My R estate - 6 months on.

[phatmanace]

Just come back from brittany and a 500 mile drive in my R estate. I've had it for about 8 months now and I thought I'd leave a little review here for anyone that might be interested or thinking about getting one.

I bought it to replace a 2007 audi A4 2.0 TFSI Quattro - so the Golf I thought would be very similar (4wd, similar engine etc). My audi had almost no kit, so now I'm overwhelmed with toys. I would have bought another Audi, but for the same year/performance it was another £12-15k

Good points.

• Very fast. Have great fun embarrassing most things at traffic lights.
• Don't care that the noise is fake, I love the fact that I can stick it race mode if I want to hoon about and it sounds great, but perfectly civilized in normal mode. Even in 'quiet' mode, I quite like the low burble of the engine - sort of reminiscent of the Suburu boxer type noise, but less shouty
• Adaptive Cruise is brilliant - makes long motorway journeys noticeably less tiring.
• Carries all our stuff/Bikes (we have two kids + associated clobber)
• for 300bhp, the economy is pretty good. We did 30mpg on the run back from France.
• The DSG is brilliant - in no way do I miss having a manual - Zero 'slop' that I can detect - sometimes a little slow to change down if you need an overtake, but you just blip with the paddles and it's perfect.

Neutral points

• It seems to be more of a talking point that I thought it would be - I seem to get asked about it at car parks/petrol stations much more than I thought I would

Bad points

• Should have bought one with the adaptive suspension - it's quite crashy over bumpy roads, and the roar from the tyres over the concrete bit of the M25 near the A3 is pretty bad.
• 4 exhausts are a bit silly and people keep reminding you that 2 are fake.
• Very minor niggle on the DSG - I kind of wish it had a setting between sport and normal, normal is 'minicab mode' where it changes up at 1200 RPM, and sport hangs on to every gear for ever.

All in all a brilliant car, very happy owner.

[FurryExocet]

A DSG map should sort the gearbox out

[ManicMunky]

Good to read, 95% sure one of these will replace my GTI

[eliot]

I would of hoped for a little better economy - my bmw 7 series with a 4.8L V8 would get around 27mpg on a
similar run, more if i drove at 70mph.

[phatmanace]

eliot said:

I would of hoped for a little better economy - my bmw 7 series with a 4.8L V8 would get around 27mpg on a
similar run, more if i drove at 70mph.

Yeah - maybe, I really don't drive that much, so I don't really care a great deal as long as it's not stupid (like 15mpg would piss me off) . On our little jaunt round france for a week, I think I did about £280 in petrol, I didn't think that was awful for the miles we did - but my mate has just gone down with his Telsa and is 'filling up' for free at all the superchargers.

[Billyray911]

Thanks for the review.I'm looking for a f/l estate at the moment-either new or ex demo,so it's always good to hear a balanced write-up from an owner.

[anonymous-user]

Thanks for the review, my FL Indium Grey estate will be with me in a few weeks, replacing my manual hatch. Although I've perfected the art of packing a family of fours luggage into the 5 door, I'm looking forward to the extra space enormously, and the FL revisions such as the active info display and heated seats will be nice. It's also my first DSG car which is also something to look forward to, I've never been a massive fan of the manual 'box in the R.

Oh, and thankfully all exhausts are connected on the FL. Will never understand why VW did that for the pre-FL.

Edited by andrewparker on Monday 28th August 10:07

[phatmanace]

andrewparker said:

Thanks for the review, my FL Indium Grey estate will be with me in a few weeks, replacing my manual hatch. Although I've perfected the art of packing a family of fours luggage into the 5 door, I'm looking forward to the extra space enormously, and the FL revisions such as the active info display and heated seats will be nice. It's also my first DSG car which is also something to look forward to, I've never been a massive fan of the manual 'box in the R.

Oh, and thankfully all exhausts are connected on the FL. Will never understand why VW did that for the pre-FL.

Edited by andrewparker on Monday 28th August 10:07

I love the DSG - never thought I would, I've had a few autos, including one reasonably powerful one and I hated the sloppyness... the DSG has none of that. You can use the paddles for temporary blips (if you blip up or down and then don't do anything, when you lift off and around 5 seconds has passed, it will go back into drive mode) - or flip the gear lever to the left and do forward/back and that's completely manual (gently 'hints' when you should change up)

Oddly, about the only gadget my audi had was heated seats.. I really don't miss them at all.

[stuart_83]

Completely agree with the DSG comments. In D it just wants to potter about, regularly changing up gear ridiculously early, or even around roundabouts when you want to hoon off the exit. Quite hard in 5th at 35mph!

It can be frustrating when you want to put your foot down slightly to gently overtake, but it decides to change down two gears instead of one, then flings you up the road at 6-7krpm looking like an idiot.

And sport ... Well ... Awesome fun if you're 100% on it, but refusing to change from 4th at 70mph+ is a bit dumb.

As you've said, the best (and only) way to drive the DSG properly is to override with the paddles. Just a quick tap in advance, gear down and off, then back into auto. Took me a while to get used to doing this, but now I have I appreciate the auto a lot more. Either that or a DSG map as others have mentioned ... Just wish it could add a 3rd mode!

