Do YOU like project cars? Probably not if you're on my art website. But thank you for checking this page out. This is supposed to be kind of a personal log/shrine to my various Volkswagens and to keep track of some of the details. If you have a VW and live in the DFW area and need a shop rec, reach out to me because there's only one shop I will ever go to here.

I'd like to change up the formatting for this page, which is why I haven't posted it up until now. Buuttttt my friend said to make something exist first and then make it better so I'll try that out here. Heavy WIP while I prepare images.

TRIM: 3.2L Quattro DSG
MILEAGE: 131K
PURCHASE DETAILS: $4000 USD at 125K miles on 1/17/25
$$$ IN: ~3k including maintenance (RIP my job and the timing chain is impending)

I flew across the country to bring this guy home to Texas from (ironically) my hometown in Cincinnati after lowballing the guy on Marketplace. I had planned to drive the tail of the dragon before heading home, but about 2 hours into the drive there the axle failed. Probably karma but whatever. Somehow I managed to make the 1000 miles home with the axle flopping around and shaking me and the 5 spare wheels and catalytic convertors in the cab to death. Driving in the south on a holiday weekend in a failing Euro car is a certified shitbox adventure and totally worth it because I got an otherwise highly reliable car that I love. Whenever there's a bumpy road though I do get scared my axle is broken again despite both of the fronts being replaced now.

I did drive back the same path I took before to do Wookies in the Woods this year! And I didn't have any problems at all over the 2000 miles journey! Thank god! I have some pretty good pictures I'll add to the gallery soon.

I really hate saying "OEM+" but it's pretty much stock other than maintenance and other minor things. Who knows what else one of the 3 (maybe more) previous owners added. It might have springs but I genuinely can't tell. The only other "mod" I want to do right now is finish fabricating my rear seat delete. (I AM LAZY!!!)

• Deleted pre-cat resonator
• Bi-xenon headlight upgrade
• Aftermarket tail lights

LAST OIL CHANGE: 129k
LAST BRAKE FLUSH: 131k
LAST DSG SERVICE: 125k
LAST HALDEX SERVICE: 125k
LAST TIMING CHAIN: never but soon (kill me)

This month I gave it all new rotors, brake pads, front brake lines (in orange!), and cleaned up the calipers and painted them bright orange. I gave the back ones new piston seals but I couldn't get a kit for the fronts in a reasonable timeframe so I just cleaned them up the best I could. Reassembling the calipers was probably my favorite part of the whole job. I've never done a full brake job before but now I have the experience. The shop had to pressure bleed them to get the remaining air out and right as I was leaving their parking lot it threw a big fat CEL for my timing chain. SIGH. I've been monitoring the stretch which has been at its limit since I've had the car but I was hoping I'd have more time with it before I had to drop a bunch of money on it. Bad timing with my unemployment too.

While I was doing my brakes, I (tried) to clean up my wheels and re-clearcoat them. I also did some respraying on the body and fixed my doorhandle that likes to fall out. Other older misc maintenance includes replacing my center console and hazard button (dropped the whole dash for that like why), fixed my CD changer, restored my headlights, and I had the shop replace both of my front axles. There's also a lot of other stuff that's not really worth mentioning but I've spent a good amount of time working on this.

IMPENDING MAINTENANCE:

• Timing chain ********
• Shocks ***
• Master cyl
• Cluster display
• Headliner

Project car obituary.

TRIM: 1.8T Manual - Neiman Marcus Edition 083/100
MILEAGE: 145K
PURCHASE DETAILS: $3500 USD at 145K miles during Summer 2023
$$$ IN: Not too much
SOLD: Winter 2024 for $4000 USD

I do miss this car. It was really pretty but was in rough shape and I definitely overpaid. Since it was a Texas car its whole life, the interior plastics were a mess. My focus was on restoring it, but every single piece of plastic shattering in my hands over and over and over drove me insane and I ended up giving up. I did replace the shifter bushings and my dad did vac line deletes and some other things. He ended up taking it over for a bit before we agreed to sell it. Kind of a blunder for my first car but it was cool. It just needed too much. At one point it was full of fire ants that liked to bite me and big ol Texan rats decided to keep dragging a dead lizard carcass into my engine bay and also piss and shit everywhere!!!!! Still miss it though. If I had it now I think I'd be more confident in working on it.