Hi, I am living in Chiang Mai. I'm currently looking for a VW Passat (1995/1996). I plan to go to Bangkok to get one. Do anyone know a good VW mechanic that can assist me in this, to test drive and look over the car and provide opinions of the car.

Thanks,

Elan

..and of course I'm willing to pay for this service. I am thinking about 1000 per day.

I would respectfully advise you to forget this. You may get some recommendations, you have about a 1% chance of the people actually knowing what they are doing. If you don't know your stuff here, or have a close friend who does, you are pretty much screwed. Hell, I could even help you out, but i'm only about 25% of the way qualified to do that. See what I mean? 2 options: buy new, or test your luck and instincts buying used. Best bet here though is to get online and learn or ask the best ways to superficially inspect one of these bad boys yourself.

About 18 months ago we went looking for a second hand ute (pickup to you yanks!). Looked for days and everywhere we went no matter what model and year the price was similar. One decent guy told us that a lot of these vehicles were repaired flood damaged vehicles. In the end we purchased a new vehicle. Good luck to you finding a 17+ year old car here in decent condition. My suggestion, should you listen, is forget it.

You can find good cars of that age, but you have to realise that they are old cars and old cars come with problems... It's normal... If you want a perfect car, you have to buy new.

I understand old car and come with problems. I also know It would almost be impossible to find a perfect one for the kind of age.

What I need from the mechanic is to advise me on how much would I need to repair for the car (to make it to almost perfect ) if I buy it. I know a new car would be nice. But I don't have that much to spend.

Anyway, thanks for the inputs.

You might be better of buying an other brand car so there are more spare parts available.

Is there a particular reason as to why you want such an obscure car ?

Once again thanks for all inputs and comments. Finally got a decent car with decent condition and complete service record for the last three years. It's not a VW but a 1995 Citroen Xantia. I know, still an old car and not a common car to choose. But back in Jakarta I drove a Peugeot which used the same engine and built by the same company, so I'm sure I'm quite familiar with any problems, if any, with this car.