What To Look For When Buying A Classic VW:

Video Transcript:

Intro Good morning I'm Sam with California Pacific JBugs. We're here today working on a new project for us here at the shop. One of the guys picked up a bug. Today we're going to go over a couple things you should look at when purchasing a beetle VIN Number Identification Yeah this is Sam again. We're going to go over couple places on your Volkswagen where you're going to find your VIN number. This is more specific to the later to model beetles, earlier beetles will have a the VIN number elsewhere. Starting in roughly 67-68 this is going to be key points where you're going to find the VIN number. One being lower left windshield kind of like most modern cars nowadays. Lower left of the windshield there should be the VIN number stamped to the dash. Another place is going to be on the back door jamb. These are commonly painted over, we're going to go over that in a minute. Not always there but this is one place that it should be. Another places is underneath the rear seat, in front of the shifter access plate, you're going to find the chassis number stamped in there. Now these numbers aren't always going to match. You have to realize these cars are old, things do get swapped. Not a huge issue but it's something that could cause a problem with the DMV later. Common Rust Locations All right when you're buying a car, don't wear anything nice because you're going to have to get dirty. On your hands and knees looking underneath the car in the fender wells as we're going to show you here. Major rust spot as far as you know on Volkswagen's where you're going to find some issues. As we've found here right now, back edge of the quarter well right in front of the fender. On that heater channel that we mentioned earlier another place where water is gonna gather and cause what we have here is cancer. As you can see here with this rust in the fender well, it's all just flaking off. That's why if the owner of the car that you're looking to buy is willing. Bring a small screwdriver, this is helpful to because it has a magnet. you can see if there's any excess body filler otherwise. Which probably is not going to be in this area, but this I just want to show you the rust. Key portion to look at for rust on a Volkswagen Beetle is the heater channel. Heater channel goes from the very front of the car, all the way up to the front frame head, all the way back to the rear quarter panel. It's a structural peace the body, it's at the bottom of the car next to all the water and everything else. Over the years it gets inside the body's going to sit down here and rust. If it's rusted can be bad it's a lot of work to replace but not the end of the world for the right project. One area to look for rust, as it sits in the back and often times if you have bad rear window rubber water's gonna leak in and gather here in this padding. This padding is gonna retain moisture as I can feel here, you can't see it video obviously, but it is wet. Fortunately you can kinda tap on it with a screwdriver or otherwise, nothing else just use your hand. I don't know if you guys can hear that but you're just her trying to hear the sound of solid rubber as opposed to your crunching or otherwise. One of the most common problem areas with Volkswagens for rust is directly underneath the battery. Problem being all the battery acid, sitting over the top of the medal, its gonna corrode it. It's not the end of the world it's something that has to be replaced regularly. If your car the car you're purchasing rather doesn't have any rust there perfect, awesome one less headache to deal with. We can see some rust has already eroded out of this and by the looks of it it's actually already been repaired possibly once already. General Body Fitment Next thing we're going to go over is just general body shape. Overall fit and finish, the hood, the fenders, the running boards, how do the doors fit, how all the body gap so to speak. Couple things I can see immediately here this things obviously had a front end collision. We've got a little the rust and bondo here, not a huge issue on a fender. In the body however we can see that there's a large gap between the hood and the body here which tightens up along the bodyline and then gets large again towards the back of the hood. Fender fitment here this car doesn't have any fender beading. Which is kinda helpful because we can see that the fender gap this actually relatively good. Although this car is missing some fender bolts we can see that the body line and most important the fender bolts are in good shape and not rusted out. Coming across to the back to the car the rear fender fitment looks good. Fender beading although it's out of place here slightly, shows that the body line across the back to the car is good. Fender fitment to the apron looks really good. The body itself back here is in fantastic shape. I don't see much information as far as indicating that this would be an accident in the rear. At least nothing major. The decklid fitment, which is always a pain, is a definitely out of alignment but that's something that can be taken care of with just resetting the hedges. Also when we step back a little bit as we open and close the decklid. Make certain that it opens nice we don't have any interference here. Again back of this car is actually in really good shape I don't see any major accident damage. With the door fitment this door gap here is a little bit tighter than id like to see . Again with some issues with the front end that may have pushed the a-pillar back causing this tight gap. Across this edge here is alright, across the top is perfect. Across the back at the door jamb it's a little bit larger than I'd like to see. The gap at the bottom or the more line the body line the bottom is pretty close. Not a huge issue that might be some worn out door hinge pins which can be replaced, pretty easy to do. When opening the door first thing I can immediately feel and see somewhat, might come out in the video. There is a little bit play in the door hinges. Not a big deal replacement of door hinge pins it is not all that difficult. You want to open the door, close the door make sure that fits tight against the body. Most importantly that you don't get any scraping when you first open the door. Which would indicate the door pins are really worn. With the hood open we can see what I saw earlier as far as problems with the hood not fitting properly. Trunk Inspection We see a lot of body damage here, wrinkles, even some bondo along the front of the apron. Here you can see that all the metals been crunched in. This has been pushed in flat, this actually should sit out further, which it would cause that large gap when had when the hood was closed. Also inside the fender well or inside the hood our trunk this is where the spare tire would sit. We can see that this entire area down here has been crushed. We can see lots of wrinkles cracks in the paint even underneath all the black spray paint that somebody had done to kind of you know cover-up some of the issues. Internal Wiring Coming in and looking at the back and a dash here, we can see there's no speedometer cable attached. Not a big deal but if this guy is trying to tell you that this things got really low miles, could be because he hasn't been putting any miles on it because there's no speedometer cable. Typical Volkswagen wiring looks like a mess. A lot of people have been through this thing, obviously an aftermarket stereo. Different sorts of wires, wires that aren't necessary plugged into anything that maybe should be. This might the be kind of a red flag. That you might want to tow this car home instead of drive the car home, electrical fires are not fun.