I worked in an Audi dealership when these came out first; I remember wincing at the IR£42K price tag and joking with a colleague ''In twenty years , when they can be got for a couple of grand, I'll buy one!!'' So here we are!
My background is in restoring Mk2 Golfs and Jettas; I've owned around a dozen over the years. I wanted something a bit more modern and comfy but with a bit of fun factor as well, so a conversation with my friend Neil ended up with this arriving at the house on his trailer!
He also supplied a mint front bumper as the orginal was badly cracked and held together with duct tape and cable ties!
He had been fixing it up to use himself, but found it too claustrophobic inside! He had completed a lot of the mechanical work, replacing turbo, sump, discs, pads, plugs, fluids, filters and a few other bits, so all was really needed was to sort the cosmetic stuff.
I sent it for its NCT (equivalent to the MOT here) and it failed on emissions (fixed by fitting an S3 lambda sensor), one tyre (due to a worn track rod end) and a missing wheel nut (I took off the centre caps and forgot to check they were all present! Oops!). With all that sorted, she had her mechanical clean bill of health, so I just pootled around in it for a year.
I'm a bicycle mechanic these days, so I serviced a friend's racing bike in exchange for two new heated leather seats (original alcantaras were torn and tatty), a rear twin tailpipe rear exhaust section, and a good rear bumper to match the twin exit exhaust (180bhp TTs only have a single tailpipe), all from a 225bhp TT he had bought solely to strip the engine, loom and running gear.
Whoever originally owned it, must have been the worst parker in Ireland! Both bumpers were cracked, all four wheel arches/front wings/rear quarters were gouged and dented and she was looking a bit sorry for herself. Curiously, there wasn't so much as a scratch on the bonnet, roof or tailgate, just the usual marks from drive through car washes, which were easily buffed out.
So I handed her over to my mates bodyshop, Robinson Autobody & Recovery, for a quick tidy up. He rang me to say that both sills were wrecked underneath and I should probably source replacements. On closer inspection, it looked like the car had been picked up with a forklift at some point! So a couple of replacements were sourced locally and dropped off to the bodyshop.
As you can see, Robbo & Ramie lost count of the little dents they had to sort out!
So with the bodywork sorted, I had been planning a quick isopon and aerosol refurb of the original wheels, but wasn't happy with the results, so a quick call to Dave in Tom Geraghty Tyres had a nice gunmetal grey set of 8x18 MAM GT1s on the way. They are a family run business here in SE Ireland and I've been buying tyres and wheels for my cars/vans for the last two decades.from them. Shop local, folks!
I have also replaced the utterly useless rear seat with a flat parcel shelf, knocked together using some 12mm ply and a few scraps of veltrim carpet liner that I had from my T4 transporter days.
So this is how she stood a few weeks back, freshly painted with new wheels fitted ......before being promptly put into storage for the winter!!!
I'm watching the weather forecast carefully...if there's any hint of snow, she'll be straight outta storage for some fun haha
