VW Golf GTI MKV

Part three: We fit a replacement pattern front wing in place of the corroded original.

Anyone into cars can’t help but have noticed the number of VW Golf Mkvs, Jettas and Eos on the roads with a tell-tale patch of rust at the top of the front wheelarch. This is also a common failing with other cars in the VAG group, such as the Audi A4 and A6, as well as some SEATS.

The reason is that VW fitted a big chunk of shaped foam inside the arch, between the wing and the arch liner, to damp out any vibration. The company might have saved themselves the bother – and dozens of body warranty claims arising from it – because, with the foam removed, the car sounds and drives exactly as it did beforehand.

VW offered a 12-year warranty against corrosion and must have changed countless wings over the years. But with the earliest Golf Mkvs now 14 years old, that’s fading away and, according to my local VAG bodyshop, the company is getting a lot more stringent. Our GTI has undergone some bodywork in a previous life – the offside front wing has clearly been replaced.

There’s only a tiny bit of rust on our car, so we went for a pre-painted pattern wing from ebay costing £94 delivered. This took about 10 days to arrive and, upon inspection, looked pretty good with a glossy paint finish. We did, however, add a lot more paint to the inner reverse arch lip, as the paint there was pretty thin and there’s no point doing the job twice.

Finally, we did a DIY repair on the driver’s rear arch with an aerosol can. This is always a difficult job to get right. We were fairly lucky because the car is bright red – you can forget doing it on silver and lighter metallics, as it will just end up looking worse.

Anything involving rust, body filler and rattle-cans is hard work, requiring a lot of patience.