Hi guys going to restore my 3dr 89 16v just wondering is there a way to find the original build spec so I can get the car back to original spec. Cheers Raj
RJ might have more information or detail on this but is the original build sticker present under the carpet in the boot? This does provide details on colour, options etc. If that's not present - there may be some details in the owners manual - presuming that's available of course. I know that you can obtain a VW birth certificate directly from Volkswagen but what I don't know is what specific information it provides other than tell you it's a Golf GTI - Rubjonny or someone who actually has one should be able to clarify if this is an option for you or not. After that it's whatever information you can get from the gurus here and actually another option now that I think of it would be a genuine VW '89 model year sales brochure, that would at least give you information on available trim patterns, colours for that year and accurate photos of what one actually looked like for the year.
^ Those certificates are a crazy amount of money, I think they give you a list of the option codes but then you have to decode most of them first. You can also try https://erwin.volkswagen.de/, I think its 7 or 8 euros for an hour access and in that time you can download as many manuals etc you want and keep them forever. They have a "VIN lookup" which does the same thing as the classic certificate, but gives you a PDF instead of a fancy printed thing. I'm not sure if it goes back as far as Mk2's though Although as mentioned if you have the sticker you can decode all the options anyway
Ah the build sheet sticker will hopefully find that as I year it down can't see the boot one. At least that will be a starting point Thank you very much guys
If you can't see it in the boot then there's a good chance it got a rear hit and was lost in the repair process. I don't know if it's a more recent process but build stickers are sometimes present in the owner's manual but they can disappear over time as well.
look on the inside cover of your sevice book if you still have it, if you;'re lucky it'll have a full copy of the options sticker. if you're unlucky it'll be missing all the juicy info. mine is like this, rather than a full printed sticker its a blank one which the dealer has had to hand write in the vin and engine numbers. no option codes on it. luckily i can just about read my boot sticker. shows as I expected, bugger all options how good is that erwin site nate? I'd be tempted if it had anything on older mk1/2 models as elsawin has nowt
To be honest I’ve not tried for older stuff, I’ve got mk4 and some Skoda stuff from it before and you get interactive PDF downloads that are taken from Elsa as far as I can tell. I think it’s pretty cool that they offer it tbh, especially for how cheap it is and getting to keep everything you download. Would probably stop a lot of Captain Jack Sparrow software use if more people knew about it and it was a bit more friendly
be interesting if the vin lookup actually gets the correct results for a mk1/2 era car as well, since VW over-wrote several of the older option codes
