Had a boot load of joy with this car but we finally have an understanding and we are back in love.
Driving along the road I heard a funny noise, I thought something was dragging underneath. Pulled over to look and couldn't see anything on the underside... until I went to get back in the car and saw the drivers wheelarch dragging on the floor, only attached at front and back. Previous owner had used araldite to glue it on. When I asked him about it he denied all knowledge but he had used the same glue to glop the grille type R badge on so I'm guessing it was him.
Almost all the trim clips were snapped clean off, only wood screws into other plastic remained. Used Cox's and got a new wheelarch trim (ready sprayed to a perfect colour match!), new grille to replace the araldited one with snapped clips, and took most of the front end off replacing anything that looked damaged, fitting brand new clips and plastic trim rivets. It's now all correctly fitted with all the right clips and finally the bumper is sitting straight (another thing the previous owner had said, "They never fit right as people always run the bumper up on kerbs!", I don't mate as I'm not a lemon). Luckily I found all the metalwork underneath was completely untouched and original, so thats one less thing to worry about. It's now "as new".
Next up I would like to fit a better stereo, someone has fitted a bluetooth hands free kit and put the screen right in front of the vents thus making them useless. Also the stereo is quite weedy from the factory in my opinion. I reckon a good quality double DIN will be the order of the day.
Future plans; I would rather have the standard alloys I think, I'll look for some good ones to refurb in slow time. In my opinion would look great white against the blue, but I'm open to the opinions of others. The aforementioned previous owner had also fitted two cheap tyres and so it had two goodyears and two no-brand ditchfinders. However for some reason the goodyears were on the left and the no-names were on the right.... I've swapped them with the cheaper tyres on the front as I'd rather the back end didn't step out uncommanded. When the no names wear out I'll get some decent rubber on there.
Sorry about the waffle. I'm using this thread more like a diary than anything else!