After a few years away from the car scene due to work and a young family it's back to my hobby. 

Plans for the new year include, blue motion front grill but I'm going to remove the badge and see if I can stretch the profile of the grill across the full thing, new poly bushes all round, under car rust treatment and prevention, potential full respray and interior bits and bobs such as new head unit and roof lining. 

(Starring Monty, the MkIV Golf!)

Summer Sun!

Featuring my friend's wonderful '97 Prelude 🙂

In terms of build... the least stock things she has are the plate frames and the damage to the driver's door I've managed to pick up... But I'm looking to start doing some upgrades this year.

The List so far:

- GTI Style Headlight Clusters (I far prefer the black backing)
- Front Fogs & Honeycomb Grilles to match Headlights
- Window Tint?
- Alloys - Looking at B7 Passat 16"s or Mk5 Golf 15"s to go on her, will definitely smarten her up a little 🙂

Definitely welcome to suggestions from the knowledgeable folks on here about simple upgrades that look smashing on these 🙂

See you on the road!

1.6 16v

98,000 miles

Manual

No CEL and no codes on a universal scanner

Issue occurs on both E10 and E5 fuels

MOT advisory a week ago for a slight exhaust leak due to a loose coupler towards the rear silencer, not sure if this is likely to be related.

On cold mornings the coolant light will flash however the level is perfectly fine but again I'm not sure if that is likely to be related.

I live on a fairly busy road so occasionally I need to set off kind of quick-ish (I'm not thrashing it from cold, 40% throttle max) however this is difficult as the engine seems to deliver next to no power at first. Sometimes it's just very down on power and other times the power will rapidly surge in and out. Once I'm up to the 30 mph limit it's fine, it will accelerate up to the 60 mph limit 1/4 of a mile away just fine and drives normally for the rest of the day. I can't seem to find much about this issue relating to this engine online so any guidance would be much appreciated.

My first car was a polo 9n3 1.4 petrol, (silver 5dr) which was originally my sister's and passed down to me. I loved it lowered it and did all the first car mods anyone else would do to it. That is what sparked my enjoyment of these cars. 

Eventually, I bit the bullet and bought myself a 9n3 GTI. Below are pictures from the day I bought it. I got it cheap as it had an issue or two and decently high milage.

When I bought it the description was very vague and didn't mention any modifications just the fact it had a small oil leak. But it was a nicely specced car with the winter spec. (Heated seats, climatronic and headlight washers and had a few mods done to it. Such as a RAMAIR filter, eBay BOV (which was being a BOV, not a recirc), and SIA Delete.

For the first week or so of owning it I was driving my IS200 around, which gave me chance to do a few things to the polo while it wasn't on the road such as, change the silly tinted headlights to my angel eye headlights off my silver polo, move the head unit and subwoofer from the silver polo across give it a general clean and service of oil, filter coolant and spark plugs and deleted the N249 and N112. Also fixed the "oil leak" it was sold with which was the rocker cover gasket. When I took the rocker cover off turns out there was no gasket just black silicon... for the sake of £5 you'd just put a gasket in surely?? I also put in a yellow polybush from powerflex in the dogbone mount as the old bushing was destroyed.

1 Week into driving the car EML... fml... what could this be. I borrowed my friends' diagnostics which brought up the code "Pressure drop between turbo and inlet manifold". I still get that code to this day and am 99% certain it's because it's got a terrible map on it as lots of research and attempts at fixing have all come down to that. As for a map I'm waiting until the car is finished mechanically to get it mapped. (No point paying for a map twice when I can just key bang it to get out of the limp mode that happens quite rarely). Anyway, wipe that it comes back shortly after. Guess I'm living with the EML... it wouldn't be a VW without it, right!?

After a while of having the STUTUTUTU because of the incorrectly fitted eBay BOV, I bought a forge BOV off of a friend breaking his 1.8T and fitted it correctly and started going TSSSHHHHH instead which sounds equally as good in my opinion. For anyone fitting these, make sure you recirc as 1.8T's have to be mapped MAFless if you want to dump to atmosphere otherwise your MAF reads lower readings than it should, gets confused and will usually just stall out the car after driving a bit. I found this out the hard way...

By this point I'd got all the general maintenance out the way wanted to do one or two cosmetics so I installed wiper delete from KillAllWipers, a sharkfin areal from eBay and a nice set of 6R style rear LED lights. Again found it on eBay and I had taken the wind deflectors off I personally don't like them and think cars look much cleaner without them. (Please forgive the Summer Maddness sticker, I don't know what I was thinking either...)

