Had a strange experience yesterday. Went to test drive a GTI Turbo at Winchester Motor Co (VW main dealer) and the (somewhat sullen) salesman took me out in a car which was on the forecourt for sale at £18999 (£1500 over list price of new one!). It has done 3000 miles. Itlooked to me very much like an import. It has BBS alloys, leather trim, air con and strangeley the silver GTI badge on the back had no "red I". It was definitely a turbo though. Ive seen a few imports and although I know that all the extras are available as options on UK models it just had the look of an import.
When I asked the guy after the drive if it was an import he jumped right down my throat." Wouldnt touch imports sir. What makes you think it is?" When I told him why I thought it was he looked very nervous and came up with some lame excuse about the manufacturer deciding on the badging etc. He then couldnt get rid of me fast enough! Woulndnt give me a price on my current GTI or explain any finance deals or anything. (Whatever I buy Im going to import anyway but I wanted to draw him out about it). Presumably they would be in deep sh*t if they were dealing in imports.
I know some second hand car dealers are selling unregistered VWs (and other cars) but if the main dealers are doing it as well we ought to know where we stand. What do you think? Can anyone confirm the "badging issue"?
Incidentally the Golf was a very nice drive but not very exciting. Its obviously quite fast but very refined with no real sensation of speed. The scooby is starting to creep to the top of my list again despite concerns about security.

Cant confirm as such, but my friend has a non turbo and does have a red "i". Hers is an R reg I think.

This surprised me cause when she got it, I was sure that the turbos alone came with these badges.

[This message has been edited by Adam M (edited 03-02-2000).]

I've actually got one of the turbocharged Mk4 Golf GTIs (company car), which I got last March.

Mine has the all silver GTI badging (not the red "I"). I must admit to be curious as to why some GTIs have the red badging while others have the all silver. There doesn't seem to be a pattern I can discern - I've seen cars older and newer than mine with the red badging and others with the silver. Doesn't even seem to matter whether its the turbo or not...

VW seems to be inconsistent with the badging on the Golfs in general. There are quite a few V5s in the carpark at work, some have the V5 badge on the front grill while others don't.

They are all company cars sourced through main dealers (through PHH), so I'd be suprised if they were imports.

I took delivery of a Turbo GTI last Jan. It came delivered with an all silver GTI badge. The badges with the red I was on backorder. Got it 2 weeks later. Some cars were badged up as 1.8 and some of the 2.0 GTI at the moment are coming through as 2.0.

There will be as with other cars a number of owners who badge up GTI with the Turbo style badge to make other think.

My car was official not import.

Jonathan

It all is basically VW uk stiffing the poor British consumer.

Everywhere appart from the uk there is only one mk4 GTI and its the 1.8 Turbo. In the uk the marketing people decided to rebadge the 1.8 model as GTI when it hit our shores and charge us extra poke for it. So in the uk there are two GTI's and the 'red I' is VW uk's way of telling them appart.

Trouble is the car has to have a 'red I' put on by either VW as the cars hit the uk or by the dealer.

My girlfriend has an imported 1.8 Turbo and it came with the silver 'I'. The 'red I' is so hard to get hold of I ended up getting a TDI badge and using the 'I' off that.
So if you have a turbo with a silver 'I' you can get it changed under warranty by your dealer, if they can get one.

I owe all my knowledge to my local VW parts guy who showed my his internal memo off the robbers at VW uk.

How's about that for an anorak!

Hunty.

As others say, it seems a bit random in the UK with lots of combinations of GTi, engine size etc. I've an imported Mk4 GTi Turbo c/w all silver GTI badge (which IMHO looks better), and I got mine from a country where there's no such thing as a non-turbo GTI.

That wasn't really much help was it?

I just took delivery of a new GTI 2.0 last week and that is just badged 2.0. I asked the dealer about this and he said the this is now the case and the 1.8T model should have a red 'I'. Prefer the non-GTI badging anyway as it a bit more discreet. Glad to see so many Golf owners in Scoobyland!

.Richard