RobM

The rule is put in place to protect pedestrians, so they don't get caught on the wheel if they brush past a moving car, so it's not just the tyre but the overall wheel that needs to be protected by an arch. So on that basis, if you can rub against the side of your car and hit the wheel, it's out too far. And judging by those photos, I think the Police may be right here. Time for some extended arches...

Very nice, got a very similar unit fitted in the Mrs' car.

Nice and simple is always the best way! Pleased with it?

Obvious question.... but have you checked the connections behind the stereo yet?

I have a 3200LS Colour fitted in the Mrs' Lupo. The screen is mounted on the row of buttons under the stereo and pop-out draw area.... next to the hazard and heated screen buttons. I removed one of the blank buttons from the front, which allowed me to feed the cable through and up to the stereo. I then mounted the screen over the top of the gap left, so you don't see it at all For info, in case you decide to follow suit, you can remove the plastic area that the buttons clip into very easily, it's just two screws underneath. The entire tray comes off, which just about leaves enough room for excess wires or, if you're lucky, the control box.

Your best bet might be finding a car with them that's being broken. There are often plenty of Golfs, Boras, A3's etc on eBay being broken. If you get in touch with the breaker / seller and make an offer for all the bits you need you should save a fortune over VW prices.

Very good headunits Bluetooth works very well on them, too

Same applies to phones, laptops and anything else with a headphone socket that plays music! A front mounted aux input is always handy to have

The Alpine will offer the best sound quality and will bring the MP3's to life a bit more, but that aside there really isn't much in it. JVC make some of the better low end headunits, but not so much better that I'd say go for that over any other. So basically.... go for the one you like the look of most! When you say your car is currently wired for the JVC, does that mean you've hard-wired the unit in? Or did you use the ISO adaptor and just plug it all together? If the latter, no problemo, just unplug and plug the new kit in. If the former, it depends on which part you have hard wired - the JVC part of the ISO part. In any case though, just pick the head unit you like the most of has the one killer feature you can't live without

I had a really nice set made for my Celica, by www.skewer.co.uk The standard dials were black with orange nasty lettering, so I had these made and re-soldered the LED's behind the dash to glow blue. Cost around £60 from memory.

It all depends what you're aiming for. Sony offer plenty of noise for the money, but with the exception of their XES kit from years gone by, you wouldn't ever find a Sony headunit on the ICE scene. Too many gimmicks, too much emphasis on flashing lights, over-EQ'd sounds and far too processed. Plug them into standard or even semi-decent kit and you can get a 'good' sound, but good is as far as current (last 5 years +) Sony kit will go. If you're using a hard drive, would it be safe to assume you're using compressed music (i.e. MP3's, WMA etc)? Comparing SQ using compressed music is like comparing fine wine from a polystyrene cup! But as said though, it depends on what your looking for and the standard you're aiming for. Sony know their place... XPlod and replacing stock kit. They also know they aren't going to be going up against Nakamichi, Becker, McIntosh etc. It's a shame, as Sony have the potential, experience and backing to make kit that outshines the Nakamichi's of this world.

JVC make some very, very good headunits. Their low-end kit is some of the best value for money kit around and along with the likes of Clarion really knocks lumps out of Sony/Kenwood and other tosh like that. Their top of the range kit is also very good, but sometimes a little unreliable. The rest of the range is also very good, but nothing really to set it apart from other brands.

Where is the sound coming from? I hear this by the doors, where the door meets B pillar. Just assumed it was the chassis moving a little.

Could be a few things, but the most likely culprits would be a bad earth or RCA (phono) cables run next to power or next to something behind that dash interfering with it. If the RCA's used aren't very well shielded (cheap ones tend not to be) and have been run next to the relay and wiring for the indicators, for instance, it could be picking up on that. It should be fairly easily fixed though. Just be careful as a badly installed ICE system can be more hassle than it's worth.

The other thing to consider is what else £12.5k buys. That money would get you a very nice Leon Cupra R which comfortably beats the Polo in every area, doesn't cost that much to run (I used to average between 26-34MPG depending on driving), insurance is better than you'd expect and it's a great car to drive