Anyway with everything working, finally I can enjoy the car for a bit.

Or so I thought

I was sitting on TikTok with my car idling waiting for some of my friends to turn up when suddenly BING BING BING BING I thought oh god why's it shouting at me only to look up and see the red coolant light flashing and my temp to be up in the red. Brilliant, shut the car off and opened the bonnet as steam slowly escaped. Strange that my engine fan never kicked in.

So the next mission is to see why the fan never came on. Had a look into it turned out the fan was a bit seized so time to swap it over. While doing this, (don't ask how) a friend got happy with a drill and suddenly I had a hole in my radiator... So that got replaced as well at the same time.

Everything was going okay for a little while until a baby deer decided it wanted to unalive itself by running into the side of my car (all things considered I got off pretty lucky). Ignore the wheels I was borrowing a set of wheels while I sourced and fitted some winters to my set. It took out the wing mirror glass, and the wing mirror plastic trim around it dented the door slightly and dented the wing lots. Also dislodged the wing mirror mounting. Oh well, is what it is I'll eventually get it fixed.

After a quick stint in hospital (completely unrelated) which left me unable to do anything with the car for a little while, I decided to order a custom-made polybushed gearbox mount (which was half the price of the vibratechnics one) which does just as good of a job. This helped reduce movement in my engine and made gear changes and acceleration that bit crisper. I also decided to take the car to a local paintless dent repair place to only repair the dents on the wing who did an awesome job of it.

At this point, it was about time I got my private plate transferred and registered onto this well overdue car, as well as asking people to ignore the lack of sunstrip. (Special thanks to my wipers for taking off the previous one).

After that, there was something I had been wanting for a while which was an Ultragauge. Honestly, because I love tech, IT and gadgets I love this thing and for the price, you can't beat it. I installed that and played around with it for ages till I got the configuration I wanted and ever since I've been battling with different types of sticky tape to try and keep it mounted to the dash! This was also around the time that I got a used eBay Cupra splitter off a friend, for £10, who used to have a 9n3 and had moved onto a CC. The first installation of the splitter was questionable but it eventually gets better.

I also finally installed a boost gauge air vent mount (from Facebook this time, 3d printed) which was needed a long time ago. (Bonus points for looks is why it was needed)

There eventually came a point where one of my mates had a head gasket tester kit and he said if I wanted to use it go ahead. I had a suspicion that my head gasket may not be intact as it had been boiled once or twice due to it overheating so easily. So I put the test kit on and went to put my new undamaged wing mirror platic on when not 10 seconds later I saw it'd turned green. I turned to my friend and said "oh it's green" and he laughed it off thinking I was joking because no way could it change that fast. No, it had changed that fast and was very very green.

At this point, I had a decision to make. The options were as follows: 1. Fix the head gasket. 2. Fix the head gasket but while I'm in there, I may as well put some rods in as it'll never be easier. 3. Buy another engine with no issues, and swap it over. Fix the head gasket and forge it in my own time (money isn't exactly pouring out my ears).

About a week later, I had an engine. Came with a full loom, turbo all ancillaries. I also somehow managed to come away with spare front support for a 9n3 and a 1/1 custom-made rear centre exit valence? Now was just finding the time to do the changeover.

Tyres were also needed which I spent a lot of time looking into but also didn't have money to throw away so I ended up going for some Toyo Proxies TR1 (NOT T1R's they're the ditch finders) and am pleasantly surprised by them as they handle well for the price of them. They do however wear quite quickly and so I'll be looking at some semi-slicks for the front wheels for summer once I've gone through the toyos.

Next stop. MOT Time. It managed to get through its MOT with a few advisories such as the D/S bottom arm deteriorated, which I replaced and drop links that were on their way out. Not too bad. I also got myself a carbon fibre gear knob because carbon fibre.

Okay, so MOT is out the way, winner. Now was the time. I set about a weekend and asked some mates for some help to use their space and their hands. The engine swap was happening. In all honesty, although it's a big engine crammed into a tiny bay it wasn't all that difficult to get out, most of my bumper was quick release by this point as well so that came off quickly and easily. As the engine came out remember that polybushed dogbone bushing from earlier... yeah I had ripped that thing to pieces not ideal. This was also the best time to install the decat I'd bought off a friend so we did that at the same time (and accidentally snapped the cables to the post-cat sensor oh well). But all things considered, we started at about 12pm and finished at about 10 pm (including lots of eating, talking and just relaxing breaks) which I don't think is bad time. Or thereabouts we didn't want to go past 10 pm making noise because of the area we were in, the car fired up and the engine started sweet as a nut, it was leaking coolant from the thermostat. Oh well, that's tomorrow's job. Came back the next day, sorted the leak got the front end back together and threw it down the road. Misfiring like fuck we took the sparkplugs and coil packs from the broken engine and swapped them over and the car had never felt so fast. A few runs up and down the road were the greatest feeling ever. It also got thoroughly tested by making a trip up to Newcastle for a car meet that night and back and it went with no problems.

