Robin's vRS Re-invigoration!

[BlueRobin]

In the beginning...

I got my 04 plate Furby back in 2005 second-hand. It's had a hard life. For the first 18 months of its life, it travelled 48000 miles by the first owner. I worked locally at the time, so age would catch up with those miles. But with the recession, it has proved to be brilliant. Reliable, cheap to run, but this has meant having to keep it on and show it some neglect when times have been tough.

Happily though things have changed a bit in the wallet. It's done 135000 miles and is looking tired.

My aim is not to mod it significantly. I won't drop the suspension. I will remap and perhaps fit a wider intake, rather than spending a fortune on a new motor (for now) with the same performance. I won't make it Concours. I don't have the patience to clean it every week. Let's keep it original, but fast. I'm mechanically out of practice. I did maintain my first car (Metro) and then second (Nova) when it was easier to do so!

I've come here to show a few photos and if anyone would be kind enough to share some inspiration, I would hugely grateful

The updates may be slow due to budget, but some work commences next week.

In no particular order:

The bonnet is pepper-potted. Not a huge priority but some cuts are deep.

The alloys are showing bad signs of corrosion, but they were not great 5 years ago. My body shop man alleges no primer was applied when factory new and they're just painted with the car paint. Here we see bubbles and flakes, plus dust bonding to it :/

Rear O/S. Where surface corrosion is not so bad, there a ring of smaller bubbling bonded with the black stuff

The infamous dent, which I have put up with for a few years now. One replacement light ordered from Amazon. Is the DEPO unit any good? Furby is going into the body shop next week. Note the bumper trim overlay is not quite flush.

Rear n/s corner. Ding is about the size of a thumbnail. I think this was damage caused by a third-party and could be a nasty little sod to put right inexpensively.

N/s rear. Nothing special versus o/s rear other than to say the hub badges need changing.

Rear badge showing signs of water ingress. How easy is it to re-apply a new one?

Front badge worse. I may have a stab at polishing the chrome grill, or buying a new chrome grill. Bugger to keep nice but would a black one ruin my aim? It's a silver car with silver wheels ;-)

Very minor and low priority fix. I have had this cracked lens forever, but looks like you can replace the o/s fog for less than 40 notes in parts. Despite the damage, it has worked and never blown a bulb. How though to get it off and on?

Argghhhh! Autoglym SR polish marks. How do I cure that?!

Two Furbies park outside my office. One I think is a young kid who works at the local VW dealer. The other may be a colleague. Both have immaculate tail pipes. But how? It's a diesel! For jealousy sake, i want to know if there is anything I could do to improve on this:

Also involved in next week's work, finally the de-lacquered, peeling spoiler will be done!

The above may make it look like a bag of *******s, but it does shine after a clay and HD Autoglym waxing

Edited 17 September, 2012 by BlueRobin

[skodalad]

Like you say it just needs a little tidying up. So the body work will be taken care of by then body shop, but stuff like the badges, fog lamps, and exhaust can be easily fixed. So for the badges are both held on by two small pins, which will pop off with some persuasion.

The fog lamps an be cleaned up with a bit of wet and dry, start off with 1500 and plenty of water then 2000 grit with plenty of water, check my thread for polishing headlights. For the exhaust just get a scouring pad, and give it a good going over to get all of the soot off, then you will need a good metal polish such as autosol, available from halfords for about £5.50. You can also use this to polish your fog lights .

Hope this helps.

[BlueRobin]

Thanks! I'll be following your example by getting the Bissell on the seat PDQ

[stuart vrs]

BlueRobin like skodalad has said a bit of tlc and it will clean up like a silver gem fella.

I v'e got a silver vrs and it gets washed about once a fortnight just due to the colour as i have had various different coloured cars in 20yrs of driving. come winter it will get a coat of sr in the next couple of days.

