FRONT WING REPLACEMENT

1 The first job is to take off the alloy wheel and support the front of the car on an axle stand. All the bolts and screws are easy to access, but make sure you can fully open the front door on the side where you’re changing the wing. It’s a good idea to run masking tape down the front door edge so as to not accidentally damage the paint here when the wing comes off. 2 Next, the arch liner needs to come out. This is secured by nine T20 Torx screws, although sizes can differ. Our wing was the factory original, yet every one of the nine arch screws came out very easily – cars from harsh climates may differ, though.

3 Here is the arch liner being dropped out – this took about three minutes, it was that easy. Unlike the BMW liner, it doesn’t fit into the arch lip and cause a mud, rust and moisture trap, but screws onto a lug on the outer edge of the wheelarch lip. 4 With the arch liner removed, you can see this single T20 Torx screw securing the rear edge of the front bumper to the wing. This needs to come out with the help of a Torx bit and a long extension – ¼indrive tools are superior to 3/8in-drive here. 5 The bumper can be pulled forward and out. If you’re doing both wings, remove the complete bumper. If not, just pull the bumper back and out of the plastic mounting bracket. The bumper has hooks that fit into the bracket and refitting can be hard work. 6 With the front bumper corner pulled back and out of the way, you can access these two 10mm wing-to-front-panel bolts. VW use proper threaded bolts and not those spire bolts that look like big selftappers. With the bolts removed, the front of the wing will be a bit freer. 7 Next, remove these two 10mm lower bolts at the back of the wing where it meets the sill. These bolts are seemingly there to make fine adjustment, as with them loose you can change the wing-to-door gap before nipping them up again. 8 At the back of the wing there are another two 10mm bolts. VW seamsealed and undersealed the body and you may have to scrape some of this away from the bolts. Use a small flat-blade screwdriver to prise the brackets from the body.

9 Here is the top rearmost 10mm stud and nut, accessed with the bonnet open. This is easy to undo, but it’s so weak that we broke off the stud when retightening. With the wing off the car, we then had to drill out the stud and wind in a 10mm spire bolt.

10 This is the Torx bolt securing the wing to the top of the A-post. Use the best-fitting Torx bit for this job because it’s remarkably tight and so shallow that you risk rounding it out. This bolt is also used to adjust wing fit on reassembly, so leave it loose until the very end.

11 Finally, remove these 10mm bolts that secure the wing to the inner wing. With these out, it feels like there is still another bolt somewhere, but it will be that chunk of foam that is glued to the inner wing. Carefully pull it away. 12 Here’s the rust-promoting foam in all its glory. It soaks up water, so the top of the arch is never really dry. Common sense said it would be a problem in later years, but the Golf MKVI probably has it, too. If so, remove it before it can cause more damage. 13 This view of the inside of the arch shows that rust has already taken hold. It festers here and, in our case, has worked under the paint and round the other side. In fairness, the rust on ours was very slight and was easily cleaned back to bright steel. 14 Here’s our replacement £94 wing. It’s a pattern panel and less than a quarter of the price of a genuine VW wing. Given the choice, we’d fit a genuine panel and paint it on the car for a perfect job, but it’s not worth it if you own a 2004 Golf 1.6 valued at £1000. 15 This front bumper bracket needs to be removed, cleaned and refitted to the new wing. There are two Torx screws and two slots onto which the prongs of the front bumper slide. The screws wind into a couple of black plastic captive nuts that we’ll reuse. 16 While the paint finish on the replacement wing was good, we were concerned by the lack of paint on the inner arch edge. Left as it is, we’d give it one bad winter before there was surface rust starting, thus rendering the whole job a waste of time. 17 We laid the wing on its side and sprayed quite a lot of red paint from a rattle-can onto the arch edge, as well as in the flange. We used Halfords Tornado Red – not a perfect colour match, but close enough. We applied six double-coats for proper coverage. 18 These are the plastic captive nuts that press into the wing – our pattern wing was pretty good as the square holes were in the right place and the right size, so they clipped into place nicely. The arch liner also fitted perfectly with no post-paint mods.

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Unlike certain other cars, Golfs don’t seem to rust where the wing fits. Even so, take the opportunity to clean this area and brush some grease or Waxoyl around the area. In reality, Volkswagen’s undersealing should be fine as it is.

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The wing fits on just as the old one came off, however, it took us about 25 minutes to adjust it to a perfect fit. The top Torx bolt in the A-pillar area is the trickiest. Before the arch liner goes back in, apply grease in the lip to prevent future corrosion.

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The paint match is not 100% – we think either our Golf has been previously painted down both sides in a Tornado Red one shade out, or 11 years in the sun has faded it. However, to replace a knackered wing on a budget, it’s just fine.