VW Golf R

[RS Grant]

rm89 said:

RS Grant said:

I got them from http://www.fancyplates.com/ and in the special requirements box, I wrote down how much of a border between characters and edge of plate I wanted.. IIRC, 14mm sticks in my head.

Edit: just noticed you said new car, what have you gone for mate??


Cheers,
Grant

Ta muchly, will have a look at plates with them! Got myself a 6 month old Suzuki Swift Sport, needed something fun again but still fairly cheap to run, so far it feels like a good solution!

I actually test drove one of the first Swift Sports around the back roads in Crieff and thought it was a complete hoot, really lively little cars and I think they look good too.


Cheers,
Grant

[RS Grant]

iphonedyou said:

Looks really well, OP. Can imagine there aren't many of these modded at all given quite a few are leased.

Makes it stand out all the more. Enjoy!

Aphex said:

Those wheels look great both sets that is

Thanks.


Cheers,
Grant

[RS Grant]

mgst170 said:

Grant,

How do you find your Golf compared to your M3?

Whilst obviously in different price brackets, as an m3 owner, I could see the golf being more fun, more of the time - based on effectively chuck-ability and traction up here in sunny Scotland.

Would appreciate your views!

Cheers,

Andy

Hi Andy,

You're right, they are different cars but I actually got asked the same question yesterday by a friend who has an E92 M3 and a car to buzz to work and back, but is thinking of getting a one-car-does-all solution.. so you're not alone in considering the R as an ///M replacement. I took a look at your garage and assume you're talking about the F80 M3?? ...which I'll base my comments on.


Engine:

Performance (assuming a dry/warm road!) as standard isn't anywhere near as sharp as the M3 is, however, with a basic map/tuning box you should see c360-370bhp and the performance will be pretty impressive and far closer to the BMW. I plan to have a run against the Golf and LCI F80 at some point to see exactly what the difference actually is.

Economy for both is c27mpg average in the Golf and c25mpg average in the M3, however, it's not driven on track/taken out for mountain hoons as much as the Golf is, so would assume a drop of a few mpg if it saw the exact same useage.


Sound:

From what I've read, to some degree they're both fake.. the Golf certainly is and I'm almost certain that I read that the BMW is as well.

That said, I like the sound that the 'soundaktor' gizmo makes in the Golf, sure it's masking a quiet/flat sounding 4 pot turbo with a slightly warbly 5 pot-esque note but it reminds me of the old TTRS which I loved the sound of. I find that the exhaust makes little or no fuss even with the electric valves open in 'Race' or 'Individual' modes.

The BMW sound is both good and bad, I really like the induction howl that you get on full bore acceleration and even in Sport+ the exhaust is never intrusive... just the occasional crackle from the exhaust when lifting off. However, on cold start, the sound of the exhaust is absolutely unacceptable.. it sounds like someone has stolen the backboxes overnight?!


Build Quality:

In my opinion, the Golf very narrowly trumps the BMW here. There are a couple of small creaks from either a seat base/rear door in the M3, which has done c5k miles and no issues in the Golf which has done c7k miles. While the quality of fit might be a marginally different, the quality of materials used are very similar.


Handling/Grip:

Need to say that the Golf doesn't have adaptive dampers whereas they are standard on the M3. However, regardless of M1 or M2 button being pushed, the M3 is always in Comfort Steering and Comfort Suspension. The 'sportier' settings just make the car less driveable and enjoyable IMO.

On a local back road with lumps and bumps I'd probably take the Golf over the M3, that's not because I find the M3 bad (you can make serious progress if you want to in the dry) but because I think the Golf has a fantastic ability to soak up the imperfections on the road and still remain composed enough to offer reasonable feedback along with enjoyment and grip... it reminds me of my Impreza UK Turbos from many, many years ago which really put a smile on my face on a run in the countryside and like the Subarus, having the ability to lean on the 4WD system in the Golf is a huge bonus in Scotland, when summer can turn into winter over the brow of a hill!!


