Advice on pimpimg out my first car - 97 polo (on a tight budget!)

choons

Got my first car last week, its a black 97 3dr Polo 1L

Maybe not everyones ideal car but its exactly what I want for now anyway!

I borrowed a haynes manual and have checked all the usual important stuff - oil and filter, air filter, tires, water, battery etc and they're all in great shape. I'm delighted for the €600 I paid for it and Nct till next July so its fine mechanically.

I want to customize it a bit and make it my own. I took off the reg plate holders and sprayed them blue (just because i had blue spray paint!). I've washed and waxed it as well. That's about all I can do without spending any money.

The other thing is I have no radio so I'd like to pick up any old FM radio to keep me going. :pac:

Everything is stock afaik. I'm thinking of buying some black spray paint to fix a few scratches, chrome spray paint to do the license plate holders again and a few other bits and pieces. At some stage I'll get nice wheels but considering i paid €600 for the car I don't want to spend any more than €100 total fixing it up.

Has anyone got any ideas of ways to make the car look cooler without spending loads of money?!

Where can I get a dirt cheap basic radio and spray paint?

Any help appreciated! Thanks

retrothis

Posca pen? Go to town on one panel at a time! It will be more authentic than anything branded "RipSpeed".

If you have steelies, you could also paint them id say. http://www.irishrotary.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5554
Thread on painting wheels...

_Conrad_

100 euro's not going to do much, except fun you buying some cleanign products and some polish etc to get it nice shiny and clean again. Seeing as you have a vw you should sign up on a VW/Audi specific site like vagdrivers.net.

Also, save up for some coilovers (if you want a set just for looks they've got real cheap these days), lower it on those and fit some nice small diameter wheels, euro style. Would be a lot better than putting some massive horrible wheels on, the likes of cheap crap like wolfrace etc.


Don't go mad spraying random bits of it. Won't look good at all

si_guru

Paint - look for a local motor factor.. I pay 3.95 for a tin of Wheel silver in Killarney Motor Factors... in Halfords or Tesco it is a tenner.

Or try the €2 shop! But ther tins will be smaller.

Heres a tip.. clean the wheel and degrease it then get the wheel warm before you paint it! The paint dryes faster with less runs.

How brave are you.... Rat look?

paddy147

Furry dice and a few bumper stickers and you are pimped out.

mawk

A hundred quid would buy you a passable battery drill and a few bits. You use these to carefully adjust your exhaust noise

choons

I've completely re-done the sound system. Picked up a free radio and speakers on Adverts.ie so spent the day re-wiring the car and built in an Auxiliary socket!

retrothis & si_guru - I think I will give the wheels a paint! Should be able to do it cheaply enough.

I'm gonna try to stay away from the boy racer look so I'm avoiding anything too mad!

Would coilovers pass the NCT?

Thanks for all the suggestions

Daved_XB

Hi OP… I’m going to give you some advice that you probably don’t want to hear & you probably won’t take…. But don’t spend any of your hard earned cash on expensive upgrades like coilovers.. can you honestly tell me that you have already gotten to the point where the standard suspension on the Polo is now letting you down or in some way holding you back?? Or do you just want a set because they are “cool”??

My first car was a 3 cylinder Daihatsu Charade & I loved that car… it was great fun & I wanted to mod the hell out of it but I didn’t I resisted the urge to do so & I simply saved the cash that I was going to waste (trust me I’ve spent thousands & thousands on car mods over the years now & if sell the car you never really get any of it back, you’ll see modified car ads all the time where the receipts for the mods are higher than the asking price) I saved my cash & this made it possible to get bigger better cars much sooner than any of my mates

Enjoy the polo as is for a while & if you think that this car is a keeper then by all means mod away… but I wouldn’t touch the suspension or lower ANY car until I had it out on a track day to see what the car was like stock & get a feel for where it could be improved…. & even then it’s a double edged sword as often modifying part of a car doesn’t improve it at all really like we had hoped it would… but just shows up a new weak point that wasn’t there when the car was stock & then you start chasing your tail trying to get he car to handle as good as it did when stock

--Kaiser--

Daved_XB wrote: »

Enjoy the polo as is for a while & if you think that this car is a keeper then by all means mod away… but I wouldn’t touch the suspension or lower ANY car until I had it out on a track day to see what the car was like stock & get a feel for where it could be improved…. & even then it’s a double edged sword as often modifying part of a car doesn’t improve it at all really like we had hoped it would… but just shows up a new weak point that wasn’t there when the car was stock & then you start chasing your tail trying to get he car to handle as good as it did when stock

QFT

Too many car modifiers think that lowering a car ALWAYS improves a car's handling....unfortunately suspension dynamics is not that simple, in fact, it is incredibly complicated.

Same goes for induction kits and exhausts.....just changing the exhaust isn't going to guarantee any gains, and could quite possibly lose a lot of power.

Midnight_EG

Daved_XB wrote: »

My first car was a 3 cylinder Daihatsu Charade & I loved that car… it was great fun & I wanted to mod the hell out of it but I didn’t I resisted the urge to do so & I simply saved the cash that I was going to waste (trust me I’ve spent thousands & thousands on car mods over the years now & if sell the car you never really get any of it back, you’ll see modified car ads all the time where the receipts for the mods are higher than the asking price) I saved my cash & this made it possible to get bigger better cars much sooner than any of my mates

Should have kept the Charade, here's my mates :P

choons

Daved_XB wrote: »

Hi OP… I’m going to give you some advice that you probably don’t want to hear & you probably won’t take…. But don’t spend any of your hard earned cash on expensive upgrades like coilovers.. can you honestly tell me that you have already gotten to the point where the standard suspension on the Polo is now letting you down or in some way holding you back?? Or do you just want a set because they are “cool”??

