Petrol Blue 182 #1/29 - trying to remedy 6 years of neglect

[Rys182]

I bought #1/29 of the petrol blue 182s from -Rob back in March 2018 after telling a friend I'd help him find a good 172 or 182 because he was keen. My first ever car was a 172 which I had from 2009 to 2013 or so, and had raved about them to my friends despite not having another RS since that 172. I had a mk2 Audi TT at the time, logged on to the forums here since I was a member many moons ago to check out cars for my mate, and saw the car for sale. Rather than pointing my mate at it, I bought it and sold him the TT instead.

Then it failed an MOT in mid 2019 which annoyed me no end because it was for silly stuff. A couple of days later I went out for a walk and trotted past my local VW garage where they had a lovely mk7.5 Golf R on the forecourt, so I popped in, had a test drive, and took delivery a few days later. The Clio sat outside for a few wet autumnal months after that, getting mouldy, before I garaged it early that winter to keep the mould off it. Bar a couple of feeble attempts to get it going again, it sat in the garage for the next 6 or so years until March this year.

I had to sell the Golf to help buy a house, and rather than buy a low-cost daily while I saved for something posh again, I decided it'd be cheaper to get the Clio going. Financially that's not paid off in the slightest since I'm now five grand deep into sorting it out .

Starting from where it got to in -Rob's old thread before he sold it to me, the following happened in the year and a bit before the several years in the garage:

• Belts and dephaser and full service
• Rear pads, one new rear caliper
• Front camber bolts
• New injectors
• Front ARB bushings
• Set of new PS3s
• Properly whacked the Cup splitter after a big compression at speed which broke it in two. Took that off
• Misted up headlight covers (main part of the MOT failure, and I wanted to keep the black insert xenons, so I didn't want to just replace them with non-black ones)
• Took the horn and cruise button plate thing off, after it caught fire a bit

Then while sat:

• 3 very flat batteries as it sat in between pootling it out for a day or two every other year
• One very dented bonnet after parking it back in the garage nose-in one day, but then the bonnet catch seized before the next attempt to work on it. Big dents trying to welly the bonnet to get the catch free
• Paint scuffs as it became a thing to put cardboard boxes and other crap around and on top while in the garage
• Lots of spiders made it their home
• The dash mid plastic went incredibly gross

And here's what happened to get it where it is today:

• New belts, dephaser pulley, water pump and aux belt
• Oil service
• Spark plugs
• Front and rear OEM pads, one reconditioned front caliper
• One front wheel bearing and both front ABS sensors
• Both front CV boots and the main rack boot
• UCH/ECU kit (lost a remap doing that I think, since it doesn't pop on the overrun any more)
• Gearbox oil refresh
• Refurbed all 4 Turinis
• 4 new NS-2Rs
• New Cup dampers and Gram springs all round and new top mounts
• Took the PMS strut brace off
• Powerflex front ARB bushings
• New front track rods and inner rack arms
• Full geo including weight setup
• Titanium wheel bolts all around (they look sick) after one sheared off during the front suspension refresh
• Bonnet dent removal
• Big interior clean and exterior clean and polish, paint correction where possible (ongoing, will get a ceramic coat when that's all done)
• Phase 1 horn stalk

As for what I still want to do:

I'd like to completely refresh the front brakes at some point, since they currently squeak a lot. To fix that (assuming some big stops from speed don't cure it) I probably need to take all the brake hardware off, clean it and regrease it, so while it's all off I could upgrade pads and discs, but then I could also fit spacers and a bigger brake kit. Does the wider track from the spacers make the handling worse for fast road use?

I've got some better condition silver seatbelts on the way since the mould knackered the current set, and I bought a Volantech horn and cruise button plate a couple of years ago but I'm in two minds whether I want to fit it or not. I like the look without it and I don't care about the cruise. No idea if that feature even works if I'm honest.

I've got a niggles list a mile long too. It rattles from basically everywhere (especially the driver's door window glass, and in the front dash somewhere), the ABS light comes on a good bit, the airbag light is on constantly from ~200 miles ago.

The ITG and Yozza are amazing if you ask me, but not if you ask my neighbours. I'll post some recent pics in separate posts.

 

[Rys182]

A handful from the fallow years while it sat in the garage:

 

[Rys182]

From the refresh

 

[Rys182]

Posh bolts!