Probably typed a little more than I planned to and you were looking for, but I got a bit carried away with myself!! Hopefully you get a better idea about what the Golf is all about; it's going to be a step down from the M3 in certain areas, but in other areas, I think you'll get more enjoyment from it. It's worth mentioning that the M3 has a manual gearbox rather than DCT, which I personally felt unsettled the car a bit when trying to make progress on anything other than dry, warm, smooth tarmac.


Cheers,
Grant

[Kompressor89]

Hi Grant,

Nice car, picking up on what you mentioned about the KW coilovers, just wondered what problems you're experiencing?

Only asking because I've just took delivery of a 7R and already fitted a set of KW V3's to it......just keen to know of any potential issues?

Also someone else was asking about fuel economy......so far I've covered about 600 miles in 3 weeks in mine, filled it up twice, and I'm getting an overall consumption figure of 32mpg despite me driving it mostly in eco mode so far......I'm hoping the mpg will improve slightly the more miles I put on the clock.

Regards,
Matt.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Kompressor89 said:

driving it mostly in eco mode so far....
Matt.

You must be the only person in the world not driving in race!!!

I've averaged 32.6 over the last 14,000 miles, all in race

[mgst170]

Thanks for the detailed reply Grant, and yes it's a f80 I have - all be it pre LCI.

On the active sound part, yip, BM has it. Luckily as I have the HK stereo I have unplugged the active sound amp in the boot.

The part about feeling like a classic Impreza is key, as that's what I miss compared to my Evo. Granted an evo has a hard ride, but the faster it went, it just seemed to flow.

The m3 simply wants to kill me and yes I'm sure folks will say drivers fault. Mine is DCT and even in the softest gear change mode can break traction easily when damp on widish open throttle.

Not necessarily looking to change to an R, maybe a B9 RS4... But we shall see.


Thanks again

[problemchild1976]

the black numberplate mount looks terrible on such an amazing car...... is that OEM? non removable without leaving holes?

save the weight and take it off and put a self adhesive plate on

lovely though but needs RS3 style pipes

JJ

[ManicMunky]

Kompressor89 said:

Hi Grant,

Nice car, picking up on what you mentioned about the KW coilovers, just wondered what problems you're experiencing?

Only asking because I've just took delivery of a 7R and already fitted a set of KW V3's to it......just keen to know of any potential issues?

Also someone else was asking about fuel economy......so far I've covered about 600 miles in 3 weeks in mine, filled it up twice, and I'm getting an overall consumption figure of 32mpg despite me driving it mostly in eco mode so far......I'm hoping the mpg will improve slightly the more miles I put on the clock.

Regards,
Matt.

Eco does weird things to the gearbox and throttle mapping, at least on my GTI, it makes it horrible to drive and actually uses more fuel!

[RS Grant]

Kompressor89 said:

Hi Grant,

Nice car, picking up on what you mentioned about the KW coilovers, just wondered what problems you're experiencing?

Only asking because I've just took delivery of a 7R and already fitted a set of KW V3's to it......just keen to know of any potential issues?

Regards,
Matt.

Matt, the KW are driving me crazy.. worth mentioning that mine are the V1 coilovers, they were from the Owners Club and had only done a handful of miles before I bought them. I got them fitted at the height they were set to by the previous owner, then aligned and slowly the front left started to knock badly over bumps/right hand turns.

- I swapped to the 18" Speedline wheels with no joy.
- Then I re-adjusted the height on both front struts, no joy either at the highest setting or the lowest setting.
- So I set the height in the middle (roughly) of the range of adjustment and now the left hand side seems to have stopped knocking for the time being, but the right hand side is slightly knocking over bumps now.

I will re-set the height to make sure it's identical to the left side (it was done by counting threads on the strut before) and see if that cures the issue?!

