We loved it straight away but after a short while the car almost begged to be enhanced in a few areas... I felt it had a lot of untapped potential and had probably been held back not to upset the Polo GTi.
I have never modified a car before but if you are one of the people who heavily frowns upon these things probably best to stop reading now.
I had a thought of what if VW had made a clubsport? and decided that everything done to the car had to be an improvement if not it would revert back to factory spec,only one thing didn't meet the standard which is to be better but not compromised as an everyday usable car so we didn't want something that would shake us to death or be noisy and unbearable.
The car particularly for the price we paid being one of the 1st batch and qualifying for £1800 scrappage allowance on a car that was worth a couple hundred pounds plus a little discount was amazing as standard but I hated the arch gap and how tucked in the lovely diamond cut wheels were!
We fitted some Vogtland springs probably just shy of 2 years next the car looked so much better was lovely around town but after a couple of months and a couple of motorway runs on some typical UK sunken roads it was obvious the shocks were very weak we both felt like we had been on a fairground ride on one dip🙈
As mentioned if it doesn't improve everything then it would have to come off more on that later.
We fitted a racingline turbo elbow and panel filter which had sat around for months for fear of it being noisy and needing to come back off I need not have worried no more noise and the only difference was if you stamped on the throttle and lifted back off a bit of turbo flutter which sounds really good but when driving on the motorway etc just as refined as ever with the 80% sound actuator setting through Obdeleven.
I had also changed the steering and brake settings with Obdeleven which were both subtle but worthwhile improvements!
The car around this point went for a APR remap which with the breathing mods totally transformed the car.
Not long after I started looking at suspension again I decided that I wasn't risking doing it again and went for what I had always wanted but was too tight to pay for the Eibach Pro Street S coilovers, due to covid it took a while to fit these with my stepson doing the rears one month and the fronts several months later.
They rode pretty well when fitted but due to the spacers would occasionally catch on the front on the spats we adjusted them several times over the coming months and removed the spats the car now sits slightly higher at the front than on the Vogtlands but each time we went up a touch it rode even better. The rears sit lower than the Vogtlands in our final adjustment several months again but that's me being a perfectionist. The car now on a full tank sits pretty level which looks really good I never wanted it to look slammed just how I feel a GTi should look and I think that's been achieved!
We even took slow motion videos over speed bumps to check for clearance on the various different settings and watched it back like a hawk 😂
We switched to the Michelin PS4's a superb tyre but they need a lot more pressure than the previous tyres (soft sidewall) at our previous pressures they literally destroyed the very expensive suspensions previously excellent ride. Now after a few different settings 35psi front 32 rear the car rides better than standard,has none of the rear bounce you can get and handles probably better than my Clio 182 cup.
We have done some other small cosmetic bits red GTi badge overlays front and rear and my favourite one on the steering wheel.
Alloy TT style pedals and GTi latch plates.
The car doesn't look modified which was exactly what I wanted but looks and goes a whole lot better and everything has cost £1600 not counting the spare Vogtland springs 😬
