[Karim]

If the car this age has engine probles, i would just scrap it. engine probems are never a cheap fox and there's so much that needs replacing together - the bills add up.

what sort of engine trouble are you having?

 

[Karim]

@Karim he's got no engine problems, he was asking about preventative things... so I told him he can go ahead and upgrade parts to get more from a remap...

Oh sorry, i didn't read the subsequent update. Seems a bit pointless to do if you dont have any engine issues. The 1.8T is known for having engine oil get stuck and dry at the top - but only if the owner hasn't done oil changes on time.

It's really down to you whether you want to spend the money on it. A lot of the newer cars are terrible. the tfsi VAG cars (and other brands similar era) have horrible oil burn issues because of reduced friction piston rings where they tried to eek out higher mpg/reduce emissions. They did a lot of stuff to reduce friction in the engine which created reliability issues. You can imagine those tfsi engines frequently had oil drop below minimum many timees, because they sometimes need 1L of oil every 600 miles. Castrol edge LL isn't exactly cheap and I'm sure some owners just forget to put some in.

I was looking at what reliable car I can get next which I can own for 10 years (like the mk4 golf), unfortunately the most reliable 2012 year cars are japanese and korean cars like toyota auris/corolla and kia models which I'm not not entirely familiar with.

I dont like the look of asian cars so I totally get why you want to keep a mk4 running for longer term.

Unfortunately for me, I think I'm going to have to retire mine because it's starting to burn oil now.