VW Bora TDI130 - Are they good, and can they be remapped?

mattyprice4004

mattyprice4004

mattyprice4004

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Tried ringing round for insurance today, and turns out a Bora is actually quite cheap to insure!

Having a flick round Autotrader I found a few decent ones, most being the 130 variety.

My question is as follows - can it be remapped, and also are they generally nice cars?
 
Having just got myself the car in question a month ago i can honestly say that its a great car to drive. Plenty of space and power for the average motorist like myself and sips fuel even with your foot to the floor.
As for the remap i think its about £200-300 depending on where you go looking, at about 160-170hp once its done.
 
Dad's got a 110tdi and it's dull. Solid and fairly comfy but it's just really boring, steering is ridiculously light and his interior is just asea of scratchy black plastic.
 
the interior is better as it's from an A3 rather than a golf
and the steering isn't as light (maybe)
 
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rover416i said:
My question is as follows - can it be remapped, and also are they generally nice cars?
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To answer the first point yes it can be mapped to circa 170-180BHP (generic or custom - the latter is probably better to help curb the amount of torque and smoke).

The Bora itself is quite nice although as others have already said it is a bit dull. The steering as with most VAG cars is light and vague but they handle ok.

I am suprised though that you can't get insurance on the 1.8T as IIRC there isn't much in it in insurance grouping and I can't imagine the petrol would flag up as being of a higher risk to an insurance company as they are basically the same car. I may be wrong of course but it does seem odd.
 
[TW]Fox;13541706 said:
Whoa, thats pretty epic, does it do 60-65 in 5th quicker than a Boxster as well? That would be epic.
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you have to be in 6th by then, else you're out of the powerband
 
got my Bora 130 TDi Sport [daily driver] remapped at Xmas to around 170, went for the less agressive map and I'm happy with the results

I hated the original handling on the 130 Sport so I swapped the springs for Eibach pros and stuck a set of 17" alloys on it.

Handling is much better but tbh like all mk4/boras its needs a top and bottom strut brace to improve turn in.

I can get 60mpg on a daily 60 mile round trip now that the colder weather is behind us, and with the remap it can upset a lot of "sportier" cars in a straight line
 
I find it funny now you've got unmatched springs, dampers and bigger wheels that you find it better handling?

Is it lowered now, if so it's probably the lower CoG that's helped.
 
( |-| |2 ][ $;13543281 said:
I find it funny now you've got unmatched springs, dampers and bigger wheels that you find it better handling?

Is it lowered now, if so it's probably the lower CoG that's helped.
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Laugh as much as you like :), The Eibachs are designed to be used with stock dampers and lower car by 30mm all round, the 17" alloys [OEM] are wider than the stock 16" ones and provide a better grip.

TBH it wouldn't be hard to improve on the stock setup, it drove like jelly. And I simply couldn't adjust my driving style jumping from the Bora in to my Type r, so had to do something

CIMG1174.jpg

CIMG1172.jpg


p.s. that's it lowered btw, so you can imagine stock
 
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When I said I found it funny I didn't mean I was laughing, just not I result I expected. That's good they're designed for the stock dampers, might have to look into whether it's an option for my car. As previously it's been cost of a full setup putting me off lowering mine.

Stephen B said:
p.s. that's it lowered btw, so you can imagine stock
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Yes it looks a good height.
 
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