Everything is twice as expensive in California compared to most other places. I have found that many sellers of these MK111's just don't want to mess with a 20 year old car, so they sell cheap. Of course that means that it may not have been properly maintained, but surprisingly a lot of them have been. So if you can buy for cheap and it runs great and, if you can get someone who knows something about cars to look at it and give an honest opinion, I would go for the turbo.

Let us know how it goes.

Russ

HUH? Uh could you ex-plain that?

and also glad to hear about your test ride but my suggestion (This is if you live in a state that requires smog testing ES_PECIALLY CALI) get the car smog tested before the money is handed over. It is actually the -previous owners reponsibility but my cars previous owner mysteriously disa-peared after selling me mine. Turns out he removed the EGR system, (as well as alot of other stuff), and the cat was a -piece of junk. So tell the guy
"Hey if it passes smog ill pay for the smog and pay you on the spot for the car, but if it doesn't I will still pay for the test and de-pending on what the Smog tech says what the -problem is and depending on what it would cost to make the car -pass will determine if I will buy the car."
(I.E. If it's just an oxygen sensor issue, thats not ex-pemsive OR difficult, However if it isthat the whole egr system is gone that IS an exp-ensive fix even if you do it yourself and only use -parts from the junkyard, I did mine myself and not only is it a pain it is time consuming and the junkers know how valuable the system is and will still charge you less than new -parts but it wont be chea-p. Ebayers do too (and some -parts are hard to find, when I was looking for my BVSV valve There were only two on there.

Sorry must've had a brain fart... didn't mean to type the (non-turbo) because it is turbo :D