🔧 BUILD blue-sun's GTI Thread

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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.

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blue-sun

TCG Elite Member
Nov 10, 2020
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I love the yellow fog look. I always thought it was a bit ricey, but looks so good at the same time.

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Would it be sauerkraut for German cars? OR Weiner schnitzel? LOL

But yeah, I get what you're saying. I was always kind of on the fence about it until I saw my buddy Rich's old silver 04 WRX with it on both his headlights and foglights. Granted, at the time his WRX was HEAVILY modified with a giant STI CF hoodscoop and CF 747 style wing on the back. The silver/black/yellow combo was so badass. I tried looking for an old pic of his car but I can't seem to find one on his IG when I looked.

I haven't done the headlights in any color in the past, just the clear ones. But I figure on such a bright blue car, the yellow contrast might look cool. And if I hate it, I can always remove it!
 

Mook

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blue-sun

TCG Elite Member
Nov 10, 2020
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Got a generic eBay diecast that kind of matches the cornflower blue, maybe. Have a couple other mk7 diecast, but this is the first blue one.

Also, forgot to post here that I created an IG account for my car:


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blue-sun

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Nov 10, 2020
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More decals, this time from Klii Motorwerks. Still need to peel the old Badgeskins one off the front and install the new one, but I got the rear one installed.

the packaging is nicer than Badgeskins, they work good together.

have to push a few tiny bubbles out still bit you can only see those up close.


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blue-sun

TCG Elite Member
Nov 10, 2020
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Got The catback from my brother in law who went to Detroit for the weekend. Probably won’t attempt to install it until this weekend.

In the meantime, I did what I do best, gave it a quick cleaning. Still need to spend more time on the tips and get it coated with DLUX high temp coating once I’m happy with the tips and the rear section.

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blue-sun

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Nov 10, 2020
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After the kids went to bed an hour ago, much like Gav'sPurpleZ Gav'sPurpleZ, I spent some time in my hot humid garage.

Using #0000 fine Steele wool, some toothbrushes and some old Meguiar’s DACP and a toothbrush, I atacked the exhaust to see what I could do with it. I only used the DACP on the painted(?) black tips. i used the rest in the bare metal, focusing on the few parts you’ll actually be able to see once on the car and on all the mating surfaces to just get them clean.

this is the result of about an hour of hand polishing.

I need some Iron-x and maybe one of those drill wheel cones to get the tips super clean before installing and coating, but for now it’s in better shape than before.

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