[BlueRobin]

Thieved an idea from SL above... resisted machine washing the vRS mats as there's a chance the rubber backing could split. But what's to lose and it is an easy win.

vRS mats tend to be used only for Summer. For Winter, I have a 15-year old pair of Cannon heavy-duty rubber jobs obtained from Halfords and still going strong.

They're not hugely in poor condition, just some soiling

In at 40 degrees on a synthetic cycle with some bio liquid reduced to 600rpm spin. Slight tight fit with a standard sized drum so they're a bit creased.

Compulsory slow shutter shot:

Wake up, put them out on the line with no a jot of cloud of sky this morning 8-). Before.. note discolouration on grey trim

After:

Thought the logo looked a bit dull in the flesh. Photo makes it look ok

(love my Fuji X10 camera)

Edited 19 September, 2012 by BlueRobin

[BlueRobin]

Couple more body points. Scuff mark has appeared on rear bumper perhaps from vegetation in work car park. SRP could be the answer.

Last time I was here moons ago, many were complaining of paint falling away from the top edge of the front bumper. Some were successful with a warranty claim, but my dealer didn't want to know.

Edited 19 September, 2012 by BlueRobin

[skodalad]

Mats looks a lot better mate, mine got the washing machine treatment aswell lol that little scuff will polish out, metallic tcut.

[BlueRobin]

Top tip using the washer matey - cheers!

[L33 LHO]

Yeah i put mine in the washer a few weeks ago, came out ok but a little off shape lol, but a few days in the foot well they were fine

[Titanium_Man]

Yep it's showing it's age a little, but as others have said all easy to fix (or chuck your hard earned cash at it!)

On the srp issue.... I use neat apc (all purpose cleaner) on a rag. Look for it in your local supermarket... I use "daisy" from tesco as it was the cheapest!

I've got a few signs of age also but currently saving for it all to be fixed all at once as I fear it will never look perfect otherwise! (if only for a day!)

[BlueRobin]

Money-chucking commences next week at the body shop, then next door at the service centre the following week! In fact the latter recommended the former to me last year. Joy of joys both will co-ordinate getting tyres off my alloys and the alloys treated.

[Titanium_Man]

Yeah mine requires a bodyshop visit too :(

Have you tried autosol on grade 00 wire wool on your exhaust? Might do the trick... Will help with the built on crud on the front too.

... And if you haven't already invested in some car clay, do as the difference is amazing for a silver!

[BlueRobin]

Yup, intend to do the pipe. Small jobs I can manage. This was after washing, SRp-ing, claying and waxing with HD Autoglym. I became a convert last year. So nice to wind down the window and feel how smooth your panels are. Kinda wrong?!

[Titanium_Man]

Hell no! I woul do it every weekend if I could... Something very theroputic about washing my car... Some say I'm a little OCD but what do they know!

Can always tell a looked after motor in the cold and wet mornings, nice pic

[BlueRobin]

Here's one of the three vRS's I see close to work. Only 6 months younger than mine, very tidy externally and something to head toward (inc the baby onboard sticker hehe). No cosmestic mods that I can see.

[Adamweal]

Btw you may want to take the reg off the pics of that car some people dont like it, im not bothered myself but dont want some people moaning and ruining a great thread!

[Dark_Hero]

Good luck with the restoration mate. Will look stunning when it's done. Need to save up so mine can visit a body shop :-)

[BlueRobin]

Small job-ette done today. I have become bored with seeing moss growing on my window seals. Have not ever troubled myself with "back to black" products I guess as they can be a bit too shiny. Picked up a bottle of Autoglym Bumper & Trim Gel, through admittedly cheaper products were available!

Went at the moss with a tooth brush and shifted it off.

Cut across a kitchen sponge into 1cm wide strips and applied the gel. The green gel (ergo "slime"!) seems to shift and hold the dirt. It also shifted the SR polish stains with only the rough side of the sponge need for a few small bits. Buff up with a microfibre cloth, leaving a pleasant matt shine and sheer to the touch. :p

Did the windscreen plastics (the most faded and dirtiest). Also applied to the wiper metal.

