New To Auto's!

I'm comin' of age, and I'm just gettin' into cars. I have a '88 Jetta and I'm wondering if any of you pros can give me advice on how to make the cool look better, drive better and so on. If you can link me to any great parts places near Vancouver, BC, Canada please do. :D It could use a new paintjob, should that be my first purchase? TY in advance. :)

I'd say painting the car first would be a bad idea if you're going to do anything else (other than aesthetics) to it.
Paint it first, and you're going to be really pissed when you're installing your new lowering springs or that new exhaust and one of your idiot friends clumsily puts one of his greasy paws on the paint or fumbles a wrench and puts a big ding in it. In other words painting the car last would probably be a better idea. Plus, if you decide to put a body kit on it, you'd want to have it all matched (I assume), and why not do all of that at the same time?


:monkeypis Mustangs

:monkeypis Stupid No-Driving Old People in Beamers! :flipa:

Thanks for the post. I'll take that into consideration. I have almost 900$ CDN. I was wondering if there is a good site for Mk2 rear headlights or possibly some quality lowering springs. If you know good sites with lots of mk2 products that ship to canadian please forward them. :smoker:

Okay... If you want to start with the looks, I can't help you too much there, but for the springs and all, you might want to check-out neuspeed ( www.neuspeed.com ). If you're not looking to sink a lot of money into it, you can check out their closeouts/sales, and you can usually find some pretty good deals there. I'm still in the process of getting mine back up to barely above stock (the person who had it before didn't take very good care of it, but I got it REALLY cheap, so...). I'm planning on putting in a quad grill and golf hood, shaving it, painting it this awesome pewter color I found, and putting a set of rims on it. Before I do all that, I'm going to try to drop a 2.0l in it w/ a 5-speed (which I've already found, just gotta save up the $ to buy it), but for right now *sigh* I'm still working with the 1.8 stocker. If you want some easy power mods, you can change the exhaust and intake... I've done some homework on it, and from what I can tell, a drop-in K&N has a more reliable hp gain than a cold-air kit (it's all a matter of what you're looking for). From what I can tell, about all the cold-air kit does is make it SOUND like it has somethin under the hood, and after the engine heats-up, you're just pulling-in hot air from under the hood (which defeats the purpose). As far as the exhaust goes, if you can afford a header, get it, and if you can't, just open up the rest of the exhaust by taking out the cat. (if laws up there will let you get away with that) or get a free-flowing cat., and getting a more free-flowing muffler. I cut the cat. off of mine and just welded a piece of pipe in place of it, and installed a flowmaster muffler (for reasons of cost and b/c I know someone who already had the same thing done, and it sounded nice, and had a noticable power difference). I hope that was a little bit more helpful. Keep us updated.

:monkeypis Mustangs

Thanks for the great post.

Well. I have 800$ CDN, and I think I'm going to go out and buy the K&N and the air intake. If i have enough or near enough, I'll buy some lowering springs.

I still have the probelm of the paint. I work at domino's and make 6$'s an hour so my money doesn't come in by the truckload. What are the options for autopaint? Is it just pay the 1.5K? Can I do it myself with some instructions and help? I've called around, but I'm not sure if I'm calling the right places. The paint looks horrible, and if I want it looking at all decent, I'm going to need a new paintjob. :(

I'll post when I get the filter and intake. :D

I'll check out neuspeed too. Ty.
:sun:

Well... I had a great day today.

I got my exahaust system and it looks great and sounds better. Also get a K&N filter. Gettin' a Hanyes manual for the car and cool embelms this weekend. Then it's saving again for the rims. :D

Update:

Monza exhaust is in. I'm going to get a paintjob now, because the crappy old stock job is pissing me off. I'm going to change it to black and get an interior custom job.

Next: Rims/Tire/Suspension

Have you tried giving it a good detailing? The paint is probably just badly oxidized. New paint is expenceive campaired to some compound, wax and sealer.

Yeah, but it's been sanded in some spots and it's very uneven.

Oh, ok. Fresh paint will look very nice on a a2. Are you getting '90 bumpers on it before you paint it?

Possibly. Your talking about the 'big bumper'? I like the look, and if it's in the cards in a couple months, I might do that first. :D

Yes I am :D

Just imagine how sweet it would be:
http://www.randomc.com/~lee/90GLI2.jpg
http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0VgDcAoQX6baBhtmDky0GVZbG0gHr4T5DvomALzzYHVIcYNNpj 6zZXbfWNDYHyKEmFKJMaYh5pVe9hZZvwk3UrpFxNCBl36xb!XX Zmg*M85OWn9C042!9w7a3N8pvi8Uv/9832915-8759-028001E0-.jpg?dc=4675402247276997467
http://users.tunerswanted.org/mk2jettagli16v/Dscn2288.jpg
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid44/pd5edc5c37b0c28d6e0bbc6c846ccb140/fce1a982.jpg

:eek:

oh baby that does look sweet... :drool: :D

yes, you need that paintjob
then yor car would be the third sweetest car on the vw board, after mine :D and corrado666s "slightly gay and ricy" SuperG60. :finger:

Actually, I think I have a change of plans, I found this Mk3 GTI that fits perfectly in my budget. It has a new black paintjob and the I believe about 100km. I'll post again to see if I obtain the car. (I like the mark3's and corrado's the best :D)

Nice, 2.sl0w or VR6?

Well... Hopefully the VR6. :D

Update!

I am still saving up, exhaust and air filter are working great. Total money, including the value of my current vehicle = 4000$ CDN. Yah. :(

So are you selling your a2 to buy the a3, or are you keeping the a2?

can u show us the pic of your mildly tuned jetta?