Hey - can't believe all this was a year ago. Short story is all sorted got car back and it's great and now lives in garage!
Longer story if you can be bothered....
It took a while to get it fixed and then got caught up with "changing" or maybe re-coding locks. Turned out the insurer didn't remove the stolen flags from the systems and the car somehow "knew" this and wouldn't let VW re-code it. Surprisingly VW didn't seem to know this and I was the one who eventually phoned insurers and asked them to check. This then sorted it. Can't remember all the dates now but after being stolen at start of Feb and recovered mid to late Feb I dont think i got it back until end ish April. Was cutting around in 1.0L Fiesta for a while!
The repair was really good. They did about 1000 miles in the 6 or so days they had it (i had done just under10k miles when it got stolen). I am quite careful with fuel most of the time - when i fill it up it says it has about 380 miles in tank. When i got it back and filled it up it said something like 250 so guess they booted it around a bit. It also needed service quite quick after that so got it all checked. The only thing i have really noticed is that the rear tint does seem to have marks on it but didn't notice at the time. Not terrible but annoying when i look after it.
While i was waiting for it to come back I got an electric garage door and new house alarm incl garage sensor. Cost quite a bit but car now lives in garage all the time. But it's well looked after and feels mine again.
A costly and undeserved escapade but thankfully not an issue now. As an aside, my wife's handbag and a couple of things in the car (like car park token) are being held by the police as evidence. This did go into a bigger case as was gang related (google operation greenbay edinburgh or lothians) but no sign of these being released.
Final point - i can't remember if i discussed this, but they did snap our locks to get in the house. I have since personally fitted anti snap locks and would recommend looking into. Youtube video is an eye opener!