All was well with the new engine... until 3 days later on the way to work I got a coolant light shouting at me. Felt like dejavous however this time it had leaked all its coolant out. I topped it up and carried on my way to work. Before I left work that day I checked my coolant and it still had some. Started it up annnnnd brilliant it's leaking it out of the water pump. Limped it home with a bottle of water and stopped twice at which point I ordered myself a water pump and used my other polo for a day or two. Then my friend came and helped me fit it when it arrived.

Then; more problems. My car wasn't getting up to temp but the gauge was reading that it was. I've figured that my thermostat is stuck open because it was a cheap non-OEM stat. This does however counter the problem of my fans not working so it doesn't overheat unless I sit idle for a little while which doesn't happen too often. Either way, the plan is to buy a standalone temp sensor and fan controller and when the other engine goes back in it'll have a genuine thermostat put in which I have laying around but I don't want to put that in this engine when I don't care for it that much.

Anyway, given that I'd put the new engine in but I didn't even bother to do an oil change on it, my friend said his ramp was free so I thought I may as well use his ramp if I could. Me and my friends all had a look underneath the car just to check everything out, I dropped all the oil out and the filter, and filled her up with 5W-40. Also took the time to reposition the splitter so it was actually on properly and looked sensible.

After all the mechanical issues, I thought it was time to give the actual car some love. Gave it a proper wash and hand wax which looked great. Stuck the number plates on so they were straight and on the rear of the car I took the VW badge off and took out the greyish plastic silver backing on the badge and stuck the badge back on without it so that it was paint matched in the gaps. It's a small thing but I think looks good. (You can see a slight bit of where the metal indents inwards to hold the badge I guess but if you're not looking you barely notice.) The car came up well and the black magic colour shined like never before. I even polished the exhaust tips.

A small thing I had wanted to do for a while changed the grill strip from red to another colour. My favourite car colour being VW Candy White I decided it was the only option to go with white as my accent colour on the car. I thought it looked well and different. Still agree with what I thought to this day.

Next up. I knew the drop links had seen better day and the rear suspension was knocking. Time to go big or go home... I ordered myself a set of BC V1s for the car. Got them installed to a decent height (I still want to go lower) and set it to 15/30 dampening all the way round (which I still have it set at and like how it feels a lot) and oh my god did it change how the car performed. It went around corners like they were straight lines I couldn't believe how much it had changed the handling I cannot recommend these enough to anyone looking for a set of coilovers if they're wanting to handle not just lows. I went for the V1 Extra Lows (6/4kgmm) and love them.

After buying them I decided I need to make a start on forging the other engine or it'll just never get done. So I rang up my friend and said "help me take the head off this engine" and we set away about it. I knew that I wanted to get the head off and away to be pressure tested and skimmed if need be, so that was my aim - getting the head off and in a position to give it to someone to sort. I'm currently waiting for a day off work to be able to take it to the engine shop I want to, but I've got the cash ready and untouched to get it done.

The day after doing that I decided that the black wheels finally needed to go. I have to say I hate black wheels on cars I think they look really bad, the wheels get lost in the car and it just doesn't look good. It's something I've wanted rid of since day 1 of owning the car but I've always thought I'll just stick with them until I get a nice set of OZ Racings which are on my list along with so many other things. Anyway, I started throwing paint stripper at the black wheels hoping it would take all the black off. It was a job and a half getting the paint off. The problem was it would get the paint off in some places and then just continue through to the laquer underneath the paint and I ended up with bare alloy in some places and still some black in others. Not great but I carried on until it was all silver/alloy.

Then very quickly needed to buy some spray paint because in person they looked horrendous. Now, truthfully and in complete honesty I wanted to go bronze. The paint looked like it was going to be bronze. It was not bronze it was a very shiny bright gold which I'm now fully backing as I like it. Simple enough; a few coats of grey primer, some coats of the spray paint and some coats of clear coat. Sanded back beforehand, mainly did the faces to make sure they looked good the insides were not so good, but there was also alloy corrosion to deal with. These wheels are only gonna be on the car for so long so I'm not too bothered about them.