Had a quick bash on a bit of the engine cover. Might a nice step for an engine bay clean.

Edited 22 September, 2012 by BlueRobin

[Dark_Hero]

Nice work. Will need a little go at this myself. Think I've got the same Autoglym stuff in the garage :-)

[walejase]

Nice thread. I can definitely recommend the Dodo Juice products for sorting out the paintwork. My Black Furby was in a right state after the previous owner abused the auto car washes but now looks great.

[BlueRobin]

Corrosion has been found under my bumper. A few threads here suggest its an issue. Car may be back on Thursday. Further updates thereafter. Until then I'm driving a Ka

[BlueRobin]

Quick update. Today I saw this and was quite happy with the progress

The corrosion happily tied in with the areas that needed the dent work, so two for one really.

Got 4 new Hankook V12 Evo tyres on order. The bodyshop knows the tyre centre around the corner. He can vouchsafe the paint work will survive the fitting and at only £5 per corner more than Blackcircles, you can't grumble.

Had a good look underneath the car. Looks like one of the rubber bungs in the spare wheel recess has popped out causing a small amount of rust, but it is not flaking off. Looks all pretty solid. Even the original exhaust is bearing up well.

[BlueRobin]

My furby is back from the body shop! Whoop whoop!

Upon a recommendation from the lovely people at Warrington's in Warwick last year, they said pop next door and see Paintmasters. I got a great quote then, one third cheaper than another small local concern and finally got around to doing so this year and booked it in last Monday. They're a small set up, but I since found owner John Langton is an ex-aircraft engineer, the type of meticulous guy with a similar background you might see in an F1 team. I was confident and happy he could do the job :-)

The plan was to

- sort the prang on the wheel

- totally recon the alloys

- arrange and fit new tyres

- sort the O/S rear quarter dent

- see what could be done about the N/S rear quarter smaller dent

- fix the peeled spoiler

Upon removing the bumper, it became evident the same areas were being affected by corrosion. John is going to email the photos.

So here's a bunch of after photos.

Wheels first. I'm really happy with the outcome. You can see the part numbers again on the inside. These were stripped, shortblasted, primed, painted and sealed inside/out. Should be a doddle to clean and keep the corrosion at bay.

I now need new badges and decide which ones. I will post a separate thread in the Fabia I forum. We both thought putting these bad boys back on the alloys wasn't a good idea ;-)

The HUGE improvement. The O/S rear dent has completely gone and its place spangly smooth paintwork!

Same goes for the N/S!

Seem to be on the same thread now with the spoiler. This was done in situ:

I also need four new tyres. John recommended a couple of local places that would be careful and not ruin his work. As it happened, the first suggestion was only £5 a corner more than Blackcircles. Couldn't argue with that some I am very grateful for John and Reifen Tyres in working together on this :-)

So I have have four lovely new Hankook V12 Evos fitted :p

That is all. Service, MoT and new front pads on Monday.

[BlueRobin]

Wet vacced seats and carpets today using the Bissell. Got four bucket loads of crud, but it didn't lift out some of the spot-soiling. Any ideas? Though perhaps an oxygen-based bleach cleaner would attack if its an organic compound.

[BlueRobin]

Today it went in a for a service, MoT and brake work.

I don't care that to some it's a cheap bag of bolts with a Skoda badge on the front and runs on oil, but now I have no dents, better than new alloys, new tyres, new brakes, new oil, cleaned seats and carpets AND it now barely smokes... The drive home from the garage today makes it feel, goes and looks like a nearly-new car. Burning people off at the lights was a hoot! But I can no longer make people "eat my smoke" hehe!

I have had a hard start issue for the past two years which via ODB came up as a cam sensor. This will be fitted on Wednesday. Also the original 2004 battery is at 72% design capacity so will need to be changed in due course.

Edited 1 October, 2012 by BlueRobin