Skip the first bit if you're easily bored:
Hard to believe that the mk5 GTI has been around over 4 years now, but it has and VW have sold lots of them.
Now, I normally buy a car, slightly modify it getting bits at the best price I possibly can then sell it again after a year as something else has caught my eye. The bits I bought are stripped off and sold on again to fund the next round of mods on the incoming car.
Still awake?
Okay, so here I am having owned the GTI now for well in excess of my usual 12 months and can't think of any other car I really want. My GTI has suffered like all the others in the global financial meltdown and lost masses of money, and the only car I would really consider swapping it for would be a newer mk5 GTI which doesn't make much financial sense to me as it would be nearly identical. So I spent money on a big service, cam-belt change etc and got thinking; we've been here before in the mk2 days.
The mk3 came out and ordinary people who wanted a new number plate bought a mk3, GTI lovers hated the mk3 and decided to wait until VW came up with something better so spent the money on making their mk2 a better GTI, modifying it but trying to keep the GTI balance. So here we are again, the mk5.5 has arrived costing R32 money and you can get a good K04 equipped mk5 GTI for nearly ten grand less or a KO3 example for another five grand less than that.
Down to business: to modify the 200PS GTI you need to play to its strengths just like modding 8v mk2s back in the day. You can buy a high revving, high horsepower car off the shelf in the form of an ED30 or Pirelli.
The KO3s strength is it's low rev pick up and mid-range urge IMO, and as the things have been around a good few years there must be owners who have spent some money that was well invested and other money on mods that they found in retrospect that were a waste of cash.
So purely looking at the standard 200PS GTI, where is the best invested go-faster money after the re-map? Who actually has some good or bad experience of bolt on mods they would share?
Educated opinions always welcome but real world experiences would be good. There must be an awful lot of early mk5 GTI owners around that can't afford or justify a newer model that want to make the best out of an early model without spending silly amounts of cash.
Sorry about all that my fingers got carried away, but now you know where I'm coming from.....