And well, that's it, for now, that's where I'm up to with the journey of this car. I've done a fair bit and I've got so so so much planned for it but it all is time and mainly money I won't share my list of to-do's but it's not a short one and will be ongoing for a while. You can always go bigger and better. But I'm pretty happy with how the car stands at the moment.

I'll try to keep this forum updated with my progress as I go along but can't guarantee anything.

I really wanted my own colour on the wheel so once again with my dad, I mixed some blacks and gun metals for something and turned out with this, and yes I just got the alloys of the plastic ones as they were cheap and good condition.

I later got badges to replace the corroded ones so the cap is over the building again.

another simple thing aesthetically was the debadging on the rear which just looks cleaner.

My upcoming mods are adding fog lights and the hexed grills on the front of the car with official parts as well as some heko wind deflectors.

I once had the VW 2001 Polo 1.4 16V petrol auto. It was underpowered. 

Recently I bought myself a 2008 low mileage 1.4 tdi BlueMotion tech 1. I absolutely love this car. It’s both stock cute & nippy to drive. 

Plans:-

1. Retrofit cruise control 

2. Eibach proline springs to replace stock (1 corner is damaged)

3. Remote key fob as there’s none for locking, bought a kit from eBay I hope it works 

4. Parking distance control front & rear, it sits behind the bumper safely tucked.

5. Bilt Hamber DC & UC for the the chassis to stop corrosion. Independant tests show it comes out amongst the top. 

6. New OEM rear lights going in to freshen the look

7. Respray front & side rear, fix tiny dent 

8. Figuring out if it has a MFA on the centre console (see my other topic)

9. Need to put in seat covers as I find it stains easy. I will stain proof with scotchguard or gyeon.l

10. Rubber mats in boot & inside

11. Tinted rear windows

The frugality is amazing! It does 50-55mpg in the city, 66+ mpg on motorways at 70-85mph. So I could even improve it.

My first ever car was starting to die, so I thought it would be time for a new one:

Good night sweet prince.

Picked up Polo Sport 1.6 just before the new year after my Clio decided to disintegrate, bought her completely standard with 20k miles on the clock:

A few simple mods then came into play at the front end. Some GTI headlights, debadge honeycomb grill and yellow lamin-x on the fogs with some yellow bulbs behind them (because race car):

Also fitted a K&N 57i intake kit under the bonnet which gave it a nice roar at the higher revs.

A month or so later went to pick up a GTI rear valance and chucked that on, then I took the car up to Pro-Speed in Cardiff to get a new backbox fitted so it has a nice purr:

Got myself some lower honeycomb grills to go with the top one and stickerbombed one side of them (although they are all faded now :( ):

Time for some new shoes! Picked up a set of TT Comps, they were crying out for a refurb and the tyres on them were massive so they needed changing:

A couple of photos of how she stood at this point:

Comps went in for a refurb, took them up to APS in Swansea and he did a great job of them, can highly recommend him:

Then got some H&R springs fitted and chucked the alloys on and this is what she looks like now:

The back seems to sit much higher than the front which is my only problem, anyone know how I can get the back a bit lower?

I've also tinted the rear lights black, haven't managed to get a photo of it yet but I will do soon. I've got some fly eyes tint for the headlights as well, but not sure if I should put them on or not?

Up next:

-Painting brake calipers yellow

-Front GTI grill (paint red trim yellow and VW badge black)

-Front spoiler (need some suggestions on an 'aggressive' looking one?)

Near future:

-Window tints (not sure what to do with these as I don't want it too look stupid with the backs tinted and the fronts just all clear)

-Rear wiper delete

In a galaxy far far away:

-A decent set of coilovers, maybe KWs? (I've had a bad experience with budgets)

-Rear spoiler

-Touchscreen headunit + sound system

Hope you like it! If not tell me what looks sh*t :)

Right in the feels..... miss this car.

So last August I decided I wanted an upgrade, and liking my old Polo in every way except the power I decided to see if I could get a 9n3 GTI. Sadly, it was not to be, as the insurance on these motors is absolutely astronomical! But I did find the best alternative in the 9n3 TDI PD130; it just ticked all the boxes for me: it was fast and easily tuneable, was excellent on fuel being a diesel and was a Polo.

Quick search on eBay on the Friday night and I found this; a Winter Red Polo 9n3 TDI PD130 with 110k and a Full VW Service History including belt & pump change. Gave the chap a ring and Saturday afternoon I was off down to view it!

All went well, drove spot on, service book checked out, all the boxes were ticked, deposit paid. And by the Monday night, well, you guessed it, it was mine.