In the meantime, I've ordered a set of Koni Adjustable Shocks and H&R Springs in case this issue with the KWs can't be sorted.


Cheers,
Grant

[RS Grant]

mgst170 said:

Thanks for the detailed reply Grant, and yes it's a f80 I have - all be it pre LCI.

On the active sound part, yip, BM has it. Luckily as I have the HK stereo I have unplugged the active sound amp in the boot.

The part about feeling like a classic Impreza is key, as that's what I miss compared to my Evo. Granted an evo has a hard ride, but the faster it went, it just seemed to flow.

The m3 simply wants to kill me and yes I'm sure folks will say drivers fault. Mine is DCT and even in the softest gear change mode can break traction easily when damp on widish open throttle.

Not necessarily looking to change to an R, maybe a B9 RS4... But we shall see.


Thanks again

Good tip about the active sound amp, will do a bit of reading about that since our M3 has HK as well.

Yeah, I'm not sure what difference having the DCC option makes on the Golf, but the standard dampers coped well.. I don't feel quite as connected as I did in a classic Impreza (due partly to increased build quality/sound deadening) but the way it deals with a back road is very similar indeed.

Haha aye if I see an M3/M4 slithering around off a roundabout/out a junction then I don't automatically think it's someone being a tool, it could easily be someone just trying to get home from work or going for messages.

B9 RS4 is a good shout, all weather ability, good build, passive-aggressive looks and a lot more characterful engine than an R.


Cheers,
Grant

[RS Grant]

problemchild1976 said:

the black numberplate mount looks terrible on such an amazing car...... is that OEM? non removable without leaving holes?

save the weight and take it off and put a self adhesive plate on

lovely though but needs RS3 style pipes

JJ

Yep, that hunk of black plastic is standard and if it's removed then there are 5 reasonable sized holes left behind.. which I don't think I could live with, so as I mention above, I think I'm going to live with a longer plate instead.

RS3 tailpipes are exactly what I'd fit if I put an exhaust on this car, the four small ovals isn't something I'm too mad keen on but they're less offensive than they were when I first got the car, haha.


Cheers,
Grant

[Kompressor89]

ManicMunky said:

Eco does weird things to the gearbox and throttle mapping, at least on my GTI, it makes it horrible to drive and actually uses more fuel!

I think you're right, sounds like what I've experienced so far.

From collection I drove the first 300 or so miles mainly in normal/race mode and returned 32.6mpg overall. Filled up the tank with Shell V-power-nitro-stuff and just to compare I mainly drove it in Eco mode until the next fill up, but overall mpg seemed to remain around the same at 32.something, was expecting it to improve a little bit.

It doesn't matter anyway as the car is going off for stage 2 tuning soon, so race mode all the way!

Grant > hope you get the suspension sorted soon, so far so good with mine.

[Harvey Mushman00]

Great looking car OP and a very good historical report of ownership, good honest evaluation of everything.

I have to pick you up on one thing though, I think they sound quite good, how much does the sound differ from inside to outside, I have chased a couple of these on "spirited drives" and one in particular sounded great, exhaust looked standard but I could be wrong, the grip it had in the wet was incredible, coming of roundabouts it was epic, it handed me my arse, don't mind admitting it.

In the dry......

[RS Grant]

Harvey Mushman00 said:

Great looking car OP and a very good historical report of ownership, good honest evaluation of everything.

I have to pick you up on one thing though, I think they sound quite good, how much does the sound differ from inside to outside, I have chased a couple of these on "spirited drives" and one in particular sounded great, exhaust looked standard but I could be wrong, the grip it had in the wet was incredible, coming of roundabouts it was epic, it handed me my arse, don't mind admitting it.

In the dry......

Thank you, I'm trying to be as accurate and non-biased as I can with it.. after all, there's a lot of chat about the Golf R (mostly bad in General Gassing! ) on here but very few owners threads, regardless of how the car is financed or who's name is on the logbook.

