U.S. R32 Registry

My last entry was back in January. Good grief!

Not a whole lot going on with the car, really. I've tried a few different kinds of cleaners for the interior leather, and have ended up with Leather Master. I have yet to try it, but I've heard good things. I'm just trying to keep the flat gray, grainy matte finish on the steering wheel and seats. I don't like it when leather gets shiny.

I had a scare the other day when the car told me to shut it off immediately thanks to low coolant. I did, went back inside and got a water bottle full of water, and filled just above the min mark. Stopped by the dealer and picked up some coolant (holy freaking 1 1/2 lifetimes supply!), so next time I can fill up to the min line with coolant and maintain the optimum 50/50 mixture.

Other than that, just dents and dings and scratches as you'd expect with the rest of humanity having no respect for other people's property.

Had my 5,000 mile service performed yesterday at about 5400 miles. The car definitely feels a lot faster, as many others have noted occurs at around this stage.

I asked about the auxiliary heater and they said they'd have to get back to me later since they had to call VWoA about it. Oh well. I can never expect a dealer to really go above and beyond these days. It's sad, really. I think I'm going to have to get my own VAG-COM.

I also bought new center caps for the wheels, seeing as the center cap-things we have on our NA market wheels are terrible. Here's the part number:

3B7601171BXF

It looks a lot better this way in my opinion.

So I'm looking at a pretty substantial raise, and I think I may reward myself with the Milltek cat-back. A couple 'tex members are hoping to get a GB started, so if you're interested, check it out here: http://forums.motivemag.com/zerothread?id=3508436

Almost to 5000 miles, so it's almost time for oil change numero uno. They're free at my dealership, which is nice.

I almost ran out of gas the other day...got down to 0 miles on the tank, with 291 miles traveled. Wow. Couldn't believe I didn't run out. Was a little scary, but I'm happy to say everything's fine.

I still haven't fixed the marring my dealership put into my paint. I'll hopefully get that taken care of within the next month or so...it'd be real nice to have a glassy, smooth exterior again. I've just been so lazy. Damn winter.

Finally got a new license plate for the R. I had been using my old one from the GTI, so it didn't exactly make sense... "FLYN-GTI."

Now it says "LVE2DRV." Not only does it fit, but when I eventually switch daily drivers (not for a long time), it'll still be appropriate.

I'm not even slightly tired of the R. I recently cleaned the leather with Einszett Leather Care cleaner/conditioner and it really, really maintains the finish and scent of the original leather. No shininess here! I highly recommend it.

So I took the car in to the dealer last Friday (the 9th) to have it detailed. They offered it for free, so why not?

Yeah, I guess their idea of a detailing team is to give some yutz a buffer and say "have fun." My paint is seriously marred. I don't trust them to fix it, so I'll be doing it myself.

In case you're wondering what "marring" is, it's the spider web-looking "scratches" in the paint you can only see when the light's directly on it. It's a result of bad polishing/waxing.

Hopefully one of these days will be somewhat warmer and I can go out there and take care of it.

Here's a drastic example: http://guidetodetailing.com/article_images/PerfectShine6.jpg

Found out yesterday that I still had the shipping spacers on my front springs, even after my dealer assured me they'd be removed for the PDI.

Used the widowmaker last night after getting home from work to lift the car, yanked off the spacers, and voila. Just gotta let the springs settle as they've been at an unnatural height for so long...over 1200 miles. Dammit!

Hit 1000 miles today. Normally this'd be a milestone and essentially permission to let 'er rip, but I've already been doing that. Oops. There's conflicting "research" into both break-in "methods," with no one method being proven best...even though VW recommends waiting for the big 1K. Oh well.

Even though I'm at fewer than 500 miles, I gave the launch control a good run-in yesterday. Very impressive. I'm anxious to give it a few more tries after the engine's had more time to break in.

I know I need to take a photo and put it up here, but I'd prefer to wait until I've given the car a good wash/polish/wax job. It looks great now, but I can't wait to see Tornado Red with a just-cured polish/wax job with my ROB.

Turns out the seat "lock" mechanisms weren't positioned correctly. Little silver bits in the floor rail needed to be slid fore while the seat was forward. That got 'em, so now I have memory again. Yay!

So I had my first to-work commute today. And boy, was that nice. The car is so comfortable and quiet, and usable power all over the place. And that transmission!

One thing I'm disappointed in: No compass! What the hell? Also, my seats aren't working properly. They aren't remembering their fore-aft slide position when I pop them up to allow rear entry and exit.