Rrrr you not entertained?

Have you watched the Mighty Car Mods YouTube show where they modify their Golf R?

In reply to Dammit :

Yeah, they threw the Revo catalog at it, obviously got sponsored by them.

impressive tho, he ran an 11.2 quarter mile and a 2.96 0-60 in it.

if warranty wasn’t a concern I’d do an eqt hybrid turbo, those do a solid 425awhp on the factory motor.

Abortive attempt to install the tow hitch today.  Friend came over to help me, opened up the box the tow hitch was in and found they'd forgotten the hardware and instructions. 

Called eTrailer and they're sending out the hardware, instructions are on their website.

So, lesson learned, always open up all your packages immediately, that way if (when?) there's a problem you can handle it.

I've had the tow hitch sitting on my living room floor all boxed up for at least a week now.  Doh!

So my R didn't come with a spare tire, just a bag with a can of fix-o-flat in it.  Which is odd given that VW makes a spare tire kit for this car.  So I spent a whole bunch of money at ECS Tuning and about a week later two huge boxes arrived.  Cooper the dog had to inspect them, of course!

Tonight I installed it all.  First take all the stock covers off

Next you install the foam surround that holds the jack, tools, etc

Now pull off the plastic trim piece that sits over the hatchback latch.  It's on really tight, pull straight up.  Replace it with the new trim, that has the cutout for the spare.

Lift the subwoofer up out of the way and lay the donut spare into place and put the subwoofer inside of it.  Reuse the hold down

Put all the tools in, put the stock covers back on, job done!  Hopefully I'll never need to use it.

Tomorrow I'll install my tow hitch, I finally got the hardware for it this week.

Ok, time to install the tow hitch so I can finally use my Kuat NV2 bike rack.

First step, up on the lift and rear wheels in the air and off.

I took this opportunity to remove the useless locking wheel lug bolts and replace them with "normal" ones

Ok, now remove the tail lights.  There are these little carpet pockets in the hatch, pull them out and turn out this white, spring loaded thing.

That lets you get at the harness.  Pull the red tab out towards the front of the car, then depress the tan tab and pull the harness apart.  Now slide the tail light out.

Next up, take off all the T25 torx holding the bumper cover on.  There are 4 in each wheel well, two underneath the car and depending on year of Golf, a few on the trailing edge.  Now start working the bumper cover off.  I had to use a plastic interior removal tool to help pop it off the clips underneath the tail lights.

Pull off the foam bit and set it aside, you don't reuse it.  Now you have the bumper beam to remove

Take off the bumper beam.  Lift it up to remove it.

Since my car is a '19, the instructions missed a few things.  I had these plastic modules on either corner of the car that also used some of the same bolts as the bumper beam.  Plus I had to unplug the rear parking sensors.  There were hidden 10mm nuts on the side modules.

Hang the tow hitch and sandwich it with the stock bumper beam.

Using the supplied hardware, bolt it all together.  Don't forget to sandwich on those side modules if you have them. 

Ok, time to mark the bumper cover to cut it for clearance of the hitch.  This is the only bummer of this hitch.  It bolts right in using existing holes but you've gotta cut the bumper cover.

Mocked it up on the car...

Put everything back together.

Only causality was this plastic clip.  It attaches to the trailing edge of the bottom of the bumper cover.

So far so good.  Of course between the spare tire kit and this tow hitch I've probably added 30+ lbs of weight to the rear of the car.  I'll have to counteract that with more powah!

VW dealer actually gave me that clip for free!  Score!

Also heard that Audi B7 A/S4 rear headrests are a direct fitment and much more low profile than the stock ones.  They're similar to the ones this car comes with stock in Europe.  I can order the european ones but don't feel like spending $3-400. 

Found a local here parting out numerous Audis and he had a set.  Grabbed them for $40, fit and look great!

No better time than the summer to buy snow wheels/tires.  I found this set off an Audi up in Ft Collins.  A friend of mine who lives up there went and checked them out for me and brought them down to the track, where I met him and picked them up.

Michelin X-Ice tires that only have 1000 miles on them, on factory Audi wheels.  Three of the wheels have rash, one really bad, one lip chewed up and another one not so bad.  I took the worst one in to get fixed and it came out pretty darn good, so I'm taking the other two to them today.  Normally I wouldn't care about a little rash but since this is my first real new car in decades I want everything to look nice. 

I bought VW center caps for them and will grab a set of hubcentric rings from Discount Tire, then they'll bolt right on.

I also tested out my tow hitch last weekend, mounted up my Kuat bike rack, it fit great!  So much easier to deal with than the roof rack, more secure too.

Are you sure you need hubcentric rings? Factory Audi should be the same.

