The Car....

Today, I became a DSMer. Kinda. My friend Mike FINALLY got to a car before someone could sell it out from underneath him. We live about 240 miles north of the car so after much pleading with our parents we were allowed to go get this car. It was lots of fun. We met him at 9:30, drove it, looked it over, agreed on a price and had it signed into Mikes name by 12:30. My first question is did we get a good deal. Its a 1991 TSI AWD, 5 speed, 103k miles, good interior, solid idle at about 850 RPMs, turbo timer, fading paint, a couple small rust spots, nonsmoker, leaky oil pan gasket (new one included), shitty brakes ( front left and back right calipers wont squeeze, rusty rotors on those two wheels, long and spongy pedal), broke ebrake cable, good tires but severe camber problem in back and resulting weird tread wear (but still ok), and lots of extra oil, windshield washer fluid, coolant, and tranny fluid for $1800. Good deal? The brakes are going to get done as soon as we can get parts. We are just going to buy new calipers for the broke ones, slotted and/or drilled front rotors, OEM back ones, and pads. My second question: semi metallic or ceramic pads? (sorry for the lame ass newb question, but my internet is moving unusually slow tonight so I didnt search). What about the goofy ass camber? Should I just take it to an alignment shop or is there something I will have to replace first? It doesnt have air bags does it? Also, we are going to do all the maintainance stuff soon. We figured oil change (kinda have to since we are replacing the oil pan gasket), all the belts, brake fluid (kinda have to since we are repalcing calipers), and posibly the head and exhaust manifold gaskets. Anything that doesnt need to be done or should be done thats not on the list? How is it to change the timing belt? Please guys we need your help, we are both new to turbo'd cars and dont know much about them. Thanks in advance!

as far as the camber wear goes, you can get a camber kit that will take care of that for pretty cheap depending on where you get it, but it might not be a bad idea to take it to an alingment shop afterwards just to cover your bases. and no it doesnt have airbags at least not stock. and you didnt get a terrible deal in my opinion. as far as your other questions go, im pretty new to the turbo/dsm scene myself, so you should let someone with a little more experence answer those, and aslo correct me if im wrong about anything

it sounds like a fair deal, i mean you do know of problems ahead of time, and he gave you fluids and stuff, so that was nice, I think doing the Timing belt is going to be a hard task, but i am sure you guys can do it, i paid $2,000 for a 1991 tsi awd automatic my car has modest oxadation on the roof and hood, but not to bad, but it had a rebuild for tranny and motor, they said my car had a power steering problem. meaning it was going to snap, easy fix, well they told us the wrong thing, it was the altenator belt and altenator itself, overheating and having the shavings making havoc in the engine, drive shafts are pretty bad so thats the next fix before upgrading everything,good luck with everything and tell me about your interior changes as you go, Aaron

for street use, semi-metallic pads are generally the best, the only bad thing is they dust alot and can be noisy. Also, just go with slotted rotors, drilling is largely pointless and only weakens the rotor.