RE: PH Fleet: VW Golf GTI Edition 35

[Msportman]

Riggers said:

The DSG, for me, is a lot better than it used to be. I presume it's a case of VW's engineers learning to get the best from the system rather than any major changes to the tech, however. I am a manual fan, but for most of the time I feel sufficiently incontrol of the DSG for it not to bother me.

As for the price, someone asked if it was my £34k what I would do with it.

Well, firstly, that price includes the listed extras, so the basic price is actually £28,820, and that's only a grand-and-a-bit more than a Megane Renaultsport with Cup chassis and Recaro seat pack.

So yes, it's expensive, but It's kinda what brand new hot hatches cost nowadays that's the issue rather than the specific car, as far as I'm concerned.

Secondly, I would always go with secondhand were it my own money - If I had the budget for a £30k new car on finance (for eg) I would probably rather go for something considerably cheaper and secondhand (Mk1 Focus RSes are occupying a lot of my brain at the moment).

Given the market's perception of VW as a 'premium' brand (not just the enthusiast end of it), the price of hot hatches in general, and the general excellence of the VW, if I were in the market for a brand-new C-segment hot hatch, it would get my most serious attention...

Oh, and it'll cost you £27,560 if you want a three-pedal version...

A nice product....I've been driving GTI's for years and have a half decent 2 litre MK2 16v for trackday built in the same mould as GTI Engineering RE2000.

Problem with any of these car's right now £27k+ is a heck of lot of money for middle England earners. I don't know how much you earn as a journalist but how many of the population earn enough out of their salary for one of these.....most middle England earners are under 40k with a mortgage and some with kids!
Could anyone realistically afford this on £40k as a company car?? You need to be earning far more and this is my point. A few yeras ago there was a market of young middle England with plenty of disposable....now people have tightened their belts.

Great second hand buy in 4-5 yeras time like the Ed30 Golf.....better off waiting.
E46 M3's seems to be a good buy at the mo for alot less.....proper car for sensible dosh now!

[Dave Hedgehog]

ArosaMike said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

i cba with wheel spin, traction control cutting in all the time and torque steer, *100 in the wet ...

the 4wd VAGs are devastating road weapons, the GTi a posing pouch

Not a big 4WD fan. The traction map in the Golf is actually very good and allows a decent amount of wheels slip. Rather than cutting power, it just maintains a slip level and holds it. With the standard engine maps there isn't any noticeble torque steer. Mechanical traction is also very good (far better than my Mk1 Skoda Octavia)......the Quattro systems and the Golf both use Haldex diffs too which are only viscous couplings, so they are only truely 4WD once the system sees a differential of slip between front and rear.

It's just different driving styles though. Some people like the feeling that they can't ever reach the limits of grip, others (like myself) like the car moving underneath them. That's why the 4WD variants of Golfs and A3s exist!

No point in rubbishing either really. As I said...it's personal preference. The press generally gave a lukewarm reception to the RS3, but that doesn't mean that the owners will think it's rubbish. On the other hand, there will be plenty who will test drive it and agree!

i drove a new golf GTi couple of months back, hated it, typical FWD in my mind, i just can not get on with it ughhhhh

the 61 FWD S line A4 oil burner I have at the moment is just bloody terrible, sniff the pedal from start and the wheel spins ......

Haldex 4 is always 4wd, it may bulk most of the power to the Front but there is always some going to the rear, its proactive and works bloody well, its a very rare sight to get the traction control to even flicker for a second even when hooning in the wet full bore

I was hammering it and an A5 turbo s line quattro couple of weeks ago in the wet, they performed almost exactly the same, only on the very limit of cornering and by provoking the A5s back out with lift of over steer was it possible to notice a difference, the A5 was happy to leave the ass out round the corner the R just wanted to go straight again when power was maxed, i will say thou i do tend to preload the 4wd on cornering because of my years with scooby sti ppp's

The RS3 is on a different planet, i can see why the jurnos dont like it, too competent, too much grip and refuses to oversteer for there pooowwwaaahhhhhhhhh slide shots

all on private land of course


but absolutely each to there own

Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Wednesday 18th January 18:01

[kambites]

Having too much grip is a perfectly legitimate reason for disliking a car.

