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@Mark Codiroli then it's an exhaust manifold gasket leak or manifold crack...something related to front of engine exhaust. Could be anything from a gasket, to a clamp to a cracked manifold.
I love old Rabbit diesels. I had one and ran it mostly on JetA, although it ran better on regular diesel. It was FUN to drive, and sporty. It wasn't sluggish like I expected an old diesel to be. Fast enough for me.
I owned a diesel Rabbit bought used in the mid eighties. The a/c worked but with caveats. When entering a freeway ramp the a/c had to be turned off to accelerate it to freeway speeds.
A lot of modern cars actually do that - if you floor the throttle and it's already cool enough inside the cabin, the car will actually momentarily disable the AC without telling you.
My mother had one of the first Rabbit Diesel's available in the Chicago area in '77. A few years later I got a used '81 with 180K, drove it for a decade.
If gas prices ever spiked again and I was forced to buy a more fuel efficient car, I would probably choose something like an old Rabbit over an electric. At least I would be able to troubleshoot/work on it if it ever broke down... unlike an electric.
I bought my wife a 1985 Cabriolet in 1990, she wanted a cheap convertible for summer driving. Got one from a friend, he blew up the original engine and did a drivetrain swap out of wrecked1987 Scirocco Mk2. That little car is fast.
recall when I was a kid, my friend's parent owned a rabbit. We 3 kids would go back and forth side to side while in the back seat. The little car would go from lane to lane as fast as we were. It didn't scare them too much. Good times!
I kind of recognized the engine bay in the video's thumbnail. Yeah, an MK1 Golf! (Rabbit in the US, Caribe in Mexico). I still keep the one bought by my mom back in 1981. It's turning 40 this year :)
The plant where they made those, in New Stanton PA was originally a plant built by Chrysler but they never made any Chryslers there. The plant sat idle before Volkswagen started using it
I had a VW Golf with a non-turbo diesel and I liked it. It always started in -20 and made cool smoke rings. The A/C was great but on Mooreland hill in Waukesha I had to turn off the air, get in the right lane, and drop to 3rd gear with my foot on the mat but the fuel mileage like the Rabbit was fantastic. I'm a 6'3 guy and I fit good in it too. They only thing I had to replace on it were the front wheel bearings at about 150k. When I tried a turbo VW I was surprised at the difference in performance.
I believe that particular car was made in Germany. The Pennsylvania plant opened latter. Volkswagen Rabbits starting in the 1980 model year had square ⬛ headlights not round. The only exception to this was the Rabbit Cabriolet which kept the IMO more attractive round lights.
When I was 18 I skipped class to buy my MK2 diesel jetta off craigslist for $500. It's still my daily driver after 10 years. It may be slow but it's an absolute beast, still gets around 45 mpg and is so easy to repair and maintain myself.
Did you stick with 1.6 or did you go get the 1.9? Did you ever find a good source for interior parts? Every single one of these cars needs a lot of interior replaced. Dashboards and inner door panels and consoles for example.
I love that you found an old VW Rabbit. That was my first car, a hand me down from my dad. We completely overhauled the engine to give it 10 more HP by cleaning the cylinders, etc. My dad actually smoked the clutch 2x while towing boats, but it still ran ok on the original clutch (manual). Great memories. Really great car if you wanted just reliability and didn't mind the interior almost as bad as a Yugo. It was fantastic getting 50 mpg on the diesel, but it probably had a top speed of 65MPH or so. Also, with the fuel gauge broken, I had to use the trip tick to know when I had to go out a few extra miles to find a station that had diesel.
I agree with you Scotty, I never watch television unless I’m with my 85 year old father in law who has been living with us since his home burned down in in one of those wildfires we had in Oregon last year.
Scotty is in his old gear and has the electric "Live Free or Die" on his shelf. This has to be three months or more old. I remember being in Canada and seeing the tiny VW Rabbit pick-ups. I always wanted one but grateful I never got one. The engines on those early Rabbits did not hold up. I never saw the Diesel pickup if there ever was one. I had an old Datsun 510 I got from a woman who wanted one of these Rabbits. The Datsun 510 easily lasted longer than her Rabbit. I was glad she sold it to me..
I've had a diesel VW Rabbit truck for over 30 years. Love it, and so easy to work on. But only get about 35 MPG. Good thing I have a large custom tank. I get tired of driving long before I need to fill up again.