I've not heard what my car sounds like from the outside apart from it being on a rolling road recently, but it certainly wasn't making enough noise to cancel out the noise of the fans or rollers themselves. But inside, the only noise I can really hear is the induction note created by the 'soundaktor' gizmo... that may change if I fitted an aftermarket exhaust, but they're not cheap to do properly (I'd want to retain the exhaust valves) and I'm still trying to get my suspension sorted out at the moment anyway.

Grip in wet or dry conditions seems extremely good and if it's a DSG car then they are running 12-second quarter mile times as standard.. with a basic map, air filter and de-cat downpipe they are running into high 11-second quarter miles, which I find really impressive and I suspect is part of the reason they're unpopular with some of the 'anti-R' brigade.


Cheers,
Grant

[AGK]

Give me a shout if you want the soundaktor turned down, I've always got VCDS with me on track nights!

[RS Grant]

Strictly speaking, this modification wasn't required.. it's meant to give you a decent gain over the standard set up and even aftermarket intake pipes like the Forge piece which I had fitted previously. So anyway, I bought into the Turbo Technics marketing speel and ordered their intake pipe from Awesome GTI, details are here.

When it arrived, my first impressions were good, the pipe looked good quality and the billet aluminium adapter was very well finished.

A4F2C9B4-BEBF-4353-8A01-2581F3676E1B by RS Grant, on Flickr
86819C5C-7B05-431F-A369-9A78E432372C by RS Grant, on Flickr

The difference between the standard plastic turbo elbow and the billet adapter is massive, the standard elbow looks very restrictive when you get it off and can take a proper look at it.

IMG_4661 by RS Grant, on Flickr

Is there a difference in power? Hmmm, not enough for the ar$e dyno to register really.. but does seem to spool a bit quicker, which I'm sure is genuine rather than just the placebo effect of fitting new bits.


Cheers,
Grant

Edited by RS Grant on Wednesday 4th April 14:42

[RS Grant]

I've de-bricked the front end of the car because running a short numberplate and having the black plastic brick showing on each side has always bugged me.

Removing it was something that I'd thought about doing for a while, so decided to give it a go and see what happened... worst case, if it looked gash or went wrong then it would be easily returned to standard.

Drilled out the 'rivets' (there are 5 of them) holding the plate holder on to the bumper, leaving:

57459A14-39B5-4289-9837-B382980B09D6 by RS Grant, on Flickr

...then discovered that the numberplate tape I thought I had, was AWOL, so had to pop out in the car to get some more. This definitely might be in my head, but I'm sure the car got a lot more looks without a front plate, haha. I think cars look far better without a front numberplate fitted, a lot more 'clean' looking.

F45F0037-BEF5-4BDD-80B5-B85664B44E34 by RS Grant, on Flickr

...then 4 (slightly cut down) rubber grommets with some Tornado Red paint and some time in my make shift 'oven' to bake them, haha. With a bit of fiddling and a tight timescale, the finish on the grommets post-fitting wasn't as good as I'd have liked but still good enough to hold up to inspection from >a couple of feet away.

DC4E552F-73EE-4B72-AF6E-06AE4276A055 by RS Grant, on Flickr

Overall, I'm happy and I think it's a big improvement on the set up before.


Cheers,
Grant

Edited by RS Grant on Wednesday 4th April 18:25

[ManicMunky]

That looks really good!

[Bungleaio]

I agree, looks great without the plinth.

[problemchild1976]

way way way better - well done.

i think i would have gone for something a little flusher like maybe those kitchen cabinet hole covers (for unused shelf holes - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hinge-Bracket-Supplies-Ki... - they do various sizes) or maybe even some plastic repair material.

maybe countersink the holes ever so slighlty

add the flexible "filler" or the hole cover and then paint ever so lightly (as you probably learnt....little dry dabs is better than drowning them)

JJ