it's a bit of a weird story for me because it's not really logical.
my parents had a mk3 golf, and we had that thing while i was still a kid. in high school i drove my parent's old buick century (5th gen) and my friend drove his parent's accord (4th gen). when he totaled it, he got a brand new RSX type-s 1st gen. that was a sweet car, but i guess for no reason than to cheer on a different team, i picked VW. the ironic thing was that i didn't even like the looks of the mk4 or the mk5.
fast forward to college and i found myself needing a car. a family friend worked for a honda dealer so i got a used 96 integra with ~60k on it. while that thing never left me stranded on the road, all things considered it was pretty unreliable, and had to be fixed on a regular basis. after moving for a job, i sold it.
fast forward to today, i'm a new father now so 4 doors is a requirement. i was gonna keep it really simple at just lease a new honda fit. but the wife didn't like the looks of it and didn't want to drive a "soccer mom" car. so i was like, "well what do you think of the GTI"? she liked the looks.
so we started looking for used GTIs. looking back now it was incredibly stupid and foolish....but we found a used GTI 2011 with 70k on it that was walkable distance from our place. so we walked there, with baby/stroller and car seat, to test drive the car.
it was love at first site; they detailed that thing to perfection. when i got in the car, i was trying to find reasons to hate it. the salesperson said "everything is exactly where it needs to be". and i was thinking to me, yes, yes it is -- so damn comfortable.
on the test drive, there was a small ramp to a highway section, so i floored it there and the rest is history. drove it home that night.
shortly after, coil packs gave out and stranded my wife on the highway
. i actually already ordered replacement packs/plugs while this was happened, but i'm no mechanic, and the MFI was like "GET THIS FIXED NOW YOU IDIOT", so i did. mechanic replaced all spark plugs and coil packs.
not 3 days later it misfires again and the check engine comes back on. i bring it back and they couldn't find anything wrong with it, but the sure thing to figure out why is the take the manifold off. i tell them to go ahead, and while they're at it to do some carbon cleaning. turns out my fuel injectors were clogged with carbon, so they replaced all 4. luckily this was covered under VW's extended 120k warranty.
car's been rock solid since. got bitten by the mod bug, and now i have a modshack intake, uni stage 1+, and trying to convince myself not to waste money on new rubber...