Got my Beetle from Oprah : )

[TraceyS]

I was nominated for the Oprah Heroes show by members of a support group I've run for 8 years. Turned out that the Heroe's Show was actually the last Oprah's last Favorite Things show. I got my denim blue 2.5L on October 13, 2011. I LOVE IT!

I'm now a member of another group for people who were in the audience that day, and one of the members got a spoiler installed by VW on her Beetle. It was over $1,000 to do this, which seemed a bit pricey to me. I started doing research about getting a rear spoiler for my car, and found a company online called Elite Spoilers. They have a factory style spoiler that can be custom painted for around $320.00. You can see it here:

http://www.elitespoilers.com/inc/sde...ry_style/18446

While doing that research I also found the discussion on vwvortex.com about the Denim Blue spoiler and how the hatch was changed out costing close to $3,000--I think I would have ordered a turbo for that kind of money myself, but to each his own

Anyway, my question is about the hatches: are they the same or different on the Turbo VS the 2.5L? The photo on the Elite Spoilers website shows the spoiler installed on a Turbo, so I emailed them asking if the spoiler would also fit the 2.5L, and they responded with the following:

I dont believe that they are different. We have been using this same model for the past 6 months and have not run in to any issues yet.

I'm just wondering if anyone on this forum knows? Thanks for any information you may have.

Tracey

[UTE]

First off - Welcome to the site, Tracey.

The hatches are different. There is additional reinforcement in those bearing factory spoilers.

Having said the above, VW engineers tend to err on the side of safety (as they should) and the rear hatch certainly seems solid. People have been installing aftermarket spoilers on New Beetles for years and are now installing them on Beetles too. I've yet to hear of structural failures - which does not mean there aren't any - it just means I've not heard of them.

Bill

[TraceyS]

Thanks for the welcome and the quick reply, Bill.

Sorry, I should have been more clear on my question. What I'm wondering is are the hatches on the turbo and the 2.5L dimensionally the same on the outside, where the curve of a spoiler would physically fit the same way on either model?

The spoiler that I'm looking at is a bolt-on using 4 bolts, so I'm guessing that it's not really heavy, like possibly the factory spoilers on the Turbo models are, which may be the reason for the reinforcement.

I like how the spoilers look on the turbo model, and would love to have one on my 2.5L, but sure don't want to spend thousands of dollars to do it I guess I could go over and take some measurements tomorrow on the turbo models sitting at the local VW dealership, and pray that I don't set off any car alarms

[JR Martinez]

Same measures outside, check eBay there are few vendors with pics included, wanted to do the same however I like the Old school look without spoiler, want to adapt old type roof rack instead.vintage Beetle roofrack