MY12.5 Tornado Red Passat 125TDI Wagon

[Shoota]

Hey guys, not that it's the most amazing car in the world but just thought you might like to see some photos of my Tornado Red Passat Wagon.
This is not a standard order colour so you won't see many of them around!
Sorry for the cr@ppy photos (Iphone), I haven't had a chance to take any decent ones yet. Only finished preparing it yesterday.
So far I have fit a Premium instrument cluster which is full colour and has Golf R blue needles which looks awesome!
I fit a set of 19" VMR V710 Matte Black Wheels with nice Conti Sport Contact 3's.

I have a power module on the way so will fit that once it arrives. It claims 153KW and 413NM. To be honest it's a bit of a waste, they spin the wheels pretty easily as it is when you boot it!

I intended to lower the car and it would look amazing dumped a bit but it's my wifes car at the end of the day and she would prefer to retain a bit of comfort so I've termporarily dumped that idea. If anyone is interested in lowering their car though, give Trent at Quadrant Suspensions in Berwick a call. He was very helpful. They even have springs in stock for the Passat which surprised me!

i'm thinking about a gloss black wrap for the inner section of the roof to make the whole roof match the look of the sunroof.

Anyway, here are a few very poor photos.


Before mods-







Integrated Child Booster Seats (for those that haven't seen them)







Dash before-





Dash after (Premium full colour central screen ala Touareg 180 and Golf R blue needles)-







19" VMR V710's with Continental Sport Contact 3 235/35/R19's stretched onto 8.5" rims






If anyone is interested I can get some better photos when I get a chance.
Cheers!

[Ryan_R]

*is interested*

also looking forward to that premium dash cluster retrofit guide


Not sure what you meant by 'power module' - are you referring to Bluefin or something?

[Lance B]

This is interesting. I am sure I saw this red Passat at McGrath VW Sutherland in Sydney a few weeks ago. Love the colour and asked if it was a standard colour and they said it was a special import but the buyer backed out. I like red cars and would have loved a red V6 Highline Wagon, but it has to be specially ordered and would take up to 6 months to get here! So, I am getting a Candy White in a couple of weeks.

Here is a red V6 over in Norway:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5599090-KristianNorwegian-s-passat-wagon-2012

[passatpout]

Bugger, I would have loved my car that colour... And even tossed up getting it resprayed that way when the hail damage was repaired...

[CaseySP]

This is interesting. I am sure I saw this red Passat at McGrath VW Sutherland in Sydney a few weeks ago. Love the colour and asked if it was a standard colour and they said it was a special import but the buyer backed out. I like red cars and would have loved a red V6 Highline Wagon, but it has to be specially ordered and would take up to 6 months to get here! So, I am getting a Candy White in a couple of weeks.

Here is a red V6 over in Norway:
VWVortex.com - KristianNorwegian`s passat wagon 2012

Hi all - new to the forum - my apologies for the long post.

This is interesting - most likely that was my car. My wife couldn't really get excited about the Australian Passat colour range - lots of blacks and greys (although I quite like the Candy White). Anyway, the local dealer told us we could do a special order colour as we had specified a number of other options and it would be a fairly bespoke build anyway.

The leasing company put through the order and I was surprised when Dennis from McGrath Sutherland called me (in March 2011) to check through the order with me - I guess the leasing company put the order out to tender and McGrath came back with the best price. Nonetheless we went through how they would deliver the car to Canberra, confirmed the colour as Tornado Red and a delivery time around Christmas.

I must say that the communications after that weren't brilliant. Christmas came and went so I called McGrath, got another salesman who immediately got the dealer principle on the phone. The car had been delivered, but in Candy White (god know when they were going to call me). He offered a poofthenth off the price if we accepted the car (barely covered the cost of the special order paint ) so we declined. Someone in Sydney is driving a highly optioned Candy White TDi?

To their credit, they did offer to expedite a new order with an ETA in June 2012. A search of this forum showed that the reversing cameras were no longer available, but a new sports pack was coming. I asked McGrath if they could add the sports pack to the order and I would make up the difference between this and the lack of reversing camera. The dealer was very slow to get back to me, but finally advised the sports pack and integrated booster seats were not compatible. Fine, we were now expecting our third child (so the boosters were no longer useful) so I instructed they be dropped in preference to the sports pack.

The dealer then went incommunicado, and with the manufacturing date only weeks away I contacted the leasing company and they agreed the best course of action was to cancel the order. Judging by the photos, perhaps not.

Have since ordered the same car with the sports pack, no booster seats and with the back in production reversing camera. Hope to have it here later in July / early August. Is 18 months for delivery a record?

[booba]

nice work on the cluster, i have a v6 coming soon and already have cluster in hand. What model cluster did you get? I have 3c8 920 880j which i believe is the correct one for v6.. any problems?

