danb986
In awe of VCDS
After mentioning in another thread that I'd picked up a pair of stainless tailpipe trims for £4.99 from ebay, a couple of people asked for photo's before, during and after I'd fitted them.
Here's my mini project in the form of a sort of guide, if I can get the photo's to upload that is.
It's not exactly the most glamorous or exciting mod, but I'm hoping it might help someone.
I couldn't justify to my wife spending over £50 to make my exhaust ends shiny, so I tried a different route. Searching ebay for exhaust trims didn't find me anything, so I tried searching for muffler tips and struck lucky.
The ones I found said they were for Audi's, but didn't list my year A3. It had the same dimensions as the genuine ones and they were also back-cut and rolled in the same way too. For £4.99 I thought they'd be worth a try and was half expecting them to be crappy. When they arrived I was well pleased. They were exactly as the advert and as they're stainless steel and not chrome I won't have to worry about corrosion.
Mine is an '07 TDi 140 Sportback, so it had the 2 downward curved tailpipes:
I started to grind off the 2 welds on the undersides of each tailpipe with my Dremel, but this was taking an age, so I dug out my belt sander (powerfile) and this worked a treat. An angle grinder was on standby and would do just as good, but I felt the belt sander was easier to get in the gap.
After getting them both off I slipped the trims over the inner parts that were left and spent a while lining up the pair of them so that they looked right. I thought the 2 inside edge clamps were going to get in the way of each other, but luckily the left hand pipe sits a fraction back from the right hand one (presumable to follow the line of the bumper) so they just cleared each other.
From this angle under the car they don't look great, but from the pictures further down you can see that the clamps aren't visible from behind the car.
After a few miles they will blacken up nicely inside and look even better. If when the car is out in the road I can see the clamps then I'll touch them up with some black touch up paint until they dull down.
For less than a fiver, this has to be worth a go. It didn't take much time and I'm not the best mechanic or handyman, so if I can do it anyone can.
I hope you all think they look ok.
Please go easy on me
Here's my mini project in the form of a sort of guide, if I can get the photo's to upload that is.
It's not exactly the most glamorous or exciting mod, but I'm hoping it might help someone.
I couldn't justify to my wife spending over £50 to make my exhaust ends shiny, so I tried a different route. Searching ebay for exhaust trims didn't find me anything, so I tried searching for muffler tips and struck lucky.
The ones I found said they were for Audi's, but didn't list my year A3. It had the same dimensions as the genuine ones and they were also back-cut and rolled in the same way too. For £4.99 I thought they'd be worth a try and was half expecting them to be crappy. When they arrived I was well pleased. They were exactly as the advert and as they're stainless steel and not chrome I won't have to worry about corrosion.
Mine is an '07 TDi 140 Sportback, so it had the 2 downward curved tailpipes:
I started to grind off the 2 welds on the undersides of each tailpipe with my Dremel, but this was taking an age, so I dug out my belt sander (powerfile) and this worked a treat. An angle grinder was on standby and would do just as good, but I felt the belt sander was easier to get in the gap.
After getting them both off I slipped the trims over the inner parts that were left and spent a while lining up the pair of them so that they looked right. I thought the 2 inside edge clamps were going to get in the way of each other, but luckily the left hand pipe sits a fraction back from the right hand one (presumable to follow the line of the bumper) so they just cleared each other.
From this angle under the car they don't look great, but from the pictures further down you can see that the clamps aren't visible from behind the car.
After a few miles they will blacken up nicely inside and look even better. If when the car is out in the road I can see the clamps then I'll touch them up with some black touch up paint until they dull down.
For less than a fiver, this has to be worth a go. It didn't take much time and I'm not the best mechanic or handyman, so if I can do it anyone can.
I hope you all think they look ok.
Please go easy on me