Very nice, take much of a hit on your old car?
Mad as a hatter 
...... why not retro fitted bits you wanted?
how much did you loose for doing this deal?
Easy answer to both of these questions.
The hit on the old car depends on which way you do the sums. If you look purely at a part ex price (this saying I paid forecourt price on the new car) I took a hit of less than £3k on the old car which is pretty impressive depreciation for two years on an almost brand new car (less than the new car VAT in fact). Or if you look at it the other way and say I got normal top book for my car which had no optional extras fitted other than paint (and which ever way you dress it up the deprectiation on the old car is out of my hands and has happened whether I kept it two years or ten years, full stop) then in that case I got a car which would have cost retail just over £30k six months ago for £23k.
I'm not expecting to take such a gentle hit when this one goes by the way!!
I'll go back to the retro fits; I specifically wanted my first mk6 as basic spec because the only things I really wanted were the RNS which I could easily source through Darren at the time and 18'' wheels which I had sat on my mk5 and were almost brand new BBSs. Everything else didn't bother me until LED tails became available as the rear lights were the only bit of the mk6 that I absolutely hated about the styling.
The other reason is that I know full well having held a driving licence for 20 odd years that optional extras are generally worth zip when selling your car on again aside from certain ones that are deemed as essential to aid resale of certain models (generally not Volkswagens though). As I don't have a history of keeping my cars long thanks to the many shiny new things designed to tempt me into spending money that would be better off invested elsewhere I didn't want to blow too much of it in one go and wanted to keep depreciation to a minimum with an eye on the future.
Having lived with a mk6 GTI for two years, spent a good part of those two years considering the other options available I came to the point where I realised that there actually isn't any better car out there for my needs. So I plumped for one that had the bits I'd gradually realised over the last couple of years I'd actually quite like. Apart from the leather which I would take or leave any day of the week.
You could also look at it another way. If I was on £100k a year it'd be small change. But I'm not, not even a third of that and if I didn't work all sorts of silly hours I'd stuggle to clear a quarter of that. I'm not self employed so I can't con the taxman into giving me lots of 'expenses' and I don't get a company car allowance (I only live 10 mins from work FFS!!). But as I work all sorts of silly hours I don't have any social life really, don't eat in expensive restaurants, don't own a fancy smartphone or iPad, don't have a huge mortage and live in a modest house in an unfashionable part of town which is handy for work, school and near to elderly in-laws. Interest in savings is negligable unless you're prepared to tie up your money for ever and a day (which sort of defeats the object of having any as you're a long time dead) and most bank accounts don't seem to even keep up with inflation with their interest rates. Property in my part of the world is at London prices with wages at third world levels so not much point buying a big house unless you're in to that sort of thing; to me it's just a roof over my head.
So my GTI is my treat to myself, it suits my needs and gets lots of compliments and I feel proud and lucky to own one.
