Volkswagen up! becomes @volkswagendown

​The name of the game with this project was to go all out, and so that’s exactly what I did. By buying a set of coilovers from eBay.

And I kept with the theme of doing things as cheaply as possible - remember, I bought this car for just $3000. Yeah, a 2013 model European car with auto emergency braking was that cheap.

First, I had to get it registered. And of course I had a set of plates that I’d bought in the hope of selling them to a Volkswagen Arteon owner to further fund the cost of modding the up!… that hasn’t happened yet. But you get it, right? ART30N? It spells ARTEON if you can speak platelish. If you know an Arteon owner who might want them, let me know!

Anyway, it passed rego without a problem. And that meant it was clear to drive on the road, and I enjoyed (almost) every second of it.

Admittedly the tyres weren’t the grippiest, the factory suspension was very soft and tuned for comfort rather than cornering - meaning it would roll about in the bends. That’s fine, for your regular VW up! owner, but not this one. 

It’s easy to change the adjustment - you just jack the car up to take the weight off and wind away.

The brakes felt a little shuddery when things got warm, too, and the engine felt like it was due for some breathing apparatus improvements. It had gone without a service from 75,000km to 98,000km, after all. 

A service story is coming soon, but first I had to lower it. Because priorities, right?

I didn’t pay full freight for my new adjustable coilover suspension. Oh no, no, no. I found a set of coilovers for the up! on eBay listed at the already-cheap 'Buy It Now' price of $299. But there was also the desirable 'Make An Offer' button - so I obliged: $250. There was a counteroffer of $260. I accepted. And that included freight to my house in the NSW Blue Mountains. 

The package arrived, and I organised a day with my mate Deon to figure out how to fit them. In the interest of doing my due diligence, I watched a few YouTube videos - I’m not the most mechanically minded person out there, but I wanted to have a go. Deon’s an engineer, so he gets mechanical stuff, and his dad was a mechanic… so, I figured we’d be okay.

I went to Deon’s parent’s place at Bilgola Beach on Sydney's Northern Beaches and enjoyed my last genuine ‘Volkswagen up!’ drive over there - all two hours of it. The suspension was supple. Soft, even. Not for long.

At Deon’s it took just minutes before we’d opened the coilover box and had a look at the new very cheap suspension from XpeedingRods (it’s pronounced ‘speeding rods’, you guys). There were no instructions, but Deon and I had a good idea of what we needed to do.

At Deon’s it took just minutes before we’d opened the coilover box and had a look at the new very cheap suspension from XpeedingRods.

So we pulled off the rear boot lining trim (being careful of the clips) and undid the top suspension nuts. Without going through a blow-by-blow account, we got the back suspension out really easily - it took about 20 minutes per side. And the new suspension went in really simply, too… but not before Deon wound down the adjustment rings to the bottom level. 

After less than an hour, we’d done the back. This was going too well! The fronts would pull us up a bit, however.

After we had pulled off the windscreen wipers and pulled out the cowl plastics to access the strut tops (careful, again - plastic can be brittle), it took us about two-and-a-half hours to pull apart each side. We essentially had to completely disassemble the front corners of the car - brakes, rotors, stabiliser bar, lower control arm… all of it had to come out before we could fit the new coilover assembly in. It took some work, and some hammering to force the old strut out.

But once it was out, the new XpeedingRod unit slotted in really easily. I talked Deon out of it being completely wound down - I left it at about a quarter to go. 

These adjustable dampers are really easy to adjust - you just need to use the two adjustment tools (they’re often called an adjustment wrench or spanner) to twist the cogs on the thread. One turns clockwise, the other anticlockwise, and once you find the spot you want them set at, you wind them against each other and tighten them as much as you can.

It’s easy to change the adjustment - you just jack the car up to take the weight off and wind away. The spring will either compress (if you want it lower) or extend (higher), and the ride will be affected as a result.

After we did the first side we took a lunch break, thinking about how we could cut down the amount of time we spent on the second side. But it still took a while.

We finished up at about 5.00 pm, and took the up! for test drive to make sure the wheels didn’t fall off - and what surprised us most was how quiet it was. We knew it would be hard and bouncy (if almost feels like your only using the tyres as your suspension!) but the way it drove was majorly different.

Deon hadn’t driven the up! beforehand, but he was amazed at how go-kart-like it felt in the bends up towards Palm Beach. The thrum three-cylinder engine felt like it wanted to go, too - it’s amazing what a change like suspension can do to the character of a car. 

What still needs to change is the braking performance, as you can probably tell from the pictures (I've got the rotors and the pads, but that's for another day off).

There’s a lot more to come, but at least now my Volkswagen up! is starting to live up to the Instagram handle @volkswagendown - be sure to follow for plenty of up!dates. 

In the interest of doing my due diligence, I watched a few YouTube videos - I’m not the most mechanically minded person out there, but I wanted to have a go.

Read the original story: I bought a car with AEB for $3000

Follow Matt's adventures with his very cheap Volkswagen up! on Instagram: @volkswagendown