The GTI returned today from the wizards at PDX Wraps, where they were repairing my “backing into a post” bump in the night smoothed over. They said they were going to have to rewrap the bumper and patch a spot near the spot where bumper and body meet.
Unlike Grandpa’s Old Truck above, the GTI looks like it did when it came out of PDX Wrap’s garage the first time. When I got home I took a look at where the patch was supposed to be; there was nothing there. Did they manage to heat that area up and stretch the vinyl to cover that spot up? Or was it sorcery?!?
For whatever reason I like to back the cars up onto the carport/portico. And this is a stupid idea. Truth be told, my brain cannot comprehend going backwards; this means I do a lot of steering corrections trying to keep it between the posts. Side note, two of the 3 posts are inline; the third, not so much. That fateful night, I misjudged it badly; hence, below are photos of a post and a GTI.
Post
GTI
I’m going to get it fixed; the wrap is too new not to, but they are working over a month out. So I have an appointment to get it fixed on February 12th. They’ll rewrap the entire rear bumper because it sustained the most scrapes and scratches; there will be one inch or two of a patch at the top because otherwise they would have to rewrap most of the body.
Friday was supposed to go a little something like this:
1) ride exercise bike
2) eat breakfast
3) grocery shop
4) get a latte
5) go to the coffee klatch
6) start a jigsaw puzzle
I missed #1, did two, three & four, didn’t do five and never made it #6. Instead of the last two I did number seven instead. Not too long after lunch PDX Wraps called and said the car would be done by 2:30ish. So I ordered up an Uber who picked me up a little after 1:30. What would, if traffic free, takes 45 minutes took close to an hour twenty minutes. It took about a half hour until the car was done then I set off home. The weather was dreary and I hoped to find a not so dreary spot to pull over and take a picture of the GTI, but I had no luck with that. By the time I got home an hour and a half after leaving Sherwood it was almost full on dark. So I snapped this one teaser image for now with hopes that a bit of sun materializes in the next couple days.
I went for my daily walk, and as I was finishing up, I looked at the weather and realized it was going to be a good day. Instead of going home, I headed over to Stomping Grounds to get a Salted Caramel Latte and jumped on I-84 east. Plan was to get a photo of the GTI with Mt. Hood in the background. Bingo, see above.
After taking some more Mt. Hood photos, I opted to return home on the Washington side of the Columbia River. So I crossed the Hood River Bridge to get on WA-14. This bridge has a toll, but it doesn’t have booths; it takes photos of the license plate of the car, and they mail you a bill to get their $3.50. I don’t have plates on the GTI yet; all that I have are the paper CarMax ones. So will CarMax get that toll bill in the mail?
The ‘Modification Madness’ on the Golf has started. This afternoon I purchased some black carpet floor mats with red piping to replace the rubber ones that come stock. I also bought an adjustable clutch pedal stop, so I have a way to shorten the leg throw. I then bought a set of aftermarket headlights that have better lighting and nicer DRLs. The other thing I will do is the wrap, and after that, probably nothing.
From that angle it looks a little like a minivan, and parking it in the same driveway as a Miata does nothing to dissuade that…
Because the GTI will reside here in the Portland Metro area, it needed to be run through a DEQ inspection. If the car were 4 years old or newer (which we just missed), it would be exempt from testing. The test consists of plugging in a cable to the OBDII socket and reading the fuel mixture. So yesterday I drove to the closest testing station in Gresham. I was in line behind an old Chevy Suburban, and they had to run a sniffer up its tailpipe. And from what I could see, they didn’t pass. The Golf did pass as expected.
Afterwards I stopped into PDX Wraps to set up a day to have the car wrapped in green. I’ve decided to go different from the Avery Dark Green; it looks good, but I wanted something a bit…more. I picked out something from 3M, a Gloss Green Envy. If you google images of that, you’ll get some photos that seem way too light and bright, but I took their sample outside to hold it up to the car in shade and sunlight, and I loved the results. Maybe it just photographs overbright in direct sunlight. Here is a good look at the color, both inside and outside, on a Porsche Cayman GT4:
Their first opening wasn’t until November 10th, which was fine, except I’ll be gone. I won’t be back until early December, so right now I’m scheduled in on December 15th.
Discovered a MODE button, and as you can probably guess, I found the Sport Mode. It might just be the placebo effect, but the exhaust note got a touch louder, and the throttle pedal mapping changed so that the car felt quicker, win-win.
