you can from it! Remember when Ashely had that red diesel bug?
We had that POS in the shop once a month, every month for "issues".

i wouldn't buy it... a cheap car always means alot of fixes, or at least when it comes to vw's... with me having a vdub and putting as much as i did into it to fix it and keep it running and w/ all my vdub friends always telling whats wrong next... i dont think id buy another vw unless its brand new w/ a warranty.

^ I'm looking for a beater car, its going to be cheap ;)

havnt heard too many bad things about the diesel Vws but germans have an odd design way so. cheap project might be a good buy. Have heard these things get better mileage the older they get

Those are bulletproof and get like 40mpg, way better than a 2001

Also piss slow but who cares its like 40 mpg ?

Piss slow doesn't even describe how slow these things are. Haha, they get 40 mpgs city and sometimes up to 50 on the highway without modding.

I'm just wondering if it is a bad head gasket if I should pass, sounds like the guy tops off the antifreeze every other week.

Pretty simple engines, reasonable parts prices and uncluttered engine bays, probably don't even need any special tools to do a headgasket and you can toss a new rubber band to spin the cam.

I wouldn't recommend a late model VW to anyone, the old mechanical injected diesels are hard to beat tho.

^ Thats kinda what I was thinking

you should try to get it for 1000 instead of 1600.
that way you can spend extra 600 on parts.

Cool car, just don't let it become a money pit.

Any chance the head is cracked? I don't know much about early VW's but it may be worse than just a head gasket. Does it smoke pretty bad?