Will R

Hey guys! Some of you may have seen my previous post a couple of weeks ago in regards to the C32 I had found at a very suspicious dealership and was in some pretty rough shape. Like an act of god however, a couple of hours after getting home and updating my post, I was browsing craigslist and stumbled upon another C32 posted only 30 minutes earlier. This one, however, was in impeccable shape. There was minimal issue other then some chips and slight rust here and there.

I shot the guy a text and he responded pretty quickly, we started talking back and forth and eventually decided to meet up and let me check it out. On the 31st of December my father and I drove about 45 minutes up to Maryland to take a look at it. Long story short though, he was held up at work and we had somewhere else to be at so I only got to see it briefly. We snapped a few pictures for reference and it was apparent that the car had really been taken care of.

I quickly came to the realization that test driving it wasn't going to turn me off to the car and only going to make me fall in love more. But, we did end up meeting back up on the 3rd of January to go test drive it, however, at this point we had cash in hand. We had somewhat discussed price at this point and we had managed to talk him down to $5,900.

$5,900 for a car that was in this solid of shape with only about 100K miles on the clock seemed like a pretty nice deal so we took it.

Within the next few days I had easily given it a test by driving it about 600 miles from DC to Pittsburgh and back. There was no wobbles or anything remotely wrong with the car.

However, as a 16 year old kid with only a decently paying part time job, I've made myself fairly car poor. I took it in to get inspected and only got compliments from the mechanics except both rear tires were totally shot due to over inflation (tread was completely gone in the center of the tire and we didnt see it when we walked around the car). We took it to NTB and had some Michelin Pilot Super Sports slapped on for $500.

After that though, the car seemed pretty solid. Nothing was glaringly obvious apart from the brakes having about a couple months of life still in them.

Just today though (1/10/16) my right low beam light went out and left we with the ugly malfunction warning on my dash. So I have to go ahead and fix that now.

I will continue to keep this thread updated with the repairs and mods that happen to it. If you do have any questions or advice feel free to post them and I'll answer them!

UPDATE ON 7/19/16
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Hey guys. I decided that I would update this post just as a way to document my time with this car. Its been a little over 6 or so months since I've purchased the car and I still am in love with it. I will be honest, at times I do find myself wishing I had something different, but unfortunately my dream of a C63 is still a ways away. The only real cost I've experienced so far has been gas. It's near impossible to drive like a sane person in this car. I find myself zipping around and filling up once or twice a week easily. In these past 6 months I've managed to put another 6K miles or so on it. I recently just had my birthday where my father purchased me a pair of rear shocks to replace a squeaking issue I've had for a while now. However, today I noticed my sunroof screen had the cloth all bunched up and tearing in the back. I removed the screen and am still trying to figure out what to do next. If anyone has any experience with this let me know.

As far as mods I am now seriously looking at removing the resonator right now.

Ill keep you guys updated as time goes on

Current Repairs as of 7/19/16
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2 Rear Tires ($500)
Right Low Beam ($10)
Front Brake Pads ($100)
Sunroof Screen (?)
Potential Flat Tire (?)
Weird flapping noise from drivers side (?)

Current Mods as of 7/19/16
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N/A

Planned Mods
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I want to work on the exhaust sound.
Some more cosmetic things here and there.
I need some suggestions

Pictures
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Maffu313

Congratz on your purchase! I, myself, am also a new owner of a C32, though mine is '04 with 183k km (approx 114k miles).

From your pics, it does indeed look to be a very clean car that's been well taken care off. From your previous post, it seems like you've read up on quite a bit about the C32 already; but just in case you didn't, wanted to give you a heads up to check on the 'glycol leak' problem for the Valeo radiator. This was a problem with the '02 and early '03s.

Lenin

For the exhaust, the simple way to improve the sound is to remove the resonator. The next thing I would do is look into the shorty headers from Eurocharged. Don't bother with the rest until you get a full time job. It get's expensive. Start saving money for an LSD. It will put many smiles on your face.

Will R

Thanks for the advice man! That definately seems like the way to go. Im assuming there is a DIY way to remove the resonator? Im really trying to keep costs to a minimum so taking it to a dealership or to a mechanic would preferably be a last resort. Ill also look into that LSD you mentioned!

So, I actually was concerned about this. I have been experiencing that awkward stutter at around ~20ish mph. I haven't been sure if that was this issue or just a gear shift since I'm still not fully acquainted with the car and don't have much else to reference it too. I did take a look at some forums and took a look at my radiator and it does seem to be a Valeo which is a big concern. I'm not 100% sure where to go from here but I've been talking to my father about it.

///AchMeinGott

Oh geez, your family owns a V10 Touraeg too? You guys must like cars that nickel, dime, penny, and dollar you to death... ok so the C32 isn't that bad... and the Touareg isn't either, but may the devil help you if it does have an engine problem.

Forget modding the C32 beyond a resonator/cat delete at a local exhaust shop. Save up money for stupid little things first, and start finding every fairly priced online parts store. Sure, it cost you 6 grand, but when something like a starter goes, you'll be paying $50k Mercedes prices not $20k Camry prices. And mods like headers, as much as some try to say they are appropriately priced, range from expensive to mind-numbingly outrageous.

Most of that is my advice for any car though. Always measure twice/cut once, and save a list of every car part website you can find. There are plenty of deals to be had. I'm pretty sure I'm leaning away from a C55 afterall, but I still greatly respect the 32/55 for what they are.

Maffu313

Do a quick search and you should find lots of threads about it. But, from my basic understanding of what other forum members have done, is that they took some of their ATF and sent it over to Blackstone Labs to get an oil analysis done. This should determine if there's any glycol in your fluids, not sure if there's any other place to send it. Others have just changed it anyways, for peace of mind.

C3Duece

IMHO....the best bang for the buck exhaust mod is to cut out the secondary cats. These suckers are very restrictive. Leave in the resonator.

ez53436

congrats! first mod you should do is throw on an oem trunk spoiler!

///AMGSC

+1 Congrats

ghiaguy

Congratulations on your C32! Looks like a really clean example- here's to many happy miles!

kuneefay

Congrats on finding one. Looks like a peach. As everyone else has said, valio radiator may be an issue. Something not everyone has said is to check your driveline flex disks. If one of those fail, your gonna have a bad time. They're reasonably cheap and simple to swap out if they are bad though but ignoring them can be catastrophic and dangerous. I had to replace both of mine at 110k (driveline idler bearing and transmission mount are also worth looking at while your there).

Will R

Updated as of 07/19/16

Smokey31

Wow, hell of a car to have at your age. Nice.