Costs so far:
- Car £5500,
Steering wheel cover £40,
GTI grill £50,
Leather handbrake £20,
Leather shift boot £7,
Coilovers £185,
Drop links £27,
Delete kit £10,
SEL lower grill £30,
Upgraded foot pedals £25,
Lightsaber gear knob £70,
Headlights - £25,
Sidelights £20,
LED number plate lights £20,
Private plate licence £500,
3D GEL Resin plate £50,
Front bumper smoothed £200,
Front splitter £110,
R-Line steering wheel & airbag £250,
DARE DRRS £280,
LED Footwell lights £30,
LED Underglow £70,
GTI rear bumper £170,
GTI rear bumper parts £90,
Bumper smoothed and custom exhaust £550,
Fog lights £15
This sadly doesn't include MOT and service costs along with general repairs. which I don't even want to think about adding up
This was my first car and I'd only passed 5 days before purchasing it in October 2015 from a local dealership so didn't have a clue what/if i was even going to do anything to it. I ended up getting a Polo 1.2, tried to get a 1.2 TSi Mk6 Golf but insurance was a joke. Saying that the polo was still £1600 to insure..
(14/10/2015) Picking it up from the dealership.
(15/11/2015) Then finally put my first 1000 miles on it.
(30/12/2015) First "mod" was to try and do something about the awful plastic steering wheel, bought some leather steering wheel cover which had to be stitched on. Fair to say I've never stitched anything in my life and I won't again..
(12/01/2016) First purchase of 2016 was a GTI honeycomb front grill with chrome pinstripes instead of red. Of course the first thing I did was rip the badge off.
grill fitted..
(16/03/2016) Leather Handbrake to replace my stock plastic one and a leather shift boot both with red stitching.
Shift boot didn't fit as well as planned.
Moving onto better things, I originally ordered H&R lower springs but when i got sent the wrong item, an ARB for a bmw Z4 and had to obviously send it back that was when i decided to get coilovers instead.
(18/03/2016) JOM blueline coilovers arrived.
(28/03/2016) First fitting attempt.
I say attempt because we spent about 6 hours at it from trying to shake the shock out of slot behind the hub on the fronts, to trying to find a tool to get into the top mounts as the bolts sit in the bottom of the cup and not having a tool that could fit in. Then after finally getting them installed dropping the car to find that ARB was catching the driveshaft as the drop links were too long. We never knew any of this would happen as my friend I had helping had only ever installed them on his Lupo which is a lot easier apparently. (In the photo above we only had the rears installed and had put the fronts back to stock)
(11/04/2016) So after waiting for new shortened drop links I sent the car back in the garage for attempt two.
After a few hours the coilovers where done (and dropped to the lowest setting all round).
Honestly don't think the ride is that harsh at all, I mean its definitely firmer but feel its over exaggerated when people complain about it.
fun fact picture above was the first HOT and SUNNY day my car had seen since I bought it. That's how awful Scottish weather is.
(01/05/2016) Settled down at bit from buying anything big for the next month or so after. Ended up doing small things like a rear wiper delete, got the SEL front lower grill with chrome pinstripe, upgraded foot pedals etc.
(13/06/2016) Got a new gear knob made and sent over from america as a birthday present to myself.
My favourite purchase by far.
(26/06/2016) crappy plastic front splitter ended up snapping off eventually. fixed it but ended up ripping if off completely eventually as it kept falling off.
(28/07/2016) Done a nice little light upgrade, new front sidelights too replace the crap £5 eBay ones that kept flickering, then new headlights to replace the yellow ones, and finally proper LED number plate housings.
(17/09/2016) Purchased myself a private plate and ordered myself and my girlfriend some new plates with no spacing (100% legal ). I got 3D GEL Resin ones too.
(21/09/2016) Car went into the bodyshop to get the front end smoothed just to make it look that bit cleaner.
(11/10/2016) Gloss black front splitter from MaxtonDesign installed and also picked up an R-line steering wheel for a steal price.
Splitter was a pain to fit as it was only me and i spent a good 25minutes just trying to line it up so i could mark the holes.
(21/10/2016) Rear adjusters removed for more lows.
(18/11/2016) Picked up a set of DARE DRRS wheels from Newcastle. They are 16x8J ET35.
The next day I test fitted them.
(08/12/2016) LED footwell lights installed, multicolour kit hardwired to fuse box. Also purchased the LED underglow kit cause thefast&thefurious2001 , wired that through my glove box and runs of 12V charger
(20/01/2017) With a bit of money saved I bought a 6C GTI rear bumper to make the rear end look better. Test fitted it the next morning as there was mixed answers on whether or not it would fit. On my polo however the brackets below the taillights had different clip placements compared to the new bumper (as shown in pictures below).
Went to VW and ordered the brackets (£17 each), rear reflectors (£20 each) and the toe eye cover (£20).
(04/02/2017) The polo went to the bodyshop as the rear bumper had a few scratches and dents so got it a respray along with the Parking sensor holes smoothed and an exhaust fitted. Photos taken the day I picked it back up.
(20/02/2017) Fog lights upgraded because the standard ones are horribly yellow. Also changed high beam bulbs but didn't want to sacrifice my eyesight for a picture of them.
Scottish Region Polo OC meet.
... and that's were we are today.
Still got a lot more to do yet. Possibly new headlights and front bumper along with quite big interior plans. Any questions, queries, ideas, suggestions or comments feel free to ask, I'll be checking this regularly and hopefully updating in the near future.