Alreet! Gateshead Calling! [Now With Added Pictures!]

[Dinky]

Gud intro hun!
Gud to have another northerner on board,looks like a canny car

Dinx

[mookie]

You can tell what a total VW noob I am when I agree about it's lack of sunroof, before talking to the old man and finding it did have one (zooming in the pic you can just see it). As I don't pick it up until tomorrow evening, my lack of brains can hopefully be excused 

Seems to be a decent contingent of grim northerners on this board. Look out for me on the mean streets of the North East chaps!

[razla]

Hello Mike and welcome to the the forums mate I am also from Gateshead(Springwell Village) looks like a nice motor you've got there mate, Maybe see you around Oh and check out "northern piss up in leeds" thread in Shows Events and Meets forum.

[mrwotto]

welcome to the forum

[mookie]

Picked it up on Wednesday night, and let the old man drive it home for me (well I'd left my L plates at home - yes, I'm still learning at 28 ). He really gave it a good going over, and thankfully nothing fell off or popped

I've been out a couple of times now, last night we went for a 2hr drive around Ponteland and Darras Hall, and I got to see how it felt at 60mph (humor me) which was rather... sexy. Everything is in good to excellent condition (as far as I can tell). There are a few areas that need attention but nothing critical or obviously noticable.

- Sunroof seal is a little on the rough side, and is starting to discolour and degrade.
- The bonnet front edge has a decent amount of chipping and nicks, although not immediately obvious to the casual observer.
- Some light scratches running horizontally away from the door tops along the roof. Again, not very obvious.
- Small rip in the left side of the gear stick gaitor. New one on order.
- Tiny rip in the bolster on the door side of the driver seat. Repaired but may need future attention.
- The full width of the very bottom edge of the front grill (the dark strip beneath the lower red trim) is speckled with sand coloured dots. Wouldn't rub off so I'm assuming it's rust or something. Distracting probably only to me though

Overall I'm very pleased and a real pleasure to drive compared with the other cars I've been learning in. Very forgiving (although could be bad for the car...) power available - managed to hill start by accident in third gear this afternoon, was slow but didn't hear too much complaint from the car heh heh.

Cannot wait to get my full licence so I can drive it properly.

[Dinky]

lookin gud hun

Dinx

[gibby]

Looking good.  That's not a bad first car to be driving around in.  Just a thought though, have you had an insurance quote yet for when you do pass your test ? Be interesting to see what it is for a new driver at 28. 

So when you've done the bits you want to do have you thought about doing any mods or are you leaving it as standard. 

[mookie]

Currently I'm paying £754 for 14months, fully comp, from Norwich Union. Checking on Confused, with them it drops to around the £400 mark. Seemingly however I qualified for a 40% discount due to my geet old age and the sheer length of time I've had a provisional licence (laziness is a wonderful thing sometimes).

I'm pretty undecided about modding the car. I really like how it looks as standard, and for the near future atleast I want to try and get it looking as mint as possible whilst keeping it totally standard.

Do many people go down this route?

Then again, I really love the idea of making the car totally unique with some subtle alterations. Decisions, decisions...

[gibby]

£400 is a damn good price,  I've been driving for 17 years with full no claims bonus and I'm still paying £380 fully comp on my cab. 

As for the modding, some people do want to keep them standard others want to mod the sh1t out of them, it's down to personal choice but it's still nice to see a totally standard clean GTI. I had a similar attitude to yourself with not wanting to change anything but over time and going to various shows I've slightly modified mine, but not too much, I've just changed the indicators/side repeaters to clear and lowered it slightly but I keep looking at doing this and that and then get more ideas at shows etc. So I'm with you on the decisions, decisions score 

[mookie]

Hmm yeah I see what you mean. The stupid thing was, when I got my quote from NU, they gave me this massive 40% discount because I was a) 28, b) held a licence (even though it's only a provisional) for 9 or more years, and c) because I put a second named driver on the policy. My only worry is that when I pass my test (fingers crossed) they will then consider me to have only held my licence for as long as the full licence is held (i.e a matter of days for example), and therefore end up with a much higher premium than on a provisional  Something to look into I think...