Sholksmagen's 2.5L State of Affairs

[sholksmagen]

Hello fellow MK6ers,

I've been a bit of a lurker on here and on Vortex, but I decided to cobble together a thread to keep track of the Golf, and the stages it goes through. I'll update periodically...

A little backstory, I had sold my '03 A4 and was looking for something compact and reliable. I had lots of small issues with the Audi, and wanted something that would be hassle free. Enter MK6. I had hot-hatch fever, and the reliability of the 5 cylinder paired with a nice interior sealed the deal for me.

So I looked for several months hoping to snag a deal on one.

I ended up buying my car last summer from an auction, had 48K on the odometer.

First day of ownership

Car wasn't perfect and had some cosmetic issues, but it could all be remedied very easily.

Scratch on passenger side door

Mismatched hub cap

Shift knob was peeling/bubbling

 

[sholksmagen]

So I ended up buying the following:

-GTI floor mats off a forum member, not trying to pass the car off as something it's not, but GTI mats were a lot more readily available than Golf ones...

-OEM Touch up paint pens, for the scratch and other imperfections

-Matching hub cap

-GTI shift boot and plate... Again, I know it's not a GTI but the plate matches better than the original chrome one. Also compliments the mats now

 

[sholksmagen]

So now that I had lost the convenience of AWD, I knew I had to compensate for it. So I began searching for some winter tires to prep the Golf for the arduous New York winters.

Ran across a great deal on winter wheels with tires, guy assures me they're 5x112. I go to pick them (hatch practicality test #1)

Turns out the wheels were 5x120... Beemer wheels

But I got 18" wheels for a good price, so I decided to sell the alloy wheels and keep the tires to mount on something else.

Ran across some rashed Audi USP wheels somewhat locally and picked them up to mount my tires on.

A little test fit

I bought these hoping to refinish them in the spring. But I wanted to spruce them up a bit for the winter since the rash and scratches detracted quite a bit.

I ended up Plastidipping them. Didn't want to use black since they would look like steelies, white would get too dirty too quick, so I went with the gunmetal gray. I did a black base coat, few coats of the gray, and then hit it with 2 coats of silver metallized. Came out pretty okay. Bought some center caps and bolt caps as well.

 

[sholksmagen]

Part I bought on eBay came in, went from this:

To this:

No comparison between the two. Leather is much nicer to touch than cheap plastic. Also flat-bottom #becauseracecar

 

[Marcvanj]

I like the effort! Car was looking a little bruised but it's looking good! I like the steering wheel

 

[razr390]

I can appreciate the love going into it.

Good on you!

 

[TWM Performance]

Steering wheel makes a huge difference! Good on you

Renato
Team TWM Performance

 

[sholksmagen]

I like the effort! Car was looking a little bruised but it's looking good! I like the steering wheel

I can appreciate the love going into it.

Good on you!

Steering wheel makes a huge difference! Good on you

Renato
Team TWM Performance

Thanks for the kind words!

The steering wheel was one of the first things I wanted to swap out, and I'm glad I did. It transforms the interior, and even makes the car feel sportier. I want to swap out the badge for a blank one, however.

 

[mk7matteo]

Good progress so far. What's your goal with this car?

 

[c72k]

Nice color

 

[sholksmagen]

Good progress so far. What's your goal with this car?

Nothing crazy like a turbo build, I don't have the funds or time for something like that.

I daily the car, so I'll be sticking with mostly cosmetic mods since the performance aspect is fairly limited with nominal gains. I want to close the wheel gap a bit, but want to keep the driveability so I'll probably stick to DG or VWR springs.

My goal is to have a good-looking, somewhat sporty, reliable daily.

That being said, I had the Carbonio installed for a few weeks now, just didn't get photos of it:



At first I was taken aback by how the car sounded, didn't really like it at first. But I've slowly warmed up to it, and actually really like the grumble it produces. It's nice since it sounds completely stock unless you romp on it. I think this is enough sound for me, so I think I won't do anything with the exhaust.

Also, this is how the car sits now on my winter wheels. Kind of funny how the Plastidip is a pretty close color to my paint.




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[sholksmagen]

Nothing major, just swapped out my cabin filter. Was like $9 off Amazon. Really straight forward swap...




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[J-Cooz]

Nice job!

 

[Faris Abdullah]

nice ride

 

[jbondbmw]

Love the transformation. Did you swap the steering wheel yourself? I was thinking of getting the GTD wheel for my 2.5 and was wondering if I need to pay for the installation.