In reply to 10001110101 :

Center bore size is bigger on the Audi's, 66mm vs 57mm on my R

So, found a set of 10mm H&R wheel spacers from my old C5 Allroad in my basement.  To my delight the center bore size on that car is the same as my R, so I'll be able to use them.  Just need to do a wheel stud conversion first.

Then my cruise on the local craigslist showed me that the guy I bought my intake from still had his Integrated Engineering intercooler for sale.  Proabably because he was asking $60 less than one brand new costs.  So I sent him a screen shot of that and we came to an agreement for a reasonable price.

This thing is humongous!  Can't wait to get it installed.  It sits in the same spot as stock, so outwardly the car looks completely stock.  In fact the only thing even inside the engine bay that doesn't look stock with it installed are the silicone boost hoses...

Got the snow wheels back from the refinisher on Wednesday, VW center caps from eBay ($12/set!) showed up Tuesday.  I grabbed a set of hubcentric rings from Discount Tire last weekend.

I do wish I'd maybe waited a little longer to find a set of wheels that I didn't need to spend money refinishing but I still ended up well ahead of what a new setup would've cost from Tire Rack, with OEM look/fitment.  Wheels are from a late model Audi A4.

They're tucked under the garage stairs waiting for November now...

In reply to docwyte :

Hehe.. nice rack. 

So a little over 2000 miles on the car now.  Overall its been flawless, no issues at all with how it runs, nothings broken, no dealer visits, nada.

Fun to drive, engine has broken in nicely, very tossable handling, strong brakes (lots of dust from the pads tho, tons!), good power.

Sounds good with the center resonator delete, exhaust valves open and Soundakator turned off.

I am disappointed in the gas mileage so far tho.  I'm mixing in about 3 gallons of E85 to bump the octane level up and I'm getting around 21mpg in my mixed drive.  Granted my commute is 9 miles each way with 50/50 street and highway but I expected to get more like 25-26 mpg out of the car.  My GX, with twice the cylinder, almost 2.5 times the displacement and definitely twice the weight would get 16 mpg...

Gas mileage has been creeping up, much to my delight.  I have 2300 miles on the car and I'm getting around 22.5mpg on a tank now, which isn't bad considering I'm running 3.5 gallons of E85 in it.  Better octane but worse economy with it, so if I ran straight 91 I'd probably get around 24 mpg.

I'm not a fan of black wheels, nor huge wagon wheel looking wheels.  I think the 19's on this car are ridiculous and kinda wanted to drop down to 18's.  Someone posted a WTB on our local "Euro" facebook group for the wheels my car came with stock, the Pretorias.

I worked out a price with him, then started looking around for wheels.  Preferably 18x8.5 with an offset in the mid 40's, lightweight and gold or bronze.  So, I didn't find that, lol!  I did find a grey set of 18x8 ET45 Neuspeed wheels tho.  They're in great shape, will bolt right on the car AND are coming with brand new Nokian snow tires PLUS an almost new set of Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires.

Plan is to move the Nokian snows over to my already purchased snow wheels, put the Michelin SS tires on the Neuspeed wheels for the summer and then sell the Michelin X-Ice tires I currently have.  Why?  Well, the Nokians are hard core snows and I really like them alot.  Mostly tho because the Nokian's are 225-40 and the X-Ice's are 245-40.  I can fit the 245-40 but 225-40 are the "proper" size.

Figure I'll wait a month or two before I list the X-Ice's for sale as most people don't think about snow tires until Late October/early November here.

Yesterday I pulled the Pretoria's off and put the snows on as my buyer is showing up early this morning.  I think they look good!

So today was the big wheel/tire swap.  Guy came and picked up my stock Pretoria’s at 9am today.

At noon the other guy dropped off the neuspeed wheels and two sets of tires.

After lunch it was off to Discount Tire and have them swap wheels/tires around for me.  Stock Audi wheels now have the Hakka R2 snows on them.  Neuspeed wheels have the Michelin super sports on them and the Michelin snows are loose and ready for sale.

Car looks good with the neuspeed wheels!  Very oem+  I also was able to get to the dmv and request my vanity plates.  Even tho my first choice was available I had to put in a second choice in case it’s not approved.  I’ll know in 2 weeks.  Registration fees were a shock tho, the by product of owning a new car.

Let's do another OEM+ upgrade.  The Audi A/S/RS 3's come with front and rear jack pads installed, the R and I assume other Golfs don't.  The parts fit right over since my chassis is the same.  You can spend stupid money for them from the dealer, silly money from ShopDAP or the like or reasonable money from E-ACCA.COM or another overseas vendor.