[Snowman23]

I've had my mk 6 GTI for nearly 2 years and over 30,000 miles. Mine is a manual, I thought the DSG was great, but removed a layer of interaction

I'd agree that it's a great allrounder.

Henry Catchpole's closing report on his mk5 was all about 2 very different journeys (one a b road blast, the other a crappy motorway trip), and how he could think of many cars that could do either journey better, but struggled to think of anything that would do both as well as the Golf.

A lot of the time, mine is 'just a car', but when the odd moment appears to stretch it legs, it's a real hoot

I'd also agree with the prices on these getting silly, mine is on a PCP paid for by my cc allowance, if it was my money it would have gone elsewhere

[j_s14a]

I recently went on a road trip to Berlin in a MKvi Golf blue motion 140.

I would argue that it's a better all rounder than the GTi, offering enough performance, while still being a fun drive with a decent rid, and over 60mpg on a run!

As for being a proper 4 seat tourer... After 2 days drinking in Germany, the golf cabin seems awfully small

[Porsche997C4S]

For god sake change the wheels!

[ArosaMike]

Dave Hedgehog said:

Lots of very valid stuff

I think you're probably doing what I do a lot of the time in a 4WD car though and that's driving it with the expectation it'll be a certain way. I'm absolutely no different, and I think a lot of journos do the same.

I remeber being particularly annoyed for some reason watching Clarkson review the Vectra VXR ages ago (not a car I particuarly like it has to be said), but he did his usual thing of going 'Look how much it understeers with all this pooooooooowwwweeeeeeeeeeeer'. And here lies the problem, you do have to 'drive around' a front wheel drive car, and for many it's not a particularly enjoyable thing. They don't really do what you want without some form of weight transfer and or agressive lifting of throttle. It can be quite fun, but it's also not really relaxing and if you jump straight out of a 4WD car which generally requires nice measured inputs mid corner with hard acceleration out of it, you just get the worst out of an FWD car.

This is not in anyway any indicator driving ability by the way. I've seen some people who are incredibly talented jump from a powerful RWD car in to a powerful 4WD car and plough in to terminal understeer and come back reporting that it's terrible to drive and simply won't go sideways. Give them another hour with the car though and they start to get it!

It's an interesting one though, and in many respects, it's good that VAG offer such a wide range of drive configurations.....just wish they'd give RWD a bit more a chance though! The UP! had a real chance of being an amusing RWD city car!

[DLovett]

soad said:

Well - to you, it will clearly seem like a bargain.

Edited by soad on Wednesday 18th January 18:04

To me, every single car in the UK is a bargain

[LuS1fer]

Msportman said:

.
Problem with any of these car's right now £27k+ is a heck of lot of money for middle England earners. I don't know how much you earn as a journalist but how many of the population earn enough out of their salary for one of these.....most middle England earners are under 40k with a mortgage and some with kids!
Could anyone realistically afford this on £40k as a company car?? You need to be earning far more and this is my point. A few yeras ago there was a market of young middle England with plenty of disposable....now people have tightened their belts.

!

A person earning £50k after NI, pension contributions and higher rate income tax takes HOME £36000 a year net before any expenses at all. Depreciation at a rate of at least £1800 a year on average over 15 years (based on it being worth about £2k in 2026) may make more sense providing you can afford it to start with.

[nouze]

this will make a great shed in 10 years time (because it was designed to look like one from new).

WTF is wrong with VW's design department???

[CDP]

LuS1fer said:

A person earning £50k after NI, pension contributions and higher rate income tax takes HOME £36000 a year net before any expenses at all. Depreciation at a rate of at least £1800 a year on average over 15 years (based on it being worth about £2k in 2026) may make more sense providing you can afford it to start with.

Though by no means exceptional £50K is still a fairly handsome salary and 15 years is a long time to own a car. OK, I've had the current car nine and a half but that's pretty abnormal.

[blearyeyedboy]

My thread has arrived!!! I can give my opinion on the difference between the Six Million Dollar VW and my Skoda that cost 50p and a bag of grapes.

I'm in the unusual position of owning an Octavia vRS Mk 2 and I have driven a Mk 5 Golf GTi.

VW are not inherently better than Skoda at designing or screwing cars together solely by dint of being German. Nor are Skodas made of pig iron and left over bits of Russian tank and Bakelite- nearly all the components that matter are the same and they're screwed together jolly well. There wouldn't be so many Octavia taxis if they weren't decently built.

