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Author Topic: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction  (Read 4058 times)

Offline Superliminal

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Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« on: September 23, 2016, 04:30:13 pm »
Just picked up my first Mk5 and since this seems like best forum for them I thought I'd sign up.

In case the title didn't give it away, my name's Matt, and I live in Northampton.  I'm now the proud owner of an '05 GTI.  It's got 116k on the clock and is in tidy (but not perfect) condition.  I've had it for just under a week.  Here it is:



I wasn't looking for one of these originally.  I'd just sold my e46 M3 because I needed to free up some cash.  My first plan was to spend about a grand or less and put some money aside in savings.  At first I looked at a friend's Mk4 Gti.  He only wanted £250 for it, but on inspection I worked out why; dirty, cracked bumpers, dodgy driver's seat, potentially slipping clutch, and worst of all - the 20v NA engine.  I worked out it to get it up to scratch would set be back another £600.  Just not worth it to me; if I wanted to spend £800 ish on a Mk4, it would be a 1.8T.  That said, looking around further at a notional £1000 budget all I could find were good cars 200 miles away, obviously crap cars, or suspiciously good cars in really rapey (not a typo) locations.  I decided to up my budget a bit.  I sorted the Autotrader results by distance and this beauty showed up at the top of the list.  <5 miles.  Madness.  I viewed it and bought it the next day.

Despite having BMWs for a few years, I'm no stranger to VW's.  This is my 9th Golf, and 12th VW overall.  I've had a couple of Mk1s that never actually made it to the road, a Mk2 1.6 Driver, a Mk2 16v that I dropped an ABF 2.0 into, a Mk3 cabrio, a Mk3 VR6, 2 Mk4 GT TDIs, a Lupo 16v Sport and a couple of Passat 1.8Ts.  I've also had a bunch of other non-dubs as well, including a couple of Audi S2 Avants, 3 e46's, and some tinny French stuff.  If anyone's interested I'll post some pics and details of my previous cars later on.

So, back to the Mk5.  Lovely.  I must admit, the only thing I'm missing about the M3 is the noise.  Yeah it was quick, but it was all top end and frankly I'm told old to be wringing an engine out like constantly.  I'm loving the mid range punch of the TFSI lump.  It could do with a bit more power further up the rev range, though I expect the DV is knackered.  Following an intense period of procrastination I'll eventually get around to looking at it.  Other plans include replacing the cam follower and the PCV valve - just as a matter of preventative maintenance.  I also need to tidy up the paint a bit - some carefully applied touch up paint and some polish should see it looking reasonable.  The wheels are all kerbed, however it's all superficial so a DIY refurb is on the cards.  They're 17" Monza's in silver paint so it'll be easy to get them looking new again.  Finally, I'm waiting for my lovely postman to bring me a Pioneer AVIC-F9110BT unit that I won via a popular internet auction site.  It'll be a nice replacement for the truly horrible RCD300 that's currently blighting my dash.

See, told you it would be long and rambling.  I'm not afraid of getting the spanners out, so hopefully it won't be long before I can start properly contributing to the forum instead of just reading.

Oh, and a virtual pint for whoever gets the username reference without resorting to Google.

Thanks for reading.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2016, 06:24:34 pm by Superliminal »

Offline prp74

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2016, 05:47:47 pm »
Welcome to the forum. Get some pics up  :happy2:
mk5 Graphite Blue GTI - Leathers, Xenons, MFD2, PDC, Boot Pop - SOLD
mk7 Pure White GTI - Performance Pack, Xenons, DSG, Leathers, Pro Nav, Dynaudio, Self Park, Keyless, 18" OZ Ultraleggera

Offline AJP

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2016, 06:06:25 pm »
Good intro! Decent car history you've got too, especially the S2s. I was into B3s and B4s a few years ago, although I never found an S2. Lovely cars. Wouldn't mind seeing some pics of those - as well as the mk5 (the image you posted doesn't work).

Welcome to the forum anyway

Offline Superliminal

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2016, 06:25:37 pm »
Thanks for the warm welcome.  Not sure what was going with Photobucket earlier.  User error no doubt!

Will get some pics of the other motors up later.

Offline Andy

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2016, 09:38:06 pm »
Welcome to the forum Matt
Get a build thread going in the members ride section.
and more photos

Offline AndrewWillis

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #5 on: September 24, 2016, 09:06:38 am »
Welcome to the forum from a fellow Northamptonian!