It's a little weird spending money on an Eastern European website but others have had good luck and I used Paypal.  My order took awhile to come, like 4-6 weeks.  Unfortunately I forgot the actual rubber "pucks" for the front.  Doh!  They were $54 *each* from the dealer, or $29 *shipped* from Lithuania courtesy of eBay.  They said 4 weeks for delivery but it showed up in around 2 weeks, so score!

Let's get to work!  First, remove the stock plastic trim piece, it's held on with one T25 Torx screw, then push the panel towards the rear of the car and it slides right off.

It should pop right off.  It reveals the body dowel that you'll be putting the rubber puck into.

Now put the puck in.  You may need to put some grease on it to slide in, I didn't have to.

Now put the new trim panel in place.  They are left and right sided.  Put it in place and slide it towards the front of the car.

Ok, now put the plastic dowel up into the rubber puck.  These are also right/left sided.  Line up the hole in the dowel with the plastic piece, that'll clock it correctly.  I did put some lithium grease on it and it still took a decent amount of effort to pop up into place.  Replace the T25 screw and you're all done up here.

Time to do the rear, which is super easy.  Pull off the two body plugs on either side being careful not to push them up into the body itself.

You're left with this now

Now inspect your plastic jack points.  There are drain holes on either side of them, mine were almost closed up with plastic flash.  Clean up the flash so water will actuall drain out.  Here's a before/after pic...

Now slide the clip into the forward hole, push the plastic piece forward so the posterior clip lines up with the hole and push it up into place.  Result!  Now you can jack the car up and still have the pinch weld free for your jack stand.

Nice!  Those undersize wheels look great on the R.  I've also never understood the jack point weirdness of the Euro marques... 

In reply to sobe_death :

What's odd about it is the Audi's have them.  I guess cost cutting on the R?

First brand new car in decades and people are beating the snot out of it!  I've been careful where I've parked and I still got a ding on the passengers front door, right on the crease where pdr can't take it out.

they hit it hard enough to chip the paint too.  Even worse someone tapped the back of the car and ripped the black bra I have on the bumper plus they cracked the inner tail light on the drivers side!  No note of course.

luckily a local friend who literally has the exact same car as me upgraded to the euro dynamic tail lights and sold me his stock ones for $100.  Still, makes me mad.

was doing my typical craigslist cruise and found a set of weathertech mats for $40 plus they were ten minutes away.  Grabbed them, they fit really well.

yesterday my license plates finally showed up.  You guys get it?

docwyte said:

First brand new car in decades and people are beating the snot out of it!  I've been careful where I've parked and I still got a ding on the passengers front door, right on the crease where pdr can't take it out.

I've noticed in the past year that people around Colorado aren't the most attentive drivers and don't seem to care about their cars as much.  At least they aren't as crazy and downright murderous as those in NoVa.  I had the passenger side door replaced recently on my Fiesta after someone backed into it in a parking lot.  My car was parked, and they were trying to back through it.  It's bright orange, and the guy didn't see it?  Sigh.  At this point, I believe that all of the cars I will ever buy have already been made, and the Golf R is on that list.

In reply to JoeTR6 :

Compared to Boston, where I lived before this, Colorado drivers are quite attentive.  I'm really at a loss for how this happened tho, as I've been pretty damn careful where I've parked.

The only good news is there isn't any real body/paint damage.

Love the plate!! 

In reply to Slippery :

Thanks!

75 and sunny today, supposed to have a high of 25 and "appreciable" snow fall tomorrow.  Ugh.  Michelin Pilot Sports and "appreciable" snow fall don't mix too well in those temps. I'm sure it won't stick as the ground isn't frozen but it seems prudent to put the snow tires on now.

I debated with pulling them off on Friday, as temps well go up to low 60's for awhile but we'll see how lazy I am.  Kinda seems dumb to pull them off only to put them back on a few weeks later.  I also put the roof/ski rack on, yes I know I need to clean the ski attachments...

Only kicker was these wheels need hubcentric rings, which I bought and installed some time ago.  Well, one of them seems to have gone into the Twilight Zone as its gone and I can't find it anywhere.  Called Discount Tire and even tho their inventory says they had two sets there, the guy couldn't find them.  Awesome.  Put that wheel on the right rear and told Discount to order me some, which will hopefully be here by Saturday so I can pop that one wheel off and put it in.

I think the wheels look good on the car and they're surprisingly light.

Found the hub centric rings on Amazon, they should be here today.  Good news is the car drove fine without the one ring.  Discovered that the "auto" HVAC setting doesn't do a great job of defrosting the front windshield and hitting the defrost button also turns the heat up to "11", which is quite uncomfortable.  Gotta find a middle setting here...