Everyone's first new car photo is in a petrol station, right?

So, once the car was back home I gave it a bloody good clean inside and out and chucked some air freshenering smell devices in to get out the smell of old hag. Paintwork wasn't the best I'll admit, it had been owned by 2 ladies before me so the local £5 wash and swirl was good enough for them. Funds were a bit tight as I'd shelled out £3,000 for the car and the tax & insurance so only a few small mods could be done.

And the 'small' mod list was;
- GTI Headlights

- GTI Grilles

- Pressed Metal Plates

- VW Plate Surround

- LED Rear Plate Lights

- TXRGT USDM Light kit

Gotta admit though, it does make a difference!

So after that I had a really weird whining noise whenever I was around the 60mph mark. Couldn't figure it out, had it up on ramps a few times checking the underside, when all of a sudden it clicked in my head. I checked the tyres to see there was uneven tread on the rear tyres, so immediately went on the hunt for new wheels for the car. As my ultimate aim for this car is to be a fast road/track car I wanted some lightweight wheels, and as a friend was selling a set of OZ Superturismo's at a bargain price of £80, I bought them. Needed spigot rings, centre caps and a refurb, but I wanted the wheels so did whatever it took to get them. Ended up wrapping them in 205/45R16 Hankook Ventus Evo K120's and away we went.

And now the University semester began, so the mods slowed down for a brief moment until my power was noticeably down. Ended up being a boost pipe and the EGR leaking, so had the EGR deleted and a Front Mount Intercooler with hard pipe kit put on.

And then the clutch died. Got that replaced too, however this new one has Carbon Kevlar plates and is rated to about 360lbft so that should do me just fine!

To be honest, I was really happy over how the car was sitting

So that was how the car was going to stay from November until January. Long story short; I'm a student who works for Tesco; part time during term-time, and full time during the holidays. So when I go home, I can work full time, acquire currency, and spend it on my car. January came soon enough, and I had about £1000 to play with, so I got a Piper Cat Back 2.5" exhaust system twinned with a GTI rear valance, some JOM coilovers to get me low until I could afford BC's, a DervTech remap and some 6r style rear lights.

And this is where I found another hiccup in the car's progress. At DervTech I was informed that the car had been previously remapped, however terribly. Some sort of have-a-go hero had ripped an old DervTech map off of a car and flashed it onto mine. Because of this the turbo was running at 2bar of boost which was slowly but surely killing the turbo. As a result the boost has been pegged back, but the torque has been upped because of the clutch so it pulls really well. I'm hoping to get back to DervTech in April once I've been back home earning money over easter to get another map once I've had an upgraded turbo, manifold and decat pipe put on.

I'll keep you all posted!

Some Specs on the car when I bought it

VW Polo 2005 9n3

1.4TDI

PD80

63K Miles on the clock

Not many luxuries apart from electric mirrors and AC 

Here are a few pics to start the build thread off of when I first bought it. Will be updating this instantly but just wanting to familiarise myself with the forum first.

Not many pics of it standard. 

Ok so once I had bought the Polo I didnt really plan on modding it, but in doing some small little mods, I found it quite addictive. 

Here are the first mods I did, nothing major just a debadge and spraying the badges black using plastidip.

BEFORE: 

AFTER:

Shortly after this my first major mod came, I was backing up and ended up backing right up into a metal fence and ended up shattering my rear light completely, so I started looking for a new rear light to replace it, but found the 6R style lights on ebay and they were doing a 20 percent discount so I snapped them up. 

They were supposedly the smoked versions so should look slightly darker, but I cant see it to be honest, but I prefer the colour like a new cherry red colour you get on modern cars. Really makes the car look newer.

My next mod after that was pressed plates, I think they look so much cleaner than normal plates. So got a pair off ebay for 20 pounds if I remember correctly.

Thought they looked quite cool give it that euro look. 

Anyway to complement the new pressed plates I upgraded my number plate bulbs to SMD LED bulbs which made a huge difference and look epic at night.

Old Bulbs:

New LEDS:

At Night: (Along with the LEDS of the 6R Style lights)

They look so much better and brighter, literally light up the entire road behind me.

While I was doing these LED upgrades I also did the front side lights.

I also did the interior bulb but dont have a picture of it.

After these mods moved onto bumpers, I saw a lot of people adding the bluemotion rear valance on and it looked really nice, so after trawling through ebay found one for a decent price and picked it up.

It was white so obviously had to have it resprayed. Was unsure whether I wanted to keep the little silver accent but decided against it and went fully colour coded.