I also have a 3dr 05 Red GTI! Would be good to meet you around at some point maybe!
05, 3door Red GTI DSG, BCS Powervalve 200 Cell, DNX525DAB, Xenons, R-Tech 2+

Offline RetroRaz

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2016, 10:51:56 am »
Welcome to the forum mate.

Stick a turbo back exhaust system on it and it will sound crazy! 

Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk


Offline Superliminal

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2016, 11:23:46 am »
AndrewWillis - I'm always up for meeting up with like minded petrolheads!

RetroRaz - This one may be staying standard.  We'll see.

As for more photos, that's literally the only one I've got.  Will give it a scrub and take some more.

Offline AndrewWillis

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2016, 02:38:56 pm »
Just you wait until bring my one round, you'll soon want to start doing some tasteful mods to get the fullest out of them....
05, 3door Red GTI DSG, BCS Powervalve 200 Cell, DNX525DAB, Xenons, R-Tech 2+

Offline Superliminal

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2016, 09:34:08 pm »
Well, I'm not ruling it out, but this was supposed to be a downgrade to save some money!  As you'll see below, I'm no stranger to modified cars, but I also appreciate them as their designers intended.

Anyway, to the car history.  Sadly I don't have pics of the earlier ones.  I'm old, and some were pre-digital camera!  Pretty much all work on these was done by me.

First up, the cabriolet.  This was a 2.0 Avantgarde with a weird spec.  Full leather, electric roof, manual windows and no central locking!  By the time this picture was taken it was running a full 5 stud conversion with 280mm front brakes and was sitting on a Bilstein/H&R suspension kit.  It had a Miltek cat-back as well.  I'd retrofitted the electric windows and central locking, as well as fitting a lovely blue mohair hood.



This was sold to find the first of the Audi S2s.  This one had a beige leather interior and was standard other than an MTM 262 chip.  Great car, but had some mystery ECU problem that meant it wouldn't shut off the electrics properly.




I followed this with my Mk2.  God, I loved that car.  I started off life as a 1.8 16v KR, standard other than a suspension drop (on unknown springs/shocks).  By the time I was done, it was rocking a 2.0 ABF on the standard K-Jet (rolling roaded at 163bhp), as well as a lovely set of 15x8 BBS RMs.





The Mk2 got a bit rubbish to use as a daily over winter.  I had to pick up my son from Nursery down some dark bumpy lanes and it was downright scary.  At this point sensible dad mode took over the the Passat arrived.  Standard other than a set of BBS rims and an Upsolute remap to 192 bhp.  Nice comfy car and reasonably pokey for its size.  the only I did in this one was retrofit the MFD sat nav kit.



After 6 months the Passat got really boring, so I sold it and bought a friend's Mk4 GT TDI 130.  This had a Jabbsport map (~170 bhp or so), a JOM coilover kit (rubbish), 17" Audi TT comps in black and a Recaro Golf Anniversay interior.  Lovely car this one.  I also fitted an uber-rare VDO OEM SD card MP3 player.






After a trip to the Nurburgring with a friend I was left questioning why I, as a die hard petrolhead, was driving a diesel hatchback.  I needed something quick again, so a I did a straight swap for the 2nd of My S2s.  This one was on some BBS LM replicas.  Whilst they weighted as much as the moon and ruined the handling, they looked awesome ;)  It was on a set of RS2 springs which made it sit slightly lower.  This one was running standard power.  The only mod I did was to fit the awesome Audi 90 rear plinth which had the reflective material the whole way round.





After the realisation that only a multi-millionaire can keep an Audi S2 in reasonable condition (complex, fragile + expensive parts = a great combination), I decided to get something cheap and sensible.  I met one of those criteria; cue the VR6.  This one had a big dent in the rear quarter and a hideously cracked leather interior.  It drove ok though.  It came with a great set of Koni adjustable shocks and H&R springs.  I then sorted the dent, fitted Eibach ARBs, a Neuspeed strut brace and Corrado speedlines.  The best mod I did though, was the gearbox.  These are well known as lazy cruisers, in part due to the long gearing.  I've got a mate who worked at a gearbox repairers who helped out after I'd spent a couple of hours with a ratio calculator.  We ended up with a slightly longer 1st and a much shorter final drive.  Afterwards it felt just like a big Gti.  Great car.



