My Mk5 Volkswagen Jetta receives some much-needed TLC

The Mk5 Jetta unfortunately is a car where you can't do a lot.

BHPian Varun_HexaGuy recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

After close to ~ 2-months of time, effort and ₹₹₹₹ thrown at it, here's how Natasha has turned out. Still, a few finishing touches left (new ORVMs are a pain to source for instance) but it's almost there.

For starters, the car has been completely repainted in Glasurit Base and Glasurit High Solids Clear. The finish turned out nice. The job was done at Krithi Car Care and a ground-up thread on the Jetta is in the making and I'll cover all of it in detail. There's a slight bit of waviness on a couple of panels, but for the most part, the panels turned out straight. I've asked the guys at Krithi to not polish the car to perfection since I plan to detail it in the future. So, there's an orange peel that's obvious. But hey, I've got a significant part of the clear coat left at my disposal which I can use to correct the paint in the future. Overall, for the paint job alone I'd give the guys a good 9/10. With some areas for improvement of course. Also, the bug to play around with the aesthetics of the car had bit me, big time. The Mk5 Jetta unfortunately is a car where you can't do a lot. So after a lot of back and forth, I'd decided that I'd swap the alloys and call it a day. Chose the OE Atlanta alloys from the Mk6 which were actually available on the Mk5 outside of India (US and EU both). The alloys were picked up used and were handed over to the guys at Krithi for refurbishing them. I'd also decided to get the PPF done for essential parts like the front bumper, hood, mirrors, door edges and door handles.

The steering was refurbished and door pads were redone. The central air conditioning duct has to come from Germany (long wait periods for the parts with these VWs is a thing for me now). Once that's done, the interiors would be free of broken/missing trim pieces. After going through a ton of Mk5 scrapped Jettas, I found quite a few missing bits and now finally my car is near completion.

Next up, the annoying creak from the front end has to be sorted. This only comes for the first drive of the day/drive after a long break (say >3-hrs). Pretty certain it's the front ARB bushes that have aged.

My options are:

• To replace the bushes but finding these is a pain and I'll have to settle for the bushes from Laura etc (slight variation in size; 20.95mm for Mk5 Jetta vs 21mm for Laura)
• To replace the entire front ARB. This is gonna cost a bomb. But is a long term fix. Gravitating towards this only. Yet to finalise though. Will do it soon.

Signing off with a few pics for the viewing pleasure.

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