I liked the look of it, it adds a bit more shape to the back of the car.

After this mod I didn't do anything for a while but the fact I had a crappy RCD200 stereo was driving me mad so had to upgrade it. Was unsure of what to get, should I spend loads on a sony or alpine sound system or just get something cheap. In the end I got a chinese android double din head unit which i think is probably one of the coolest mods in my car and has yet to let me down. Sound quality is great, 7 inch HD screen, apps, bluetooth evrything I needed.

Was surprisingly well built. 

Oh yeah I added the chrome heater dials from TXRGT, dont think I had any pics of these taken.

How the set up looked. 

This headunit is brilliant, I could watch films on the go (my passengers!) I could play games, I could use google maps, anything an android can do I could do it.

Finally had bluetooth, could connect my phone instantly and listen to music without having to use a crappy bluetooth fm transmitter.

After this I realised the need for a dash cam as the number of dodgy drivers out there is worrying. So I brought a Mobius Action Cam, and had it hard wired into the fuse box so it comes on with the ignition.

After this the mods dried up for a while, I then started looking on german ebay for bits and bobs, just typing in 9n3 to see what came up. One day I was looking at came across a front bluemotion splitter selling for only 40 pounds! Initially he didnt want to post it but after some convincing he said he would and I even brought the bluemotion grille off him as well for another 30 pounds! Bargain!

Again had to have them resprayed and colour coded to the car.

Not the best pic but with the car being black, its hard to see the splitter without a lot of light. 

After that I started getting fed up with the plastidipped badges as they looked really tacky. So I took the badged off sanded them down and sprayed them using gloss black spray.

I wasnt great at spraying things, so had to watch many youtube videos but I think they came out pretty nice in the end.

After the badges, I found someone selling a Polo GTI rear spoiler, and decided to buy it. Again I had to have it resprayed (why has no one got a LC9Z polo haha)

I really liked the GTI spoiler made the car look so much more sporty.

Next I wanted alloys because the 14 inch alloys just weren't doing it for me. Initially I always wanted the BBS LM alloys but after much reading and searching found the only way to get an affordable set is to get a replica set, but even then it was hard to find a set in 5x100. So I settled for BBS Montreals off of the VW GOLF MK4, got them for a fairly decent price off a friend so wasnt too bad.

Ignore the monster truck tyres, I changed one of them to 195 45 16s to see what it would look like.

After much thinking I never actually put them on the car as they just looked too small being only 16" and also they were just too common. So started looking on ebay for OEM VW 5x100 alloys in 17inch, I was open for anything but wanted something OE VW.

After much searching I did't find anything so left it as it is. 

This is how the car sat for quite some time after a clean up. 

After this again I started looking to buy stuff, side skirts were what I wanted, preferrably votex skirts as they look so much more aggresive and low compared to GTI skirts. Eventually someone was selling a set (BRAND NEW) so I had to buy them, but being brand new meant they were in primer and had to be sprayed.

After getting them sprayed, this is how they looked on the car. 

Excuse the car being so dirty, was doing a lot of miles in the car and as it is a diesel it doesn't like to stay clean.

Okay so now I had all the body kit and the car looked somewhat decent but stupid without alloys so I started searching again, and found a set of OEM VW Toccata 17 inch alloys 5x100 with a offset of 38, the guy was asking for little money as they were in bad condition and they were local to me, so I went to have a look and picked them up.

These sat in my garage for a while, whilst I tried to sell my BBS Montreals. Eventually they sold, so I had the  new alloys in for refurbishment, I was gonna do it myself but in the end I realised I was probably gonna spend a similar amount in materials and it wasnt going to be a good finish like the proffesionals who use sand blasters, so I sent them into a refurb place in Medway called Inspraytions. They did a awesome job on them, I picked a Light Anthracite shade.

This is just a small mod I did as I was bored, and got it for cheap from ebay china. 

Makes quite a big difference as they look much newer and modern. Its all in the details.

After this I didnt do any mods for ages, so again started looking at what I could do. Found GTI lower grills on ebay so brought some as my old slatted grills were heavily worn.

However they were not drilled for the TDIs side intercooler so I had to drill many holes myself. Also decided to spray them gloss black as I had time to kill.

They came out quite nice, slight orange peel but nothing noticeable.

Comparison of the slatted vs GTI

After this I decided to spray my interior heater dial bit as I was bored. 

It looked okay but did a bit of a rush job and you could tell afterwards, but it would do looked good enough. Want to do the entire inside centre console and vents but havent got the energy for spraying anymore.

