I'm wondering what the general consensus here on the 1.6L diesels found in the '80s/early '90s VWs is. Are they overall reliable? I remember funola saying that working on them can be a huge pain (you have to remove the IP when changing the water pump?), but how durable are these engines in general? Are there any known trouble spots?

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"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

I've had the displeasure of working on 2 VWs for friends. I can't speak to the reliability of the motor you're inquiring about, but I can say after those 2 experiences I will never buy a VW ever as long as I still walk this Earth.



EVVVEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

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'84 190D 2.2 5MT (Red/Palomino) Current car. Love it!
'85 190D 2.2 Auto *Cali* (Blue/Blue) *sold*
http://badges.fuelly.com/images/sig-us/302601.png
http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...0/sideview.png

I have one... it works... it needs a water pump changed... it's parked...

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John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

never found watercooled vws to be particularly fun to work on...

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1981 NA 300D 310k miles

'Keep the Oil Changed,Coolant topped up,and it'll ALMOST mirror the original
Air Cooled Horizontally opposed 4 cyl GASSERS that made VW's fame. Except for the Timing Belt!!!!

"If it's got Clean Oil,Good Coolant and Clean Diesel you won't be able to kill it in 150K miles."
Some of those IDI's are still running from the '80 s @ over 300K !

Howeveah!

I do agree with replys # 2,3 and four!

NOW, an Air Cooled D.I. Gear Driven TIMING Four or Six that's another Universe!!!

"Pigs would have to have InterGalactic operating licenses before that would come about,However !"

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'84 300SD sold
124.128

I have a 90 1.6 jetta and the water pump is on the bottom of the motor outside the timing cover, I can't possibly see how the injection pump would need to come off.

In my case the motor grossly outlasted the body, at 220k the car was super rusty so I swapped drivetrains with a rust free gas car I bought. Haven't finished the swap, if you're looking for a project jooseppi....

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68 280SL - 70 280SL - 70 300SEL 3.5 - 72 350SL - 72 280SEL 4.5 - 72 220 - 72 220D - 73 450SL - 84 230GE - 87 200TD - 90 190E 2.0 - 03 G500

Nissan GTR - Nissan Skyline GTS25T - Toyota GTFour - Rover Mini - Toyota Land Cruiser HJ60 - Cadillac Eldorado - BMW E30 - BMW 135i

I've owned a few of VW's diesels, 1.6 Turbo from 84, a 2.4 Turbo from 1986 (was in a Volvo) and a 1.9 TDi from 2003. I found them not that hard to work on, injectors and stuff, were all pretty easy. Timing belts on them all, is a sore spot. Durability wise, though they were all pretty good, over 200,000 miles on with no real major issues, proper maintenance though. These are my first M-B diesels, and there are number of things I find more difficult on these, than on VW, mostly to do with oil distribution, I mean those oil cooler lines? and the turbo oil drain? total PITA repairs. The odd thing with the 61X engines, is that they seem to work even if they are horribly abused.

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1983 W123 300TD US spec Turbo engine, with Euro bumpers and manual climate control, and manual transmission.

Don't let the hard to work on scare you. You will learn to cope. If it has no terminal rust issues and the mechanicals are sound, go for it. $800 sounds like a super deal.

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85 300D turbo pristine w 157k when purchased 161K now
83 300 D turbo 297K runs great. SOLD!
83 240D 4 spd manual- parted out then junked

I guess you have not replaced the water pump on yours yet? The top bolt (there are 3 of them) on the water pump is not accessible unless the injection pump is out of the way on my 92 1.6 Jetta. I may be wrong but I think a 90 1.6 Jetta is the same. On the earlier MK1 1.6 VW's, the water pump can be removed w/o removing the injection pump. The difference is in the alternator/AC bracket design.

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85 300D turbo pristine w 157k when purchased 161K now
83 300 D turbo 297K runs great. SOLD!
83 240D 4 spd manual- parted out then junked

I owned both a 1990 1.6L VW Jetta GL diesel (naturally aspirated) and its older cousin, a 1980 Rabbit 1.5L diesel. Here's what I can tell you...

The 1980 did start and run. The seller drove it 50 miles from Somerville to my house in Worcester. The brakes were almost useless. I replaced a lot of parts, but never got that fully sorted out. I think I may have had a bad booster. The engine had unknown history, but I owned the car from late 2008 to mid 2009 and it did run.

That car's two real problems were rust (the main reason I sold the car without doing much to it) and a completely worthless electrical system. Only half the electrical items worked, and there was a short somewhere which drained the battery if left hooked up. Engine seemed OK, but I did not know its history.


I had my 1990 Jetta from November 2010 to March 2011. The body was in pretty good shape, and it ran pretty well. The 5-speed manual transmission had one of the most satisfying-feeling shifters I've ever experienced. The engine seemed basically solid, but suffered from the common problem of destroying alternator belts every few hundred miles. There's something in the design of the belt drive on these cars that, when aged, destroys alternator belts. Nobody has successfully solved this, except for a few people who have transplanted serpentine belt setups from later VW diesels.

The constantly-shredding belt made the car unreliable for me. Also, the suspension kept wanting to come apart. New shocks didn't help much. Maybe if I'd used higher quality parts, but I was used to putting cheap parts on my old Subaru (the cheap aftermarket stuff for Subarus actually tends to be pretty high quality).

