START TALKING about fitting a skid plate or a sump guard to a car and it immediately conjures up images of stage rally cars or off-road vehicles, but there is actually a skid plate available to fit the Mk 4 Golf, listed by Volkswagen as a standard part. Clearly, there is some call for special under-body protection, for countries where the roads aren't quite as sophisticated as ours, or for cars occasionally used off the beaten track, but ironically many Volkswagen retailers found themselves fitting these skid plates to standard road-going cars, Not long after the Mk 4 Golf first went on sale in the UK, there was rash of damaged sumps, caused by the combination of soft, underdamped suspension and the new-found British obsession with 'traffic-calming' speed humps.
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