That highlighted bit- nearly - is important though. They do behave in very similar but slightly different ways, and it's not placebo. The Golf Mk 5 is the better car- but by the tiniest degrees. The engine's the same in the standard Mk 5, the chassis is mostly the same... but there are different chassis and suspension components. I imagine the Mk 6, with a little more power and a better tweaked chassis, is slightly better still.

You may also have noticed that the Octavia looks quite different. That enormous boot that Octavia hatchback owners boast about has its drawbacks- the extra metal out the back makes the car pitch more over crests/dips (though some of that may be due to suspension...) and it's not quite as keen to change direction as the Golf.

Interior ambience and quality is subjective. Not all our living rooms are decorated the same and our car interior choices will differ too. Personally, I felt my vRS was better appointed than a mate's A3 and I felt the Golf and Skoda were on a par. There will be as many opinions as there are people, and you make your own choice on that matter.

Riggers said:

Yes, they use the same bag of components as one another, but it's how the engineers fine-tune the engine, chassis and ancillaries that makes them feel distinct from one another.

If I may make a rather clumsy analogy, if you were to give me and Heston Blumenthal exactly the same ingredients and told us to make a cottage pie, the results would be rather different (Mine would be nicer, obviously)...

I'd adjust your analogy: Imagine if Heston were given the finest ingredients of his choice to make one cottage pie, and then asked to make another but substituting 10% of the ingredients for cheaper, less ideal alternatives and serving it on an plain plate instead of on a pretty one. He serves the first cottage pie in his restaurant for £31 and the second for £16.

They taste jolly similar- in fact, nearly the same- but the more expensive one is ever so slightly better. The prettier plate that the more expensive meal is served on may be an attraction some people can live without. But would you go for the slightly better £31 pie or the £16 one?

That's ultimately the question. The difference is slight. Is the extra worth it to you?

It wasn't to me. In my analogy, I bought the cheaper pie and had a couple of decent beers too.

[Legacywr]

This is sooooo much better than the 'Sherlock' thread!

[Bitzer]

ArosaMike said:

NEWSFLASH: PH COMMUNITY 'DENIES GOLF GTI IS A GREAT CAR DESPITE OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY' SHOCKER!

Also inside: 'BMW E46 M3 Buying Guide - Just what to expect when your Vanos dies 1 month after your bought it for the same price as a new Golf GTI', and 'Ask the experts - How to form detailed opinions based on hearsay, a test drive of a 'slightly similar car 10 years ago' and 'what that bloke said on another thread 6 months ago'.

Next month - 'Yet more hatred an vitreol bestowed on anyone mentioning they like VW Golfs', 'How to sell your E46 M3 and buy a Ferrari F355' and 'How to give the impression you've got an interesting car when really you've got a P reg Citroen Xantia'.

Brilliant Especially the last line.

[David87]

I very much like this Golf. Riggers, have you driven a Golf R? How does it compare?

[carllll]

j_s14a said:

I recently went on a road trip to Berlin in a MKvi Golf blue motion 140.

I would argue that it's a better all rounder than the GTi, offering enough performance, while still being a fun drive with a decent rid, and over 60mpg on a run!

As for being a proper 4 seat tourer... After 2 days drinking in Germany, the golf cabin seems awfully small

Sometimes its just great to drive a car thats not a bloody diesel

[Motorrad]

MikeGTi said:

I don't know what everyone is bhing about?

I haven't seen that much bhing.

There's been some comment that the GTi, like many other 'premium' hatches might be a bit 'emperors new clothes' and a bit of a cash cow for some manufacturers at the expense of what are presumably fashion victims.

I think there's a balance to be found between the both arguments but what nobody can argue with is the fact that the 'People's car' sure knows how to charge UK folk through the nose.

[Motorrad]

carllll said:

Sometimes its just great to drive a car thats not a bloody diesel

Agreed, try something other than a front wheel drive turbo'd 4 cylinder with as much character as a hairdryer though.

[chrisbvincent]

for 30k i think the wheels are stinking. they are the old rs4 design and looked good 10 years ago

[nickfrog]

blearyeyedboy said:

nearly

Thing is the difference between the two is tiny compared to the difference between either of them and a finer driving tool, like a 130i, so comparing then is a bit moot in the grand scheme of things.