Zwarte Piet
Piet was born on Feb 22, 2001 in Mexico. We special ordered him in February. Piet joined the family on March 27 when we picked him up.
This is Piet on March 27 when we picked him up at the dealership, next to him is his former brother Heimlich, a 1999 TDI with sunroof and grey leatherette interior and a taste for having new computers.
When we picked up Piet, we of course kept all his original documents such as the window sticker, and key tabs, but we got one very unusual item also. We received a copy of the certificate of origin. Of course I also called VW customer service right away and got a birth certificate for Piet.

Piet had a small problem on his drive home from the dealership, his turbo wasn't working! So back he went and they fixed the problem. Since that problem, we have had no others.
This is a copy of the certificate of origin.
On March 28th, one day into the family Piet began looking cool. He immediately received Mintex brake pads on his front wheels to help eliminate dust build up on his fancy alloy wheels, a K&N air filter, clear euro front turn signal lenses, euro visors (no airbag warnings plastered all over them), and his daytime running lights were disabled.

Piet's birth certificate from VW customer service.

Next he received a european driver's mirror glass, two rear red fog lights instead of white reverse lights, and a Wetterauer performance chip installed in Indiana.

On May 23rd a very special item arrived, Piet's Hartmann exhaust from Stuttgart, Germany. This is the same exhaust Heimlich, Piet's former brother had.

Check out the dual red fog lights on Piet's butt! We just love the dual 90mm round chrome tailpipes from Hartmann, and a nice sound also!
Piet then received a euro headlight switch, a Neuspeed P-Flo air intake and titanium bulbs in the front signals. These bulbs make quite the difference, before they were installed you could still see the yellow bulbs in the clear lenses and now it is all just clear and pretty!
Most recently, in March 2004, Piet got a change in his rear end. Both side marker lights and reverse lights are now completely blacked out. It is an easy thing to do when your car is black. These have been disconnected and painted with gloss black automotive paint. Now if only we could find a smoked out third brake light, since we need to keep that one working to pass NJ inspection.
Check out Piet's new LED rear all red tail lights. These were installed in July 2004. They are very easy to install and look fabulous once they are in. We are very happy with the right side one and the left, well....

Of course we ordered a brand new set online from streetbeatcustoms.com (first time ordering from them) but for some reason we didn't get a complete brand new set. It took them a few weeks to actually ship them out after a couple unaswered emails and a phone call. Ok, we gave them the benefit of doubt here, they claimed the tail lights were out of stock and just arrived that day. No problem, but it was odd they just arrived in stock the day we phoned them to ask where the order was...

When they arrived only one of the pair was in its original packing. The other tail light was just stuffed in the box with no bubble wrap just a plastic bag. Needless to say the unwrapped tail light did not fit right in the car.

A call to the company to complain and request a new tail light revealed a little more about this company and their service. They were rude, said no one else had problems so we couldn't possibly have a problem and then insinuated we damaged the tail light by installing it improperly. They then wanted us to pay shipping to send the tail lights back, and pay shipping to get another set costing us another $40 to get the brand new set we had ordered in the first place and probably take another 3 weeks to be shipped.

Well lets just say they've lost our business permanently and also earned this little review of their company and customer service.

Other than the unwrapped and possibly used tail light they sent us, the lights are quite nice, very bright and all red. Just make sure if you purchase a set, it is from a company that sells new ones in their original packaging and not ones used for display purposes, a return or other unknown uses.

If you are interested in installing these lights for your New Beetle, TVA now carries these LED lights www.aiwana.com, they are $289.95 a pair and an excellent company to deal with.
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