I owned one of the first Rabbit diesels sold in Massachusetts. A 1978 that I bought brand new for $5500. That was pretty expensive back then but it was a solid car that got over 50MPG on the highway. The engine had a whopping 48 horsepower.
I had a 84 diesel and loved that car. Wait for the glow plug light to go off before start...Steering wheel vibration at a stop light. That smell of diesel in the interior.... The exhaust hook rotted off at the muffler on the rear. If someone was riding my bumper I would downshift and smoke screen them to the point of seeing black smoke in the rear view.
Good Documentary! FYI: in 1981, 60% of the Cars VW sold were Diesel-powered. 2 years later, 1983, VW began selling Turbodiesel Cars in America. Pressured by Oil Companies, The EPA gave them a lot of pressure, &, so, the “War” between VW & the EPA began. The car shown, here, has actually been upgraded with a slightly newer engine from an85, and up, which had better Pump & Injectors, etc. Also, this car appears to be a square headlight model, originally; but, someone has done the round light conversion on it, not bad.
Yesterday, I saw a 1986 Toyota Corolla in the junkyard. It absolutely broke my heart to see such a simple car there. It was an AE82 FWD Corolla with a 8V 1.6L engine and a 2 barrel carburetor. It has no complicated computer systems or even an ECM, a very easy car to work on with very few failure points.
I truly LOVED my diesel Rabbit Scotty! That WAS German quality built in Pennsylvania 55 MPG, consistently, tons of thick black smoke. Fun as hell!! My bright yellow diesel rabbit 😁😁🐰. BEEP BEEP
My 2014 Chevy Cruze gets OVER 50mpg on the highway and has lots of power too. I bought it new and it now has 123,000 miles on it. No problems with the motor, but I take good care of it, doing maintenance when needed. MOST of the 123k miles are highway miles too. Still has the original brakes on it too. Only had one problem so far which was the DEF fluid heater. 2liter turbodiesel has 151 hp (max), but it is no slouch. It's also amazingly quiet for a diesel.
Hey Scotty I drove one of these a VW diesel truck for 9 years it was a giver 700 k miles almost flawless minus a cracked alternator bracket due to diesel vibration. Thanx again
I graduated from high school back in 1988 so I'm that old now. Back then a lot of people had VW Rabbits and they were really solid cars. At that time you could still find ones made in Germany and they were pretty much indestructible. They had to be considering how those guys drove them.
I had a ‘77 Rabbit (gas model) that I bought brand new for about $5k in Denver. It was a total piece of junk but was fun to drive when the back end wasn’t losing traction and causing out of control spinning. It probably seemed like there were more diesel Rabbits because they were way too easy to get stuck behind on uphill 2 lane mountain roads. Oh the stinky memories!
I bought the 1980 Rabbit Diesel, my only new car to date. 55 miles/gallon. $8000 as I recall. It ran for 379K miles before I sold it to a friend. It needed no work besides oil change and filters. It never smelled of diesel fuel inside. That is because I always protected my hand from the fueling nozzle. Diesel fuel doesn't flash-evaporate as does gasoline. The nozzle will always be oily, so use a paper towel or plastic glove to prevent cross-contamination from the fueling nozzle to the steering wheel(and, whatever else you touch right after fueling). I have had about five of these great, efficient little cars and I'm still driving one.
My buddy had one in high school early 80’s, I swear he put fuel in that thing maybe once a month, and that’s when diesel was 80 cents a gallon. Update, I need one of these ! Anyone?
Back in 97 I bought my wife a 95 model Honda Civic. Plain jane model, no electric doors or windows, 5 speed manual transmission, 1500 cc. It had 22k on it when we bought it for 8500.00. We gave it away for a family in need of a second vehicle, when it had 224K on it. Still running great. And the entire life of the car it got an average of 49.6 mpg. As high as 53 mpg in the summer, and that was with over 200K on it. Best car I ever owned.
I am working manufacturing facility in new station Pennsylvania, where used to be Volkswagen factory. After Volkswagen Sony took the place and now it is Siemens there
One of my brothers had a VW rabbit diesel back in 1983-1988. It was so hard to start in the KS winters that he just left it running all day and night. No one wanted to steal it. Since he drove 50 miles 1-way to work he refueled it once a month whether it needed it or not. I never did the math but that is better than 50 mpg.