[Shoota]

Hi Ryan, by power module I mean common rail pressure adjuster. They're not the ultimate way to boost power but do a good job for the money. I had one in my Q5 3.0l TDI and it was awesome, highly recommended.
With the cluster, I got one of the guys in the workshop to do it. It was a simple case of copying the details out of the original cluster and programming it back into the new one. Best $500 I've spent, looks amazing!
Hi Casey, it would have been your car! I swapped it in to my dealership from Sutherland. Why didn't you order electric tailgate!!!! It's the only thing the car needs to be perfect! Ah well, I'm investigating retrofit...... Could be ugly.
I can't remember my cluster part number. Its the correct one for TDI. No problems at all, works perfectly.

[Lance B]

Hi all - new to the forum - my apologies for the long post.

This is interesting - most likely that was my car. My wife couldn't really get excited about the Australian Passat colour range - lots of blacks and greys (although I quite like the Candy White). Anyway, the local dealer told us we could do a special order colour as we had specified a number of other options and it would be a fairly bespoke build anyway.

The leasing company put through the order and I was surprised when Dennis from McGrath Sutherland called me (in March 2011) to check through the order with me - I guess the leasing company put the order out to tender and McGrath came back with the best price. Nonetheless we went through how they would deliver the car to Canberra, confirmed the colour as Tornado Red and a delivery time around Christmas.

I must say that the communications after that weren't brilliant. Christmas came and went so I called McGrath, got another salesman who immediately got the dealer principle on the phone. The car had been delivered, but in Candy White (god know when they were going to call me). He offered a poofthenth off the price if we accepted the car (barely covered the cost of the special order paint ) so we declined. Someone in Sydney is driving a highly optioned Candy White TDi?

To their credit, they did offer to expedite a new order with an ETA in June 2012. A search of this forum showed that the reversing cameras were no longer available, but a new sports pack was coming. I asked McGrath if they could add the sports pack to the order and I would make up the difference between this and the lack of reversing camera. The dealer was very slow to get back to me, but finally advised the sports pack and integrated booster seats were not compatible. Fine, we were now expecting our third child (so the boosters were no longer useful) so I instructed they be dropped in preference to the sports pack.

The dealer then went incommunicado, and with the manufacturing date only weeks away I contacted the leasing company and they agreed the best course of action was to cancel the order. Judging by the photos, perhaps not.

Have since ordered the same car with the sports pack, no booster seats and with the back in production reversing camera. Hope to have it here later in July / early August. Is 18 months for delivery a record?

Ah, very interesting. Pity about all the stuff ups. I have found McGrath very good to deal with, but then I have purchased many cars from there, so maybe they put in the extra effort?

Anyway, good to hear you've finally got what you want and the red is lovely!

[Shoota]

To be honest I was only 50/50 on it until I put the black rims on it.
With silver alloys and the chrome trims plus the black of the window trims and tint it all looked a bit cluttered.
Now, I absolutely love it! More than I expected.
A bit of de-chroming and it'll be perfect.
IMO anyway!

[CaseySP]

Ah, very interesting. Pity about all the stuff ups. I have found McGrath very good to deal with, but then I have purchased many cars from there, so maybe they put in the extra effort?

Anyway, good to hear you've finally got what you want and the red is lovely!

In my experience, whenever dealing with a dealer who mainly sells Ford or Holden products, you only get Ford or Holden service Still, the leasing company was pretty annoyed as they do a lot of volume through McGrath and expected better. Maybe I got them on a bad day?

Hi Ryan, by power module I mean common rail pressure adjuster. They're not the ultimate way to boost power but do a good job for the money. I had one in my Q5 3.0l TDI and it was awesome, highly recommended.
With the cluster, I got one of the guys in the workshop to do it. It was a simple case of copying the details out of the original cluster and programming it back into the new one. Best $500 I've spent, looks amazing!
Hi Casey, it would have been your car! I swapped it in to my dealership from Sutherland. Why didn't you order electric tailgate!!!! It's the only thing the car needs to be perfect! Ah well, I'm investigating retrofit...... Could be ugly.
I can't remember my cluster part number. Its the correct one for TDI. No problems at all, works perfectly.

Shoota - glad you are enjoying the car! Funny you mention the electric tailgate - the new one will have this and a tow-bar in addition to what the original order had. I think the only option we left alone was the premium audio

[Shoota]

Still a poor quality photo but gives a bit of an idea of the look-

[Riker]

Looks great Shoota..... Could do with a small drop (10mm) if you really wanted but otherwise still looks great...

[FSI 220]

I have cluster envy...

How hard was it to get it in... and where did you source it? a ball park ewemucwezit? (aimed at Shoota and Booba)

Sorry, just read the thread again... was that 500 installed? unofficial dealer fit?

Regards

John

[Lance B]

What size are those rims and what offset, Shoota? Looks great.

[Shoota]

Hi John, the cluster was $400 shipped and I gave the guy in the workshop $100 to fit and code it for me. $100 was pretty generous but he's a good guy and knows his stuff. It only took about half an hour, 40 mins with a bit of other fiddling around.

Lance- The rims are 19X8.5 and are the standard VW +45 offset. You certainly wouldn't want them sticking out any further, they're borderline unroadworthy. I really need to stick the guard extenders on to make it all legit.

Very happy with the look. Still rides pretty nice. Some may diasgree but my last car was running 20's so I'm pretty used to low profile tyres.