By this point most people probably would have lowered the car by now, dont know why I havent but its on the cards.

Anyway heres some pics of how it would look lowered, as I went London to pick up some stuff and my boot was literally packed out.

I like the look of it being low but im not a huge fan of crazy low cars so when I do it itll just be a subtle drop.

Some pics just to keep the thread going.

Not the greatest camera just a Samsung S5.

After that I didnt do much to the car apart from change the bluemotion grill to a GTI grill as it didnt look right having Bluemotion and GTI lower grills together. So brought a replica one off ebay. Which was good enough.

Dont worry I got rid of the GTI badge, I know its not a GTI.

After this I decided to attempt headlight restoration as my headlights became hazy.

Not bad for a first go, and using just my hands and no machine.

After this I started getting a bit bored with the power, so decided to have it remapped as many people say the 1.4Tdi Remaps well, so I had it remapped and it feels a brilliant a lot nippier and more willing. 

The company that remapped it for me BurtechPerformance. The car stock is about 80BHP, with 195nm of torque. This was remapped up to around 105BHP, and about 240-250nm of torque. 

Next mod after that was wind deflectors. So got some Team Heko ones off ebay for 20 pounds.

Quick amateur photoshoot after a good clean.

After that I literally left the car for ages as I couldnt think of anything else to do.

Some time went by and then came the best mod of them all, retrofitted HIDs with Projectors so fully road legal. This was a custom job so I wont go into detail with prices. I got these made by a company called EM Tuning. 

GTI headlights with E46R Shroud and a Morimoto projector running 6000k bulbs.

The light output on these lights are out of this world, and the colour temp is the perfect mixture of style and function. Best mod yet, wish Id done it first, would of made night time driving a lot more easier and fun. 

Gave the car a good old cleaning session.

Classic snow foam pictures.

So the car is pretty much complete now apart from coilovers which I will be getting soon. Probably should of done it ages ago but I loved the ride quality of how it is at the moment. But I will do it soon so keep following.

Heres a few photoshops of how it would look lowered.

And finally heres a transformation shot from DAY 1 TO NOW, with the photoshopped lowering lol.

Hope you enjoyed my thread so far. Ive got a few more things to come, tints, lowering...so keep following.

Thanks for looking!

Constructive criticism is welcome as I'm sure it wont be to everyones taste

From this:

To this:

I've been about on the forums for the last couple of years but never started my own post (really due to fact I've not had alot to document) but I thought I'd show my progress so far. I'll just post up all the decent photos I have over the last year of ownership.

Started in the polo game in January of 2014 with a blue 9n. Little 1.2 3 pot did me well for a year;

but come January 2015 it was time to upgrade

Went for a drive that day and took some pictures

White gets dirty pretty quickly

So it was bath time (the first of many!)

Small changes first:

Chrome on white rear badge and a polo sticker for the window

First show I managed to get to - Ultimate Dubs 2015

600 mile round trip, will try get to more shows this year

Bought lower honeycomb grills and had some 'fun' fitting them. Ended up taking a hacksaw to the thing

Next came Milltek catback exhaust

Dewipered (also hacked this off)

Looks much tidier but a glass bung is on the todo list now

Summer time and she got some AP coilovers. All the way down was the only option

Painted the front badge and grill and got on the outdoor stand at Scottish Car Show 2015 with The DubSide

Deletes (SAI and n249) tidies up engine bay

New brake time

Old 288mm

New 312mm discs just about fit under standard monzas

Headed down to Edition38 in September(another 600 mile round trip), will definitely be going back this year!

Bought milltek decat just after this but don't have any pictures. Sounds very rice

New tyres - Uniroyal Rainsport 3s - couldn't fault them!

Winter bath time

Have recently bought OZ superturismos. 17x8 et40(I think) for £125

Badly need refurbed but will sort that out in next pay day. Still to decide on what tyres to run as 205/40/17 were rubbing pretty badly.

Will post up more pictures once they're finished and back the car.

Thanks for reading this far and would love to hear your thoughts and ideas for any future plans :)

After being a member for nearly a year, I thought I better post my build.. 

I used to own a Mazda MX-5 which was appropriately nicknamed "Deathtrap". Anyway.. after spending many monies/days on the MX-5 I decided enough was enough, this enlightenment happened when I could literally put my fist through the rust. So I bought my 2008 1.4 TDI Match Polo with 32,000 miles on the clock.

Here's a picture of the day I got her; 

My original plan wasn't to mod her at all, as I just wanted something reliable with a bit of power. But that all changed..