OMG Scotty, I had one of those XL7 and I put 550, 000 Km on it and I only retired it cuz the water pump let go. Got my wife one and we sold it with 340, 000 Km on It and I still see driving around to this day here in town. Full frame SUV and true 4x4. One of the best car Iv'e ever owned. And easy to work on.
Well Scotty, I had one of those in 1980. It was very hard to start in the winter in NY state. I would not drive it more than 400 miles in a week. If I did I wouldn't be able to walk. I'd park it and drive my Ford Maverick the rest of the week. VW wouldn't fix anything. The window crank handles broke many times in the 4 years that I had it. The front suspension was incorrectly installed and it rode like a dump truck. VW said it was normal until it was time to trade it in. Then they "found" all the problems they had denied for 48 months. I did get as much as 64 mpg and got a ticket for 71 mph. I had the 4 speed stick with 3 and 4 being overdrives. Going downhill against the wind into Breezewood on the PA Turnpike I had to tuck behind a truck to get it up to 55mph. That car made my Fiat 128 seem like the model of comfort, speed and reliability. The Rabbit was excellent at getting through blizzards. Once you got the diesel started there was no stopping it. With 4 Gislavd studded snow tires I could drive through any upstate NY weather event. My #2 worst car. #1 worst was an Audi Fox with Bosch fuel injection. Swore off all VW products. VW free since 1985!
My dad bought a VW Rabbit for my mom back in the early 80’s. It had a gasoline engine, made in Canada and it was a LEMON! The POS was constantly breaking down and finally my parents had enough and traded it in for a ‘86 or ‘87 Nissan Maxima which was a super reliable car, they had it up until 2010 or so.
I had a bunch of these put hundreds of thousands of reliable miles driving cross country. Car, truck and then two Golfs. The cackle of the starter and rattle of the diesel made me smile. You could actually buy a car for $2,000 run it 100,000 miles and then sell it for $2,000 and it would get 50 miles to the gallon and Diesel was a buck a gallon. Sure things are more comfortable and safer now, but you have to spend $30k and it falls apart within 10 years. Really took all the fun out of cross-country trips and made it many more multiples more expensive.
I had one of these diesel Rabbits in 1980. The only problems I had were that at 100,000 miles, I went over a bump and the muffler fell off. It had become full of oil and weighed a ton. Then on trip through the Rockies after a night well below freezing at the 12,000 foot level, it wouldn't start even with repeated use of the glow plugs. I had to open the hood and let the engine sit in the sun until noon before it would start. But the tremendous fuel economy coupled with the price of diesel fuel in those days being half the price of gasoline, made it all worth while.
Scotty, I have a 84 rabbit gti with the original 1.8 cis gas engine and 164k miles. I've owned it for 14 years and daily drove it for the first year. It has been such a reliable little car, I did have to replace the fuel pump twice and the accumulator once from a donor because they are so damn expensive. Last year it started to run rough and fart and burp. Ive been sitting on my 2004 1.8t motor with 95k on it. Its time to lay the old girl to rest and do a swap. I was pumped to see you do a video on a rabbit. Looks like you had fun riding in it.
We had a passat b2 turbo diesel we owned it from 1998 and it was sold in 2018 it wasn't the fastest but it was able to go anywhere with worries over the parts or fuel mileage it was a blast
I don't know what kind of Crown Vics you rode around in,but the last Mercury Grand Marquis I rode in, which was a gussied-up version of the 2005 Crown Victoria was still pretty vast, interior-wise for the era.
@@motorbreath-4172 The hammer explained it above. Looks like he was trying to say that the rabbit got smashed to bits by a crown vic (in a car accident). Just a strange way to say it.
My brother-in-law had one of those VW diesel rabbits back in the late 80s. What a POS, he was a VW tech so he could fix it (which happened often) and that thing did 0-60 in about 30 seconds. With 2 adults in the car, getting onto the interstate was a harrowing task -- probably only about 35mph by the time you got to the top of the onramp with the AC on.
Back in High School, I always dreamed of buying the VW diesel because it was always at the top of the MPG charts. Now I have a car that gets 104 MPGe :)
My dad bought a VW Rabbit brand new in 1980. Gas, 4 speed, 2-door. On a trip some 5, 6 hours from home it started running badly and we went to a VW garage 11 year old me spotted along the road where they found the converter element fell apart and clogged the exhaust, which had caused it to overheat. They straight piped it for us as an emergency repair, and we went on our trip but the car was never right after that, the head probably had warped. My dad then sold it only six years old for less than a tenth of what he'd paid for it.
