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10000
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9,000
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B5
of the Month – October 2003
Herman Hong (HermanH)
Sunnyvale, CA USA
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The
B5 of The Month is typically an honor given to those individuals
and vehicles that have come to reflect the spirit of the Club B5
forums. Month after month, I’ve seen cars so worthy of this type of recognition that,
never in my 5 years of ownership, did I think that I’d be
asked! I still don’t believe it, considering I have little in
the way of ICE, 4 dings and 3 gouges on the hood, not to mention
some other damage. Yet here I am!
Back around mid-to-late 1997, my trusty old 1986 GTI was
in great need of repair. New tires were going to be required,
and the rear window seals were leaking profusely. 3 of the 4 BBS rims were still bent, the exhaust manifold
had cracked and a major tune up was at hand. I was quick to note
that next year, 1998, I would be turning 40 and the so-called
"second childhood " feelings began to sink in.
I began my search on the Edmunds.com site with the following
criteria: a $30,000 or less, 4 door sedan, A/C, stereo, cloth
interior, 5 speed, sunroof. It's been awhile, but I seemed to recall ending up with the
following: BMW 318i, BMW 323i, Audi A4 and Volkswagen Passat. I ignored all the Japanese makes. The Mazda 626 would
have fallen into this category but my wife already owned one and
I only mildly liked the car. I've driven in a Honda Accord and
it's nice and very very predictable to the point of boredom.
Maximas looked ugly. Toyota's are completely gutless at this
price point. I considered the BMW's but I just didn't want the
entry level BMW. If I wanted to do justice in the purchase, the
328i (the largest 3-series at the time) would have been my choice but
it was well over $30,000. And the Saabs… what can I say except
it’s the kind of car only its mother could love.
During this time, I discovered three forums on the Internet, two
or which were instrumental in my decision: Passat Owners of the
World (POW), A4.org and VW Vortex. These newly developed sites
were very informative about both the A4 and Passat as most of
the suspension, engine and drive train components are shared
between the two. In fact, I had no idea up to this point, that
VW owned Audi! To make a long story short, after spending weeks
on the forums, I made up my mind that the Passat 1.8tM would be
my car of choice. Three major factors were very clear in my
thinking and final decision: pricing, value, and the
aftermarket. In fact, it is these 3 factors that drove my decision on the two
GTI's before. But the last point is very important as I
discovered there were a great number of upgrades and/or
modifications I could perform on the Passat that would transform
the car from an everyday family hauler to an autobahn burner!
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OK, we're not talking M3 proportions by any stretch, but in
terms of "family sedans", I believed I found a
sleeping giant. On June 28, 1998, I signed the papers at
Sunnyvale Volkswagen and paid the princely sum of $23,897.65 for
my 4/98 built Passat, 1.8t, Windsor Blue, Grey Cloth interior, 5
speed and a sunroof as my only extra option. There was only 11
miles on the odometer prior to my test drive; the papers show 16
miles at the time of delivery.
From then on, I took a different approach to modifying than I
had in all my other vehicles. Much of it has to be due to the
Internet and the wealth of information that was very easy to
obtain. Being older with many mistakes under my belt, I now had
a clear idea on how to go about my modifications starting with
the right tools and then planning out the modifications one at a
time. Nearly all of you have seen this car grow up over the
years, primarily at my Modifications site: http://home.comcast.net/~hhong4/modifications.htm
Once you’ve seen everything I’ve done to this car, it looks,
well, not very remarkable in comparison to others. But it did
end up the way I had hoped. Not quite a sleeper but not a show
car either. It fit my needs and vision pretty much exactly. And
throughout these 5 years, I’ve had the pleasure to share this
knowledge by way of modifying other Passats in the San Francisco
Bay Area. I’ve lost track on how many people I’ve met or how
many cars I’ve touched but it was all fun and beer! Oh, there
was some money when I was unemployed. Thanks to those for their understanding during those hard
times.
What my website doesn’t say, is how many of you reading this,
I have to thank for your help, expertise, information,
criticisms, warnings, nonsense, humor, laughter, tears,
ideologies, attitude, thread-fights, thread-locks, bashing,
anti-bashing, moderator interventions (thanks for letting me
partake in that), polls, anti-polls, polls on polls,
introductions/welcomes, c’ya laters and good-byes. I guess what I want
to really say is without all the members of this forum, past and
present, I would never have a chance to say how much I owe to
all of you (for 30 days at that). The reason for my websites
existence and the way my car is today, has much to do with your
input; some have said how I make some of these things look so
easy – but you have to thank yourselves for showing me the
way. I simply posted pictures to fill in what they said.
Vendor Props: Dynospot Racing as of late, for putting up with my
monthly dyno runs, Sunnyvale VW for being there when I needed
them (3/4 mile away), New Dimensions for keeping their annual
events alive and for my initial set of Neuspeed parts, ECS
Tuning, Imparts, Supreme Power Parts, Parts4VW, UUC Motorwerks…
my apologies if I missed others.
Personal Props: really, just applaud all of yourselves! But I
really need to shout out just a few because, well, they were
there from the beginning: BORIS! CHAS! SPEC! (dang, all the
Outlaws I guess) WUNDERWAGEN, MACABRE! (surprise!)KENNY PAYNE! I
could go on really, but this is already too long!
Of course the biggest thanks of all as always, goes to THANASI The
GREEK for keeping ClubB5 alive.
HermanH
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