Hi all,
I have only had my car 2 weeks and already loving it loads. I have come from an Impreza WRX but due to having some duffness in my left knee I needed to go for something without a clutch pedal. I put a fair bit of thought into what to go for and having had a MK3 Golf GTi 16V several years back I decided to look at Golfs again, although a Scirocco and Mitsubishi Lancer GSR were also looked at, but quickly ignored (although my wife would have had the Lancer if it was her choice).
I didnt have any idea about the Edition 30 but saw one close to me so did a bit of reading up on it, the more I read the more I wanted it, before even seeing it, so a few weekends ago my wife and I had a look at an 07 plate R32 in black and the GTi Edition 30. Although the R32 was very nice, and sounded amazing, the Edition 30 just seemed to be better in almost all aspects, so we bought it, trading in the Scoobie. 2 things helped us to decide,other than both preferring the Edition 30, firstly, the insurance for the R32 was about £100 more, plus the R32 was double the Edition 30 to tax, had we liked the cars equally it would have been a difficult choice.
Here are the first (phone) photos of my new car, taken on the day I got it.
First thing I did, after just the 1 day was to change the radio, the car came with the RCD300 which is useless really, yes, it had the iPod connector in the arm rest, but it doesn't play anything you want it to, just the first 5 playlists, and the the first 99 tracks (or something like that), so I went to Halfruads and got the stuff to fit the Pioneer single DIN headunit that I had in my Scoobie. I am looking to change this for a nice double DIN touchscreen in the next couple of months.
After joining this forum the bug soon hit, and I wanted to start making it a little more unique to myself, personalising it almost, so after seeing a couple of people doing this simple mod, I searched eBay and got a new badge, and fitted it last weekend.
This was not enough though, the bug was taking hold of me and I just needed to do more, so eBay was searched and several purchases were made.
After being told about another small badge, I thought it would look good on my car, so bought a couple, they came during the week and so I fitted them earlier on. I must add, I work 120 miles away from home so stay away during the week, talk about a tease, my Wife kept taunting me about all the bits too.
The badges
And fitted
I had seen that someone was selling a pair of Carbon Fibre DSG paddle extensions, in the time it took me to have a look at the site he got them from they had already gone, so I did a bit of searching around, instead of the £200 ish for the TID made extensions, I found a guy in Canada selling similar for £80, so I made contact and swiftly bought a set, I have to say he was a pleasure to buy from and the communication throughout the whole process was exceptional, if anyone is looking for any I can highly recommend him (contact me for contact details if you want), anyway, some images are below prior to fitment.
Having worked with carbon fibre for several years (Formula 1 - 3 teams and 2 car manufacturers) the quality isnt too shabby at all, a couple of flaws but certainly nothing to worry about. Within a few minutes of opening them up I went to the car and set about fitting them.
I am not 100% convinced about the security of the extensions being taped in place, they feel to wobble a little, so the jury is out on how secure they are at the moment, I have some super dooper strength tape from work (aviation grade double sided) which if I have any issues with will be straight on, I will keep you posted on this.
Some of you may have seen my thread in the cosmetic mods section about black bonnet badges, when I had my MK3 I was able to go to VW and get one of these from the parts department, this doesnt seem to be the case anymore, and trying to find one was a mission in itself, I bought 1 from a place online, who then emailed me to say they are unable to source the badge now so they have cancelled the order, hopefully I will get my money back no worries, anyway, Matsu on here said he had a spare badge so after a couple of mails through here we agreed a price, I paid and he posted it off, low and behold, it was on my doorstep when I got home today, so that is now fitted also.
I am also waiting to get some carbon fibre effect wrap from Boothy on here, so my badge I have just taken off will be wrapped and I will see which one I prefer the looks of, choices choices, decisions decisions.
I have one last mod sitting on my dining room table waiting to be fitted, but this one is getting done on Sunday. Golfman is fitting a cruise control stalk for me and doing the reprograming that is necessary for it to work, I am looking forward to having this done as I do a 120 mile journey to and from work on Mondays and Fridays plus other family members are down in England so a fair old drive when I go see them.
Not sure on the more technical and performance mods yet, though saying that probably means they will happen, the ones I am looking at are, stage 1 remap, Revo or Superchips, S3/R32 front brakes and maybe anti roll bars. And something I only found out about yesterday from Mandy, a DSG box remap, more investigation here me thinks.
Being a keen semi pro photographer I will be taking some better shots of the car once the weather is nicer and I am not out playing in it all the time.
Thats all from this (boring) first post in this section, no doubt more will follow, though maybe not the 20 odd pages some of you have.
Ian - Megy_ED30
