Update 7: Various Winter Fixes and Upgrades
Hi all,
Over the winter I’ve been steadily progressing with my A2.
Firstly, the heavily oxidised headlights (and cracked passenger side taillight) have been replaced with some in much better condition - when the weather improves I plan on restoring and protecting these to keep them from oxidising.
Late last year I managed to decontaminate, machine polish (1-stage), and protect the entire car, which made a huge difference to its appearance, removing all of the small scratches and dullness from the paint. Now the sunlight is coming back you can actually tell that the car is cobalt blue. I’m planning on giving the car a 2-stage polish later in the spring (when I restore and protect the headlights) to remove anything I missed and get the car shining.
Up next I replaced the badly worn plastic steering wheel with a mk1 TT leather wheel. I was originally planning on installing a leather a2 wheel but when I found the TT wheel for a good price I couldn’t resist. Elsewhere in the interior, I managed to repair the broken cup holder and ashtray; prior to this the cup holder was stuck out, and the ashtray was stuck closed - they now both work as they should.
I visited
@timmus who resolved my driver door lock issues (after seeing what this took I’m very glad I didn’t attempt it myself) and retrofitted cruise control. I would highly recommend Tom’s
services. As a result of the door lock issue resolution, the fuel flap switch now works which is another item ticked off the list.
Finally, I recently replaced the standard SE 6 spoke alloys with some Audi A1 16” (8X0601025G) alloys. This was always a long term plan as I really like the look of these alloys on the A2, however a combination of finding some substantial sidewall damage on my current front nearside tyre, and a good set of these alloys appearing for sale locally expedited the decision.
The A1 alloys have 215/45/ R16 tyres and were a straight swap with the SE 6 spokes which had 185/50 R16 tyres. There’s no rubbing issues, although the wider tyres definitely slightly change the feel of the car (a little more planted and a little less agile), and I’m sure there will be a small fuel efficiency penalty.
Thanks for reading,
Sam