General Information
Staring a new thread for my GTI.
As I posted in the IllDub thread, last week I traded in my 2017 Jetta GLI 6 speed for a new 2021 GTI SE in Cornflower Blue with the DSG transmission.
When I purchased the GLI, I had originally wanted a GTI but they were generally more expensive than the Jetta GLI's and the interior space (rear legroom - we have 11 yr old twins) was just a little bit bigger, so that's what I went with.
I've been watching the payoff amount for the last 6 months and the trade in/retail values on the GLI to see if it would be worth upgrading. Plus, once a month the wife and I would switch cars so I can take the dog to the groomers in her Edge ST (toss the dogs old crate in the hatch of the Edge is much easier than having her up front with me while I shift - I have done it but it's not ideal) and she started complaining about how much she hates driving stick in traffic, etc. I hated how the MK6 GLI had shitty headlights (no HID from the factory even through all the other lights were OEM LED's) and the lack of a LSD made driving in the snow horrible, even with snow tires.
Now, I knew that back in 2019 they did a limited run of cornflower blue GTI "Rabbit" editions, but that was for 2019 only. About 2-3 months ago, we were driving on 55S and I happen to see a cornflower blue GTI and commented about how sharp that color was in person but thought nothing of it, just assumed it was a rabbit edition (I don't know if it was a rabbit or a 2021 version).
I saw that new GLI's had trim levels like the GTI's have had and initially I was looking at those online and saw VW had some really good deals on them. So I started surfing on cars.com and autotrader.com to see what inventory was like locally. I wanted a grey with the black appearance package or a red with the black appearance package in DSG but could not really find one in stock locally. This led me to going straight to local VW dealers websites and low and behold, I saw a cornflower blue GTI in inventory at one of the dealers. I hopped back on cars.com and started searching for all cornflower blue GTI's in Chicagoland and saw there were only 5. 3 or 4 were DSG and 1 was manual. This was over Ester weekend. Monday morning I start calling dealers, 1 was already sold. This left 4 in the area on cars.com. One of the dealer site had it marked as "sale pending", so this left 3. One of the dealers happened to be the same dealership (City VW Evanston - formerly of the Autobahn VW group) where I bought my GLI. So Tuesday morning I called them and the same salesguy (Mario Grbavac - he gave me a good deal on both cars, go see him!) who I bought my GLI from was still working there and we negotiated a sale price and they matched the Carvana/Vroom estimates on my GLI, so after work I drove to Evanston and did the trade.
He had all the sales paperwork ready for me, I was done signing his papers in under 3 minutes from walking in the door, I just had to wait for the Finance manager, as one tends to do.
No major mods, but I can never leave a car alone.
Already got tints installed, Llumar Ceramic tints all around.
50% on the windshield
35% on the rest of the windows
Smoked Transparent Vinyl over the triangle windows by the mirrors (done by my tint guy)
I had some of that same smoked vinyl that I previously used on part of the tails and mirrors caps on the GLI but I ran out. I ordered some more, or what I thought was more but it was the wrong color, it was light smoke and very light for what I wanted. But I didn't let it go to waste, so I put it on the rear bumper reflectors which darkened it up just enough.
Some Yellow Lamin-x foglight film has been ordered and will be arriving this week and a Euro Auto DRL switch so I can run the foglights independently.
Also ordered some DSG flappy paddle extensions off eBay (blue aluminum ones)
Tentatively have an appointment with lo.run from ILLdub to have him do a gloss black vinyl on the rear of the roof this weekend.
Other mods planned -
Badgeskins for the front and rear VW emblems
OBDeleven or VAGCOM to disable the soundkator.
Some kind of CBE or Downpipe so I can have more of the DSG cracks and pops.
Posting on a PC, will reply from mobile with pics.
As I posted in the IllDub thread, last week I traded in my 2017 Jetta GLI 6 speed for a new 2021 GTI SE in Cornflower Blue with the DSG transmission.
When I purchased the GLI, I had originally wanted a GTI but they were generally more expensive than the Jetta GLI's and the interior space (rear legroom - we have 11 yr old twins) was just a little bit bigger, so that's what I went with.
I've been watching the payoff amount for the last 6 months and the trade in/retail values on the GLI to see if it would be worth upgrading. Plus, once a month the wife and I would switch cars so I can take the dog to the groomers in her Edge ST (toss the dogs old crate in the hatch of the Edge is much easier than having her up front with me while I shift - I have done it but it's not ideal) and she started complaining about how much she hates driving stick in traffic, etc. I hated how the MK6 GLI had shitty headlights (no HID from the factory even through all the other lights were OEM LED's) and the lack of a LSD made driving in the snow horrible, even with snow tires.
Now, I knew that back in 2019 they did a limited run of cornflower blue GTI "Rabbit" editions, but that was for 2019 only. About 2-3 months ago, we were driving on 55S and I happen to see a cornflower blue GTI and commented about how sharp that color was in person but thought nothing of it, just assumed it was a rabbit edition (I don't know if it was a rabbit or a 2021 version).
I saw that new GLI's had trim levels like the GTI's have had and initially I was looking at those online and saw VW had some really good deals on them. So I started surfing on cars.com and autotrader.com to see what inventory was like locally. I wanted a grey with the black appearance package or a red with the black appearance package in DSG but could not really find one in stock locally. This led me to going straight to local VW dealers websites and low and behold, I saw a cornflower blue GTI in inventory at one of the dealers. I hopped back on cars.com and started searching for all cornflower blue GTI's in Chicagoland and saw there were only 5. 3 or 4 were DSG and 1 was manual. This was over Ester weekend. Monday morning I start calling dealers, 1 was already sold. This left 4 in the area on cars.com. One of the dealer site had it marked as "sale pending", so this left 3. One of the dealers happened to be the same dealership (City VW Evanston - formerly of the Autobahn VW group) where I bought my GLI. So Tuesday morning I called them and the same salesguy (Mario Grbavac - he gave me a good deal on both cars, go see him!) who I bought my GLI from was still working there and we negotiated a sale price and they matched the Carvana/Vroom estimates on my GLI, so after work I drove to Evanston and did the trade.
He had all the sales paperwork ready for me, I was done signing his papers in under 3 minutes from walking in the door, I just had to wait for the Finance manager, as one tends to do.
No major mods, but I can never leave a car alone.
Already got tints installed, Llumar Ceramic tints all around.
50% on the windshield
35% on the rest of the windows
Smoked Transparent Vinyl over the triangle windows by the mirrors (done by my tint guy)
I had some of that same smoked vinyl that I previously used on part of the tails and mirrors caps on the GLI but I ran out. I ordered some more, or what I thought was more but it was the wrong color, it was light smoke and very light for what I wanted. But I didn't let it go to waste, so I put it on the rear bumper reflectors which darkened it up just enough.
Some Yellow Lamin-x foglight film has been ordered and will be arriving this week and a Euro Auto DRL switch so I can run the foglights independently.
Also ordered some DSG flappy paddle extensions off eBay (blue aluminum ones)
Tentatively have an appointment with lo.run from ILLdub to have him do a gloss black vinyl on the rear of the roof this weekend.
Other mods planned -
Badgeskins for the front and rear VW emblems
OBDeleven or VAGCOM to disable the soundkator.
Some kind of CBE or Downpipe so I can have more of the DSG cracks and pops.
Posting on a PC, will reply from mobile with pics.