[anonymous-user]

Some top tips chaps — thank you. I do think it is going to take some getting used to and I've been massively reluctant to move to a DSG car, however now is the time to embrace it!

[marcosgt]

Is yours the 7.5 facelift or the previous one?

I've had my 7.5 nearly 3 months now and have a few comments after the >>s

phatmanace said:

• Adaptive Cruise is brilliant - makes long motorway journeys noticeably less tiring. >> I don't like the ACC personally, it seems to slow down the car too much, too soon, even in the closer settings.

• for 300bhp, the economy is pretty good. We did 30mpg on the run back from France.>> I get 30 driving locally, on a run I've seen as high as 40.X.

• The DSG is brilliant - in no way do I miss having a manual - Zero 'slop' that I can detect - sometimes a little slow to change down if you need an overtake, but you just blip with the paddles and it's perfect. >> Personally I'd prefer a manual still. It's easy to drive around town and on the motorway, but I'd still prefer a manual box.

Bad points

• Should have bought one with the adaptive suspension - it's quite crashy over bumpy roads, and the roar from the tyres over the concrete bit of the M25 near the A3 is pretty bad. >> I'd agree about the M25 near the A3, but I've not noticed it being particularly noisy anywhere else!

• 4 exhausts are a bit silly and people keep reminding you that 2 are fake. >> They're all connected on the 7.5, but a straight 4 only needs 1 exhaust!

• Very minor niggle on the DSG - I kind of wish it had a setting between sport and normal, normal is 'minicab mode' where it changes up at 1200 RPM, and sport hangs on to every gear for ever. >> Yes, that's a fair comment I think, although more of a neutral point to my mind.

...

All in all a brilliant car, very happy owner.

It's a very good car, but I can't say I'm smitten with mine.

It does everything very well, but it's almost too accomplished and quick. The 'boring' comment some aim at it is rubbish, but the opportunities to push the car to half its limits are extremely rare.

Fortunately, it's roomy, comfortable, well equipped and economical, so it's a winner even in traffic jams!

Mine's on a 2 year lease - It'll be interesting to see how I feel about it when the lease ends.

M

[Daggerpie]

Interesting review, i'm also looking into getting one to replace our Mountune Focus ST Estate (this has also been a great car but the FWD torque steer in 2nd & 3rd gears is actually dangerous).

Am I right in thinking they still haven't given even the lastest 7.5 the rear LED lights yet? (unlike the hatch)

[phatmanace]

Daggerpie said:

Interesting review, i'm also looking into getting one to replace our Mountune Focus ST Estate (this has also been a great car but the FWD torque steer in 2nd & 3rd gears is actually dangerous).

Am I right in thinking they still haven't given even the lastest 7.5 the rear LED lights yet? (unlike the hatch)

I was actually looking at the ST estate when I was shopping around for the Golf - I liked the two pipes sticking out of the middle of the back of the car... much better than the 4 on the golf, IMHO.

[anonymous-user]

Daggerpie said:

Interesting review, i'm also looking into getting one to replace our Mountune Focus ST Estate (this has also been a great car but the FWD torque steer in 2nd & 3rd gears is actually dangerous).

Am I right in thinking they still haven't given even the lastest 7.5 the rear LED lights yet? (unlike the hatch)

All 7.5 Golfs have LED rear lights. The R estate lights obviously differ in design to the hatchbacks, and don't have that naff sweeping indicator thing, however they are darkened to differentiate them from a regular Golf estate.

[Daggerpie]

phatmanace said:

I was actually looking at the ST estate when I was shopping around for the Golf - I liked the two pipes sticking out of the middle of the back of the car... much better than the 4 on the golf, IMHO.

Yeah, bit like an Aventador's..nice touch for a Ford. Makes towing a no go tho..

[ManicMunky]

On my GTI, I've found that using an Individual profile that sets the ACC to "Sport" makes it work a lot better

[phatmanace]

Daggerpie said:

Yeah, bit like an Aventador's..nice touch for a Ford. Makes towing a no go tho..

Alas I think so is the golf....i knew that when I bought it, but have since gotten mildly annoyed that I cant get a hitch Mounted bike carrier...

[rich146]

phatmanace said:

eliot said:

I would of hoped for a little better economy - my bmw 7 series with a 4.8L V8 would get around 27mpg on a
similar run, more if i drove at 70mph.

Yeah - maybe, I really don't drive that much, so I don't really care a great deal as long as it's not stupid (like 15mpg would piss me off) . On our little jaunt round france for a week, I think I did about £280 in petrol, I didn't think that was awful for the miles we did - but my mate has just gone down with his Telsa and is 'filling up' for free at all the superchargers.

How much was the Tesla vs the Golf? The Golf still works out much cheaper to run with overall cost.

[FurryExocet]

Tesla drivers may be able to "fuel up for free", but I could run my S4 for the rest of its life and still not spend the same as they have 😋

[Colonial]

I run my Octavia basically 100% in manual mode rather than Normal, especially around town.