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Gee40 wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 8:28 am As RUM4MO has said (and again with no disrespect) they really aren't needed on the 1.4 unless you are planning track days?
Bearing in mind expense and hassle can I ask why you want to do it or what benefit you are looking for?

My reasons were: 1.That the drum's were failing, 2.The I got the disk set for around 250 euro's and repairing the drum would come close to that price, 3. Drum's are ugly especially when they rust, 4. The 1.2 TDI is chipped to 103HP and 260NM 5. because I can do it myself.

DanGro wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 11:07 am My reasons were: 1.That the drum's were failing, 2.The I got the disk set for around 250 euro's and repairing the drum would come close to that price, 3. Drum's are ugly especially when they rust, 4. The 1.2 TDI is chipped to 103HP and 260NM 5. because I can do it myself.

Rear discs won't add much to your braking at all.
to illustrate increasing performance doesn't necessarily matter, I had an Alpina D3 BMW which was around 210bhp/450NM and Alpina didn't change the brakes over the standard 320D (177bhp).
Their argument was the weight of the car wasn't being changed, so the increase in performance was irrelevant and the standard brakes are fine.

I can make the rear discs creak on my wife's 2015 very nicely much to her annoyance, obviously by not having the handbrake lever pulled up far enough!
Appearance of rear drums, yes they get horrible looking very quickly, I tried a few methods to improve the look of the rear brake drums, each time sticking to the original paint colour to keep it looking original, this 3rd time, on my daughter's late 2009 Ibiza, I quickly scrubbed both drums(removed from car) with a wire brush, mixed some smooth black Hammerite paint with some smooth white Hammerite paint in the ratio of 6 parts white to 1 part black - not a game that Hammerite advice, and the result looks good - time will tell how long that will last!
One benefit with repainting these drums is, to do the job properly you need to remove the drums, if you are keeping a car for maybe up to 10 years in age, if you only remove the drums when the brakes start giving trouble, then you will need to full retract the shoes by forcing the wedges upwards fully as there will be a big rusty raised ridge at the inner edge of the drums, removing that ridge and keeping it removed by cleaning the inside of these drums when you repaint them means that these drums can be easily removed without retracting the shoes fully - another reason to rather living with rear disc brakes.