🔧 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

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Got my bent winter wheel fixed a few weeks ago, so I spent some time today going over all the wheels with some extra Plastidip ShadowBlack.

went though 2 cans of dip on these today.

View attachment 100872

View attachment 100873

Yeah, so turns out the bent wheel they fixed, well, it is fixed (not dented) but it's not straight and true. Car drives with vibrations all over the place on these wheels. I had Discount Tire mount the wheels on and on my way home had crazy vibrations. Granted, I forgot my hubcentric rings at home, not sure how much that caused the vibration, but I went back to DT and had them recheck the balance (they should have initially but I don't think they did) and install those rings. 2 of the wheels have a wobble and can't be trued with weights. So essentially 2 of the wheels are toast, thanks City of Chicago!

DT put the 2 wobbly wheels on the back of the car, so vibrations are limited in the steering wheel and I'm on the lookout for cheap stock 18s and mount these tires on those. Have a few I'm looking at, we'll see what happens.
 
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DanJ

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Must have been a nasty pothole to damage 18’s with a 40 profile tire. I’ve hit some nasty stuff with my stock 18’s and the only thing that bent them was monster trucking a curb at 40+ mph. I won’t go to a 19 on this car for that reason. We’re they Neuspeeds? I see a lot of them bent on forums.
 
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blue-sun

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Must have been a nasty pothole to damage 18’s with a 40 profile tire. I’ve hit some nasty stuff with my stock 18’s and the only thing that bent them was monster trucking a curb at 40+ mph. I won’t go to a 19 on this car for that reason. We’re they Neuspeeds? I see a lot of them bent on forums.

yeah it was a deep city pothole that I hit. Not Neuspeeds, they are Rial Como wheels I got on CL last year for cheap.

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blue-sun

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Wheels sorted but it’s a clusterfuck.

Those GLI wheels had similar issues to my current winterwheels. 2 had damage and were not balanceable. The guys at Discount Tire found 1 was straight and true and a 2nd one was ok, so we mountedthe tires from my 2 bent wheels to the GLI wheels so I’m rocking mismatched wheels ATM.

I should have had them move the wheels to each side so at least rash side looks normal, but luckily the wheels look very similar. Fronts are the aftermarket wheels. Rial Como’s plastidip in ShadowBlack, rears are GLI paibtws

I did ask the guy I bought the GLI wheels from if they were straight and true. He said yes, and I was able to get part of my money back and gave him their bent wheels back.

I will also be going back to Wellis Wheel and see what they say, if they can true up the 1 wheel they “fixed”.

I’m holding to save some $ to get a beater and not have to worry about this next year.

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blue-sun

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Picked up the Neuspeed Power Module from Dan00Hawk Dan00Hawk today.

Let the tank get nearly empty and filled up the tank with 93 (I have been running 87) before picking this up.

install was really simple, hardest part was pulling the MAP plug off. Reinstalled everything and drove around very chill for about 45 mins before giving it some gas. Makes decent power now, passing people was way easier now!

I think this will satisfy my power needs (for now).

i still want more pops and burbles, so maybe a Downpipe and I’d have to source a resonator for the Catback.

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blue-sun

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I also understand why people get DSG tunes. The few times I did give it the beans yesterday, I was in normal D mode, the revs would hang up high in the RPM range before shifting. My guess is to really utilize this mod, I’ll have to be in manual mode and maybe next year I’ll end up with a Cobb Accessport with a DSG tune, just for ultimate daily driveability.

my plan is also to have a beater for winter next year and not have to drive this car in the snow.
 
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blue-sun

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So on Friday I went back to Wellis Wheel in St Charles with the bent wheel that they previously fixed but had the wobble. They put it on the machine and saw the wobble, so they are going to be fixing that wheel again. I'm going to bring the 2nd wheel with a the wobble to them when I pick it up and have them fix that wobble so I have matching wheels on the car. Their hours suck for me (9-5 M-F) which is the primary reason that I picked up the used GLI wheels. But once they wheels are fixed and true/straight, I'll have the tires put back on those wheels and try and sell those 2 GLI wheels for cheap.
 

blue-sun

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~9400 miles this morning on the GTI, so I need to schedule my 10k service plus have a few smaller things fixed (front pass speaker sometimes crackles like a blown speaker, but not always. General creaking is back and worse than before. And a strange wireless Apple Car Play issue. On a very specific section of 88 (between Farnsworth and Eola, near all the cell towers) the wireless car play starts to cut out whatever I'm listening to and the headunit restarts. Every time I drive to work/home on 88, it does this. Started when I updated to iOS 15. But why would the iOS update cause a reboot of the headunit?

Called Hawk VW in Joliet to schedule it, but I wanted to have this all done while I'm out of town next month, so I need to figure out a way to get the car back home from the dealer. I will be asking my brother in law/sister in law if they'll go get it and drop it off at home for me and then schedule it.
 

The Beast

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~9400 miles this morning on the GTI, so I need to schedule my 10k service plus have a few smaller things fixed (front pass speaker sometimes crackles like a blown speaker, but not always. General creaking is back and worse than before. And a strange wireless Apple Car Play issue. On a very specific section of 88 (between Farnsworth and Eola, near all the cell towers) the wireless car play starts to cut out whatever I'm listening to and the headunit restarts. Every time I drive to work/home on 88, it does this. Started when I updated to iOS 15. But why would the iOS update cause a reboot of the headunit?

Called Hawk VW in Joliet to schedule it, but I wanted to have this all done while I'm out of town next month, so I need to figure out a way to get the car back home from the dealer. I will be asking my brother in law/sister in law if they'll go get it and drop it off at home for me and then schedule it.

Don’t reach that 10k just trade it in on that Honda u want
 
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blue-sun

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Don’t reach that 10k just trade it in on that Honda u want
The Beast The Beast on Sunday a new 2021 CTR popped up at a dealership in Montana. Website showed it at MSRP, I wasn't able to call about it on Monday (busy at work) and by Tuesday, it's not on the site.

New CTR will be revealed on my b-day in a few weeks in Tokyo Auto Salon, so I'm going to just go with maybe picking one up next summer locally if I like how it looks, etc.

 

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