My first car was a 3 cylinder Daihatsu Charade & I loved that car… it was great fun & I wanted to mod the hell out of it but I didn’t I resisted the urge to do so & I simply saved the cash that I was going to waste (trust me I’ve spent thousands & thousands on car mods over the years now & if sell the car you never really get any of it back, you’ll see modified car ads all the time where the receipts for the mods are higher than the asking price) I saved my cash & this made it possible to get bigger better cars much sooner than any of my mates

Enjoy the polo as is for a while & if you think that this car is a keeper then by all means mod away… but I wouldn’t touch the suspension or lower ANY car until I had it out on a track day to see what the car was like stock & get a feel for where it could be improved…. & even then it’s a double edged sword as often modifying part of a car doesn’t improve it at all really like we had hoped it would… but just shows up a new weak point that wasn’t there when the car was stock & then you start chasing your tail trying to get he car to handle as good as it did when stock

I know what you mean Daved_XB. Don't worry, I set a limit of €100 to fix it up and I plan to stick to that. So far I haven't spent a cent and its running perfectly with a nice sound system!

Plan now is to buy one of these, get some furry dice, spray the steelies and possibly de-badge it for the craic. Should come in at under €15! I'll use the rest of my €100 to give it a full service in a few weeks. Thanks for all the replies :cool:

retrothis

choons wrote: »

retrothis & si_guru - I think I will give the wheels a paint! Should be able to do it cheaply enough.


Thanks for all the suggestions

Go for it! Post up pics!

Wonder if you could also get some sort of a centre cap for a steel wheels. Someone here might know if they can be got.
I tried searching but no luck.

si_guru

retrothis wrote: »

Go for it! Post up pics!

Wonder if you could also get some sort of a centre cap for a steel wheels. Someone here might know if they can be got.
I tried searching but no luck.

Funnily enough I was looking at a Polo with 2 different centre caps yesterday whilst wating for a taxi in Wroclaw airport - really (pics from google)

_Conrad_

si_guru wrote: »

How brave are you.... Rat look?

[

Nothing "brave" about the fake, forced look that is modern day rat look. Pretending a car is more rusty/worn/damaged than it genuinely is... that's pretty sad. It would take more balls to try and live with a genuinely worn, faded and battered car and fix it up, or just get the mechanical parts into good order than to deliberately damage car car or alter it to make it look like it's in worse condition

retrothis

si_guru wrote: »

Funnily enough I was looking at a Polo with 2 different centre caps yesterday whilst wating for a taxi in Wroclaw airport - really (pics from google)

Kinda hard to see but I was thinking more along the lines of this:


A small centrecap to cover hub nut (?) without covering the wheel nuts.

DaleB91

Drop and BBS reps, she wont need anything else to be cool. VW have cool little cars anyway

Graham_B18C

DaleB91 wrote: »

Drop and BBS reps, she wont need anything else to be cool. VW have cool little cars anyway

He has a hundred quid to spend, that can't be done for so little

DaleB91

Graham_B18C wrote: »

He has a hundred quid to spend, that can't be done for so little

He cant really do much on 100 yoyos though, its a fairly **** budget. Suppose he could cut the springs, a laguna splitter, take out the headlights and give them the smoked look but cars are so horrible on cut springs and he'll have some hardship come the nct but thats the best for his budget i think

andyseadog

_Conrad_ wrote: »

Nothing "brave" about the fake, forced look that is modern day rat look. Pretending a car is more rusty/worn/damaged than it genuinely is... that's pretty sad. It would take more balls to try and live with a genuinely worn, faded and battered car and fix it up, or just get the mechanical parts into good order than to deliberately damage car car or alter it to make it look like it's in worse condition

Oh i'm living that dream with the focus at the mo

its 99 1.8D and has 160k miles and is defo showing 12 years and 160k of wear and tear. the 2 back arches are beginning to rot, so are parts of the passenger side sill and a fair bit of the bootlid and bottoms of the doors are starting to rot too. There's a hole in the front bumper covered with a piece of black tape (car is black too), the 4 alloys have lots of kerbing and pitting. one mud flap is falling off, the aerial is bent up in bits, the number plates and headlights are sun bleached and the bonnet is stone chipped to pieces.

i bought it the other week with a brand new 1 year NCT, 4 new bridgestone tyres and it had had a recent front pads and discs change. i changed the oil in it just to be sure too and the engine burned around 250ml of oil to 1500 miles driving so i'm very happy with that. the engine doesn't miss a beat and it drives very crisp for its age/ wear. i intend to spend as little on the car as is possible, so i expect the engine to outlive the bodywork. real life rat look

Mully_2011

BBS reps or something like that and a drop all ya need on a polo

jeddie20

Thinking of doing this something like that with an astra.. Bbs, lowered and rat look one of the wings.. Not sure tho, its an awful colour my yolk ha

Muckit

Put it in a container and send it over to Ryan in West Coast Customs..... <MOD SNIP>

Graham_B18C

Muckit wrote: »

Put it in a container and send it over to Ryan in West Coast Customs..... <MOD SNIP>

Be nice, or don't post

Flyer1

Until you can afford some decent wheels and some coilovers etc. don't bother !

Just maintain your car, maybe invest in some decent audio equipment so you can at least enjoy driving with some good music.

bridgemond

Congrats on the first car dude. Make sure you dont end up getting carried away and spending too much on it. If I was you I would get a descent cd player and a set of speakers. Plus you can take them out and put them in your next car.

focus_mad

Any recent developments on the car?

boyler07

Maintain it well, keep it standard and clean, see it as a stepping stone to a better car down the line.