Shed has been wondering what life is going to be like post-Covid. In many ways it will be the same as before, as he has been practicing social distancing from Mrs Shed for the last thirty years or so. The distancing started immediately after she told him about her experiences with sleeping policemen and humps in side streets, which he thought were motoring related anecdotes but which turned out to be nothing of the kind.
On the actual motoring side, Shed probably isn't the only one out there thinking that there might be a big swing away from PCP payments on new cars that, if we're honest, make life tricky when things get sticky. If that prediction comes true, one consequence could be an upsurge of interest in sensibly priced used motors, and particularly those that offer a decent combination of reliability, quality and practicality, with the option of a dose of tuning when things start to look up.
Cars like this week's shed, you might say. Mk4 Golfs have appeared here before and have attracted their fair share of bile, and it's true that they're not everyone's cup of tea. All Shed can say is that he has owned several of these beasts, all but one of them sprightly GTI versions of the 1.9 PD turbodiesel that from a longevity and durability POV is by general agreement one of the best ever, and he has nothing bad to say about them.
Many believe that the Mk 4 was the last properly built Golf, and today's car would seem to support that. It's nearly 20 years old with 165,000 on the clock, but ask the average gran in the street to guess its age and mileage and they'd probably say a quarter of that. The Blue Anthracite Pearlescent paint that could well be the best colour for one of these is in excellent nick, and the bolstered sports seats that the warm diesels got are once again showing here how amazingly durable they are.
Every Golf will have its issues. Shed isn't going to trot them out here. Instead he will refer you to the list of big parts that have been fitted to this car in recent times - cambelt, pump, intercooler, suspension, various driveshaft bits - and suggest that it will reach 200k with ease as it stands. Some will scorn it as a bit of a Trigger's broom car, but others will think hooray, that means I don't have to spend any money for a while. Given that there isn't a lot of that about at the moment, that's surely good to hear. And whatever you say about Trigger's broom, it did the job.
Those unfamiliar with the kind of cash good examples of these GT TDI Golfs still go for might raise an eyebrow at the asking price of this one. Okay, maybe it won't find a buyer at £1,500, but you can bet your last coil pack that it will find another owner for something not far below it, and that that next owner will be pleased with their purchase. The worst that the MOT tester could find to say about it in March this year was a worn offside front tyre, minor surface corrosion on the exhaust (!) and 'misting of engine oil on sump', which on a VW diesel is almost poetically insignificant. The rest of the MOT history talks exclusively about consumable stuff, with no obvious causes for concern.
Shed will admit that the Mk 4 Golf is perhaps more about respect than love. In high-spec diesel format they may not be the last word in performance or refinement, but there's still something classy about them even now. Shed even managed to grow fond of the non-sprightly Mk4 diesel he once owned, an ex-Motability non-turbo SDI that he accidentally bought at auction when all he was trying to do was point and laugh at it. By gum it was slow, but that's what Shed liked about it. Its 68hp gave him time to think. Imagine playing a shoot-em-up on a 1Mb/sec internet connection. Sounds awful, but it can be fun. There's nowt wrong with living life in slow motion - especially when Mrs Shed is advancing towards you with a saucy glint in her one good eye.
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