Used Car of the Day: 2004 Volkswagen Golf R32

by Tim Healey

Published: October 16th, 2023

used car of the day 2004 volkswagen golf r32

Today's UCOTD is a nearly two-decade-old hot hatch with some mods. Hit the jump for more on this 2004 Volkswagen Golf R32.

The seller says the car is in good condition with a clean title and it recently passed North Carolina state inspection. The mileage is just under 140K.

Mods include a Forge intake, Magnaflow exhaust, high-flow cats, H&R springs, adjustable rear lower control arms, and more. Oh, and the car is, of course, tuned.

The asking price for this ride is $18,000. Click here to check it out, and to read up on the mods I didn't list.

[Images: Seller]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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2 of 32 comments

JMII on Oct 17, 2023

My brother had one of these and for some reason VW leased it to him as if it was a normal Golf. VeeDub fans on the Vortex know this is a rare and special car so they seek it out. So when his lease ran out he immediately flipped it for a $6k profit. Can't say that about many cars. After riding in it I can tell you it was a rocketship with great handling in its day, the brakes were amazing for a stock vehicle. My brother continued his German love affair with a Golf R and now a collection of Porsches. Me? I had a B5 Passat 1.8T and learned my lesson after suffering thru multiple problems and failures - so no more VWs for me. I've always found it interesting how my brothers experience with the brand were so different then mine. However in his defense he has always traded his VWs after 3 years where we kept that Passat for nearly 7 despite its issues. I noticed around year 4 the German engineering fails right on schedule when the warranty expires.

3 Reply
Zerofoo on Oct 17, 2023

Early 2000s VWs, Mercs, Porsches with the IMS bearing failure, and Audi V8s with timing chains on the REAR of the engine turned me off of German cars for life.

I get it - they drive well - but everything else about owning a German car is painful.

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