The 1.8T I purchased last year had been lowered, they had used lowering springs on standard shocks. The shocks were absolutely fecked on the front, one side had no oil left and the other side was bent. There was no way it was going to pass an MOT. Don't know how long it took to put the shocks in that condition, but I would look for a cheep set of coilovers.
There was a thread on here a few weeks back about some coilovers on ebay.