The VR died due to a combination of electrical problems and the birth of my 2nd child.  I actually broke it on my drive - my neighbours weren't impressed.  The other thing that killed it was the need for a car for my 2nd planned 'ring trip, due in just over a week.  In the end I just got a bank loan and bought my first BMW - a 330ci Auto.  To make it slightly more interesting I retrofitted the paddle shift steering wheel from an SMG M3.






The need to sort my finances out meant that the 330 was with me for only 6 months.  It was replaced with something much cheaper, and much worse - a 306 GTI-6.  When I say worse, GTI-6's are great cars.  This one was not a fine example.  It was bought on impulse and was a mistake.  The gearbox was almost entirely missing the syncro on 2nd and the rear beam was almost hanging off.  I replaced the rear beam mounts and drove it like I stole it for 6 months then sold it.  Sadly I've got no pics of that online.

I replaced the 306 with a Puma.  Loads of fun this one, though it turns out the previous owner didn't understand the concept of antifreeze.  2 days after I got was the coldest day for quite a while.  -12 if I remember correctly.  So, why was the car overheating?  Hmm, not sure those coolant pipes should be quite that solid.  Yep, the water pump was attempting to push ice around the system.  After it thawed, I sorted it out and it ran ok.  I left this one alone, save for some general maintenance.



After 9 months of trying to squeeze two children in the back of it (not often luckily, the wife's got a Galaxy for day to day stuff), I had enough and sold it to a guy who was going to drop the engine into his Fiesta Zetec-S.  I then got probably my favourite car, and the one I regret selling the most.  Here, I give you, the BMW 330ci clubsport.  For those who don't know, this was a special limited edition with unique wheels, a chavvy boot spoiler (that I loved), front corner splitters, 15kg less sound proofing and a weighted gearknob.  It was  such a great car; fast (ish), smooth, awesome looking.  Shouldn't have sold it.





The thing is though; it wasn't an M3 and I always wanted an M3.  I solved this by replacing it with something that was an M3.  The car was an e46 M3 SMG, meaning it had the fantastic, but fragile and expensive semi-automatic gearbox.  I got the relevant software and installed the SMG software into the gearbox which made a real difference - the blips on downshifts were addictive.  The car itself was very good, though a little shabby.  In the end though, I just grew tired of it.  It had a redline of 8000rpm and made peak power at 7900rpm.  This just didn't suit my driving style and I wanted something with some actual low/midrange grunt.  It was also truly crap when cold - very slow gear change, and kangarooing all over the place.





This brings us up to date.

I'm glad I had the M3, despite losing quite a lot of money selling it.  It was a box that needed to be ticked, but in the end it just wasn't for me.  I know it's early days and I'm still in the honeymoon period but I'm having more fun the Golf.  I'm not skilled enough behind the wheel to really take advantage of the M3's RWD layout, so the concept of being able to accelerate mid corner without fear of flying through the scenery backwards is quite refreshing.

The Lupo I alluded to in my earlier post was actually my (now) wife's car, as were the Mk2 Golf driver and one of the Mk4 TDI's.  She also had a Peugeot 205 1.6 Gti for a while, though she only drove it twice - I had it the rest of the time while she drove my Passat B5.  She's now driving a Mk3 Ford Galaxy 2.0 TDCI which much to my surprise I really enjoy driving.  It has no right to handle as well as it does for something so big!  Here's the Lupo:



Phew, long post.  Time for a nap!

Offline neilneddy

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #10 on: September 25, 2016, 12:47:18 pm »
Welcome to the forum Matt. Nice selection of cars previously, but welcome back to VW  :happy2:

Offline Andy

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #11 on: September 25, 2016, 01:09:01 pm »
Brilliant into and good cars you have had,This forum will make you mod your gti :signLOL:

Offline AJP

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Re: Newbie from Northampton - A long and rambling introduction
« Reply #12 on: September 25, 2016, 03:39:39 pm »
Yep, you'll fit right in here. The familiar words "this one's staying standard" might as well be an analogy for "I'm eyeing up the top of the slippery mod slope, and it's only a matter of time until I descend it at full speed".

Great cars you've had. I've still really got a thing for the early S cars, especially the 5 pots. Like you mentioned though, they're a real commitment. Wouldn't mind a 20v Coupe one day, with the 7a. Might be a bit easier on the wallet than a 3b/ABY. That mk2 looks like it was tastefully done. Impressive.

I too have a red 3 door GTI, so I approve of your choice! You'll find there's almost unlimited options when it comes to modifications, if - sorry, when - you decide to mod..

Let us all know what your plans are when you're out of the denial phase