So I've had my 2012 Jetta 2.5 for a little over 3 years now and its gone through many stages that I've mostly documented on Vortex, but figured I'd make a thread on here as I move into the next stage with this car.
I originally leased the car after I first started working full time because my E36 was just too unreliable. My plan was to wait out the lease and get into a more desirable car afterwards such as an E92. Of course that simply didn't work, so here's the stages it went through. Keep in mind everything that was done to this car was done in the parking lot of my apartment with less than an ideal tool collection.
Stock:

V1: Raceland Coilovers, VMR V710 Hyper Silver
Just wanted that clean OEM+ look for a while because it was still my daily and I wasn't used to the whole slammed thing.


V1.1:Powerder coated the wheels ugly green grey (I'm color blind)
Wasn't a fan of the color and sold the wheels a week later
V2: ST Coilovers, Work VS-XX, Vinyl wrap (matte metallic gunmetal)
I used to really like reverse lips and found a set of 17" works with a nicely done metallic silver centers with brushed face. The racelands had to go, one blew on me and I wanted to go lower anyway. Found the ST's and threw those in.
V2.1: Frankenstein Coilovers
Swapped out the rear ST springs for MK4 raceland ultimo springs. Those went really low in the rear but then the front was the limiting factor.
V2.2: Frankenstein Coilovers
Shaved 2 of the dead coils off the front ST's. Turned them down so that they would seat well too.
V2.3: Frankenstein Coilovers
Swapped the ST front struts for FK Silverlines, took out the helper spring and removed a couple inches of rubber and grinded down the bottom of the strut. At this point my subframe was 1/8" off the ground and driving sucked.
Static on 17's


V3: Air Ride
I finally caved and bagged the car right before H2O 2013.

V3.1: CCW's
I got back from H2O and traded my Work wheels for some agressive 18x9.5, 18x10 CCW LM20's. Wheels were a brushed bright clear anodized face, polished lips, and gold plated ARP hardware.


V4: New wrap (grey again, different shade), GLI bumpers, Suede headliner
I acquired some GLI bumpers over the winter, shaved the reflectors/rear emblem, and re-wrapped the car in a satin aluminum right before SoWo 2014. My headliner had been out of the car all winter and half-assed suede wrapped it before H2O just to put it back in.



V4.1: Rebuilt CCW's, Bride Seats
As if the LM20's weren't agressive enough for the MK6 platform, I rebuilt them to 18x10.5 w/4" lip up front and 18x11 w/ 4.5" lip in rear. Also came across a set of Bride GIAS seats and put those in. Still not even sure if they're real and don't care, I want to replace with Status seats anyway.
As you can tell, I like silver, grey and black and haven't really introduced any color in this car except for the tacky red headliner which is coming out. It's now spring 2015 and I haven't touched the car since early last summer. It's still my daily and its taken a serious beating because of it. Burned vinyl, oxidized lips since I ran them all winter, sagging headliner, messed up fenders. My interest has been drawn towards working on older European cars lately (see my '75 Mercedes & '34 Rolls Royce projects) but I'd like to go back and take this project to a new level.
My original plans included Haldex swap and 2.5T build, but now I'm leaning away from the turbo and more towards just the AWD swap cause I'd rather put all the performance money into buying a more fun daily. I'd still do an IE intake mani though (would need to finish converting hydraulic power steering to electric to make it fit) and a few other things here and there to bring it up into the mid 200's for power.
As far as looks go, I'll be re-wrapping the car again next month before SoWo a Frozen Black Chrome which is more like a really dark satin metallic grey. Considering re-lipping the rear wheels with 6" lips to make them 18x13" and 5" up front for 18x11" (would change out the barrels for this configuration). I would do a simple and clean flare if that were the case. Nothing wild in looks, just enough to fit the wheels and some meaty tires. I'm sick of stretched tires, I want a fat Toyo R888 to have some fun with this car.
I originally leased the car after I first started working full time because my E36 was just too unreliable. My plan was to wait out the lease and get into a more desirable car afterwards such as an E92. Of course that simply didn't work, so here's the stages it went through. Keep in mind everything that was done to this car was done in the parking lot of my apartment with less than an ideal tool collection.
Stock:

V1: Raceland Coilovers, VMR V710 Hyper Silver
Just wanted that clean OEM+ look for a while because it was still my daily and I wasn't used to the whole slammed thing.


V1.1:Powerder coated the wheels ugly green grey (I'm color blind)
Wasn't a fan of the color and sold the wheels a week later
V2: ST Coilovers, Work VS-XX, Vinyl wrap (matte metallic gunmetal)
I used to really like reverse lips and found a set of 17" works with a nicely done metallic silver centers with brushed face. The racelands had to go, one blew on me and I wanted to go lower anyway. Found the ST's and threw those in.
V2.1: Frankenstein Coilovers
Swapped out the rear ST springs for MK4 raceland ultimo springs. Those went really low in the rear but then the front was the limiting factor.
V2.2: Frankenstein Coilovers
Shaved 2 of the dead coils off the front ST's. Turned them down so that they would seat well too.
V2.3: Frankenstein Coilovers
Swapped the ST front struts for FK Silverlines, took out the helper spring and removed a couple inches of rubber and grinded down the bottom of the strut. At this point my subframe was 1/8" off the ground and driving sucked.
Static on 17's


V3: Air Ride
I finally caved and bagged the car right before H2O 2013.

V3.1: CCW's
I got back from H2O and traded my Work wheels for some agressive 18x9.5, 18x10 CCW LM20's. Wheels were a brushed bright clear anodized face, polished lips, and gold plated ARP hardware.


V4: New wrap (grey again, different shade), GLI bumpers, Suede headliner
I acquired some GLI bumpers over the winter, shaved the reflectors/rear emblem, and re-wrapped the car in a satin aluminum right before SoWo 2014. My headliner had been out of the car all winter and half-assed suede wrapped it before H2O just to put it back in.



V4.1: Rebuilt CCW's, Bride Seats
As if the LM20's weren't agressive enough for the MK6 platform, I rebuilt them to 18x10.5 w/4" lip up front and 18x11 w/ 4.5" lip in rear. Also came across a set of Bride GIAS seats and put those in. Still not even sure if they're real and don't care, I want to replace with Status seats anyway.
As you can tell, I like silver, grey and black and haven't really introduced any color in this car except for the tacky red headliner which is coming out. It's now spring 2015 and I haven't touched the car since early last summer. It's still my daily and its taken a serious beating because of it. Burned vinyl, oxidized lips since I ran them all winter, sagging headliner, messed up fenders. My interest has been drawn towards working on older European cars lately (see my '75 Mercedes & '34 Rolls Royce projects) but I'd like to go back and take this project to a new level.
My original plans included Haldex swap and 2.5T build, but now I'm leaning away from the turbo and more towards just the AWD swap cause I'd rather put all the performance money into buying a more fun daily. I'd still do an IE intake mani though (would need to finish converting hydraulic power steering to electric to make it fit) and a few other things here and there to bring it up into the mid 200's for power.
As far as looks go, I'll be re-wrapping the car again next month before SoWo a Frozen Black Chrome which is more like a really dark satin metallic grey. Considering re-lipping the rear wheels with 6" lips to make them 18x13" and 5" up front for 18x11" (would change out the barrels for this configuration). I would do a simple and clean flare if that were the case. Nothing wild in looks, just enough to fit the wheels and some meaty tires. I'm sick of stretched tires, I want a fat Toyo R888 to have some fun with this car.
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