on 17" you can lower it 40mm and it will look sweet.. below a picture of my old Mk2, that was running standard shocks and 40mm lowering springs. You gotta watch out with using your old shocks though, as where they seem to seat themselves into the standard springs and get used to this, when u drop the further down and add more pressure they seem to blow. I blow one of my rears, only like 16 quid to replace though and you can pick lowering springs up dirt cheap also. just get yours a set of spring compressors from Halfords and ya laughing, theres ones more tool u need, i'll find a picture for ya.
Mine old mk2 used to rub on the rears with 3/4 people in the car, depending on size, but not bad and the fronts used to rub on full lock, again u just get used to doing more turns, but again nothing bad.
As for my rims, if ya worried about lowing yours 35mm on 17" (i'm assuming there bout 17x7's.) then my 16x9's will p1ss you right off, rubbing all round! ALOT! to be honest the rims are too wide for the car, but they look sweet so i dont care.
Had an induction yesterday at a gym 11 miles from my home town, and my trainer walks over and said, your from blar blar (My home town) aint ya, i'm like yes... thinking what the hell is this guy on, and then he comes out with you got the mk2 golf aint ya. This lad only drove past my house at the weekend and saw my car and had to drive past another two times to check it out... Thought it was funny..i saw him looking with his jealious eye as i drove out the gym car park!