Also, when I sold the car, the buyer suspected a head gasket leak. I wasn't aware of anything, but I let him use that as a bargaining chip because I wanted and needed to get rid of the car.

Mine had around 200K miles on it. I've seen similar cars with a LOT more miles. Having been around Volkswagens a LONG time, my impression is that they will reflect Mercedes diesel longevity, but require a lot more in the way of maintenance and repair. It seems to me that it's WAY more expensive to keep a VW running (reliably) that long. Plus, at the end of the day, it's still just an overpriced Volkswagen.

Don't get me wrong, I love Volkswagens. I've had my Vanagon now for almost 11 years and have no plans to get rid of it. But, the key to buying an old VW seems to be to find one that's nearly perfect, and then keep it that way.

I don't mind reviving a basket case Mercedes, but would never again try to save a basket case VW. Just my $0.02.

Shredding alternator belt problem is only on AC equipped 1.6 engines, which mine was. It was THE biggest nightmare for me for over 2 years of ownership. The alt belt tensioner design is pure stupidity- VW gets an F from me on that. I have solved the problem by ditching the AC and making my own alt belt tensioner, and it has been reliable ever since.

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85 300D turbo pristine w 157k when purchased 161K now
83 300 D turbo 297K runs great. SOLD!
83 240D 4 spd manual- parted out then junked

I didn't realize that the problem was native to AC-equipped 1.6L cars.

That was the B.S. part of it for me. I had an AC car where the AC didn't work.


Even as such, the car was my daily driver and the belt problem ruined the experience for me.

Overall having owned many of them at one time. Year is important to some degree. The 1986 turbo model was the highest quality point reached overall in my opinion. I just got tired of them after racking up miles and miles. I even had a little two door that I just could not seem to kill. It was an eighty five the last year with adjustable valves.

They were not notorious for having odometer issues like 123s but you do not want one unless really properly maintained at much over 130k miles or two hundred thousand kilometers.

Very cheap car to repair yourself. Count on head gaskets and cogged rubber timing belts. Although both are cheap easy jobs. Suspension and brake parts are cheap as well or where.

I have no ideal of the truthfulness of a rumour that Mercedes designed either the whole engine or parts of it. The manual transmission was almost a work of art in comparison to many. Although running it low on fluid could cost you fifth gear.

For the time and money they got a lot of things right overall. The only downside was like most indirect injection diesels they needed some attention in really cold weather.

Concerning diesel VWs, I have had an 81 and an 83 Rabbit, and an 85 and an 89 Jetta. I did not find them difficult to work on, at least not any more so than the gas VWs I had, and I had a few of those, too. They all got amazing mileage, in the 40s on the low side, mid 50s on the high side. I never had any electrical issues, either. I loved them, actually. The 85 Jetta was totally worn out when I got it, but I still got six months or so out of that one before it expired.

The main issue with the diesel VW engines of that era, in my opinion, were the aluminum cylinder heads on a cast iron block, and the belt driven cam. And now, parts availability, too.

The 89 Jetta was the last one I had. I bought it cheap because the previous owner, a very large Russian guy, had replaced the injectors, and while torquing them down pulling AWAY from the head, a big no-no, he cracked out two of the injector wells, ruining the head. But the car was super clean, with pretty low miles, and I only paid $300 for it.

I searched and searched for a cylinder head for this car, since it had the hydraulic cam followers, it was not easy to find a good one. I finally found on ebay what was supposedly a new OEM head that had all new valve train parts installed, all ready to go. I spent about 900 on the head, and all the correct factory VW parts and gaskets, rebuilt my own injectors, etc etc. Car ran great, and was getting about 45 mpg. 2500 miles later, and about 400 miles from home, one of the valve heads broke off at freeway speed, and destroyed the engine. The belt had not jumped, nothing was indicating any trouble, just poof! dead. All I can figure is that whoever assembled the head had used cheap, Chinese valves or something, instead of OEM.

I looked for another engine, with no luck. I could have gone ahead and put an older, non-hydraulic engine in there, I was able to find those, but I ended up trading the car for two cords of dry oak firewood, one of the best car trades I ever made. My next diesel car was a Mercedes 123...

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1976 Mercedes 240D, unknown mileage
1992 Dodge/Cummins 4WD, 284k

I had a '79 D sedan & a '80 D PU. The '79 was ALL german made, the last year. The most I spent on it was for tires. And one nozzle. It just always worked. The '80 was a different story. That thing was always down. Lots of small things, at least under warrantee tho. The motor ran away on the '80, even tho vw added some sort of device to prevent running away on motor oil. They had a recall to install anti-runaway devices on '78 '79 diesels, never had the problem with the '79. They set head clearance (and compression!) with different headgasket thickness's, my ;79 had the thinnest gasket & the pu had the thickest. The pu had it replaced 2 times, warranteed. Taded it for a Datsun-Nissan diesel pu, which was just a tractor engine, traded it for a (used) early 6.2 chev pu. Eventually traded the '79 sedan for a mb 300td turbo for the (ex)wife.

Should have kept the '79 and dumped the vw pu & wife, much sooner.