I have a Toyota Corolla and a guy came up in a race cae. He asked me if I wanted to race him. I told him that I wouldn't win the race but I would get there cheaper than him. He said you got me there!!! Lol
I get 47-48 with my '97 Geo Metro 1L 5 sp hatchback. Seems like I remember they had aftermarket turbo kits available for those VW diesels back in their day.
When we got a ice storm in south carolina nobodu could get up the hill to our neighborhood. All the kids would pile on the hoods so some cars could try and make it. I will never foget when a vw rabbit went straight up that hill ...no kids needed. We all just sat there jaws dropped. Something about that fwd with high torque in the snow. Just wanted to share my rabbit memories
I personally love my 2004 Toyota Camry le. It has the 2.4ltr engine. I’m at 145,000 miles. It cost $4000.00 dollars. I plan to get it repainted once I get it paid off. I love this car it handles well. I mostly drive it on the highway.
Hey Scotty, greetings from Australia... I will take my 1986 Mazda 626D 5 speed manual over your fall apart VW any day.... My ex-driving school Mazda has 520000km (323k miles) on the clock with its original Japanese OEM built 2.0L motor that consistently pulls 4.9L/100km (US 48mpg) with the aircon on.... It still has all its original interior, all lights bells and whistles still work, and the motor starts super easy.... It is a great compliment pairing with my 20yo 95 series 4x4 Toyota Prado.
Point of interest: the VW Van line is called the Transporter. The T1 and T2 are most iconic. The T1’s eras was the 60’s. The T2 the 70’s. The T3 was marketed in the US as the “Vanagon” And ran from 1980 to 1991 and came in an air cooled and later water cooled version. Subaru swaps are common with this version of transporter. The Eurovan was the T4. The T5 and T6 are still made and sold overseas. So it is laughable when they say they will bring the bus (transporter) back. As the production line never stopped.
I agree with Scotty in the whole RU-vid business. I don't watch as much TV except movies or video gaming as I watch RU-vid more often. Pretty much everyone uses the internet nowadays than cable.
My DAD had the diesel truck which was a rabbit with the back chopped off and turned into a truck....He then put an aftermarket turbo on it and it still could not get out of it's own way....When I was 16 I had to drive it once and I said never again....LOL...Good stuff....
In the late '80s, I had a German-made 1979 Rabbit Diesel which I bought with 100k miles on the clock. It had been a top of the line model, but it had been badly abused and poorly maintained. Its performance was abysmal. It did not brake, steer or accelerate anywhere near properly. It had a bad case of rust too, so much that the door handle came off in my hand one day. The gear shift was uncertain and I only realized it had a fifth gear after several months of owning the car (for some reason the gear-change knob had a 4-gear sticker on it). And yet it never let me down. It never failed to start and take me there and back, every day, for five years. It always let me know in advance when something needed attention, like the brakes, cooling hoses or fuel filter. That German Diesel engine was a wonder of engineering and simply would not die. I must have put two hundred thousand further miles on that car and never had any issues except for a broken water pump that I replaced myself. In 1989 I drove that little car from Los Angeles to Panama City without any mechanical issues except a blown tire in El Salvador. My intention was to drive it all the way to Argentina, but as I was looking for a way to ship my car to Colombia (the road ended at El Darien), a British shipping agent told me that there was no safe shipping at the time and that the Americans were about to invade the country and that it would be very wise of me to get the hell out of there. So I sold the car to a local customs official, got on a plane and flew home just forty-eight hours before operation Just Cause was launched. My rusty trusty Rabbit remained behind in Panama and I never went back. But I would not be surprised if I found it still running some day. The damn thing was immortal.
I bought a 1978 Rabbit diesel brand new and drove it 157,000 miles before the motor conked out. I dumped the car and have regretted it since. Two days ago, I drove to Georgia and bought a ONE OWNER 1978 Rabbit Diesel. I just couldn't stand not having one any longer.
When these cars were new, sold in America, the national speed limit was 55 mph. At that speed it was fairly easy to get 47-52 miles per gallon on the highway/freeway. Around town/city driving was closer to 42-47 miles per gallon. Now that the speed limit is higher, these cars can still average over 40 mpg, Even at higher speeds. If everything is put together, properly, with no leaks, etc., one shouldn’t smell diesel, except, of course, the diesel exhaust fumes, from time to time.