This was her a week ago; 

Up until this point I have done the following: 

Debadged the rear, Sprayed some interior components and added some vinyl stripes on the front.

However today I've bought some new wheels!

I've also been playing around with the TDI badge for a while, not sure about this so I welcome criticism/opinions; 

List of mods to come;

Straight pipe exhaust, Lower it!, and a remap. 

Thanks for taking the time to look at my build, any comments are welcome. Hope to see some of you at Tatton Park on the 7th!

I I did some basic stuff such as LED number plate light upgrade, fitted an aux cable. 

I then purchased some very bad condition TT comps 

Theh were then refurbed an anthracite grey colour 

i then fitted a gti grill and removed the gti badge and plasti dipped the red stripe and front badge for the time being (will probably spray properly when I get time)

also fitted some heko wind deflectors too 

plans for the future are

Back window tints

Lowering

gti style rear exhaust

So yeah here's my polo so far. Would welcome any suggestions and advice. 

just wanted to know if 18 inch alloys will fit my polo 9n3 2008 

also will I be able to drop it after 

so far fitted radio, order passenger dash trim, dash blanks

to do list:Tidy paintwork

Fit new front grill

Refurb alloys

Find dash plastics and Headlining

Was looking for a first car to buy and knew i was after a vag, crawling across gumtree when i find a lovely polo up for a very good price considering it had 2 lady owners and 75k on the clock. The car was literally 5 mins away from my house so organised a viewing with the lady straight away, the reason the car was so cheap was because of bad body work, very bad! still bought the car because it had a solid engine and interior. Heres roughly what it looked like when i first got it (no pics of the dented side or boot)

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First thing i had to do was clean up the badly scuffed and dented rear quater, this was it after the dent got pushed out

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Managed to spray paint it which admittedly doesnt look great but MUCH better than what was there before.

Got sick of looking at steelies on one side and trims on the other, so i had a quick browse online and found some oem polo wheels for 20! sure they were only 14" and badly curbed but for that price i really couldnt complain, anyway got my cousin to pick them up and bring it to my house and started attempting to refurb them myself, had a load of gloss black lying around so decided to make them black while i was at it, really happy with how this transformed the car even though the refurb itself wasnt the best.

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I do have plans for bigger alloys in the future, anyway, from here i took a step back and waited to get paid before spending more money on it, got bored and ended up spraying the front grills satin black, debadged the bootlid and sprayed some interior bits with the colour matched paint i had left over. Oh i also forget to mention before i got the alloys i went down to pickapart breakers and got a new bootlid for 20 to replace my dented one!

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Thats the work thats been done from 23rd july to now...

Future plans are:

Dewiper

HID and lighting upgrade all round

Headunit, speaker and sub install

Tints

Stubby aerial

Electric window conversion

GTI grill

Tinted lights or gti headlights

I've recently upgraded from a 52 reg Nissan Micra 1.4 SE+ (top spec model) to my current 59 reg Polo 1.4 TDI Match with just 47,000 miles on it, and what an upgrade in style and comfort!  I'm loving Polo ownership so far, and the 9n3 is such a good looking car!  I get compliments all the time saying what a nice looking car it is.

I look forward to learning about all things Polo, and getting to the know members here.  So far I'm planning a stage 1 remap to boost the power to around 100 BHP, a set of original mudflaps and some wind deflectors.

Here's my ride as it is now... I have a thing for cheesy chrome badges, please don't blast me, LOL!

A play on the current model's 'Bluemotion' badge.

Cheers, Luke.

looking for a few bits to potch with ?

Also so looking to change the speedo clocks.

any idea if other models will fit, or what have anyone else got?

Mandatory New Car Pic:

Featuring the other halfs 6C polo 1.4TDi

So i managed to buy her on a friday and got home at 7.30pm with her, i got too excited and packed the car with the other half and made to it to santa pod the same night, 10.30pm on the night to be exact.

Her first time at show:

So VW Action @ Santa Pod it was, after getting up and having food etc, i was still very excited with my new car and knowing i was going to do a few engine mods soon i hit the strip on the Saturday but with a boot full of camping gear including the other half as passenger i managed a 15.6 best.

And when i got home i had to meet a couple friends. R32 MK5 Golf and MK1 Fabia VRS running 180bhp.

This was when i found out my car was faster than both so i was sure, although it looking standard had a remap.

So VAGMEN (a local club/group) had a rolling road day on near and a few friends was attending so thought perfect time to check what power she is really pushing.

She came back falling just short of 180bhp, so it must just be a generic map or something.