GTD good for me?

[dylanlrthomas]

Hi all, new to the forum but I'm considering a Golf GTD as my next car. I only work 4-4.5 miles from home (hour walk), with no motorways between. I also drive 160 each way (320 total) on the weekend every 2-3 weeks (sometimes 4 weeks between trips). Would my monthly/bi-monthly 3 hour motorway blast be enough to keep the DPF for my short journeys to and from work?

[Ahbefive]

If you are doing very few miles it is pointless getting a diesel.

What's your annual mileage?

[RammyMP]

I’d stick with a petrol if I were you. You shouldn’t have a DPF problem with 160 mile drives though.

[GreatGranny]

I make that about 9-10k per annum. Not enough to warrant a GTD IMO especially with only doing 10 miles per day commute.

Go for the GTI and cycle when it's decent weather to negate the higher MPG.

[PWeston]

DPF aside - just buy the GTI. You're hardly doing mega miles even with two longer trips per month.

[dylanlrthomas]

Thanks for all the replies guys! Under my current car and current driving habits (I do a decent amount of driving on the weekends), I've done 13,000 miles in the past 9 months of ownership. I'll probably hit 15,000 by the 12 month mark. The petrol is killing me at the moment, hence the looking into a diesel.

[ZX10R NIN]

Get a diesel your usage means a diesel makes sense.

[Sheepshanks]

RammyMP said:

You shouldn’t have a DPF problem with 160 mile drives though.

Might do. The dpfs on VWs don't passive regen as they don't get anywhere near hot enough. We did a 300 mile round trip in wife's Tiguan and next day it did an active regen.

It's time they need, rather than miles. Takes 10 mins or so to do the regen and it's not obvious it's doing it until you get out of the car. If you interrupt it a few times you'll start getting warnings and a longer driver may sort it out but if not it might need a garage to force a regen.

[jam_up]

I made a thread on GTI vs GTD mpg recently and I was pleasantly surprised that the difference wasn’t as big as I initially thought. https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

The GTD will off course be more economical but I’m happy to go with a GTI given it should average 40 mpg (for my own commute that is). That’s good enough saving for me to avoid the GTD (I’d rather pay an extra £40 p/m than listen to a noisy tractor!). Off course if you give it the beans all the time then that will drop, but so will the GTD as has been mentioned in that thread above.

If you’re insistent on a diesel then I’d rather just for a nicely speced 2.0 TDI 150 (or equiv for another manufacturer) as you’ll hardly feel any performance loss but will be more economical still.

[RammyMP]

Sheepshanks said:

Might do. The dpfs on VWs don't passive regen as they don't get anywhere near hot enough. We did a 300 mile round trip in wife's Tiguan and next day it did an active regen.

It's time they need, rather than miles. Takes 10 mins or so to do the regen and it's not obvious it's doing it until you get out of the car. If you interrupt it a few times you'll start getting warnings and a longer driver may sort it out but if not it might need a garage to force a regen.

Mines similar but you can tell when it’s doing a regen, the throttle response changes and the revs stay higher when idling.

[Nickbrapp]

I’ve got a leon 184 dsg so the same engine as a gtd, it’s averaged 48mpg over the last 3,000 miles of 15 miles A road and 4 miles of town driving every day.

Before a job change is was doing 52-55mpg over 10k of motorway in 6 months.

Interestingly. My sister has a new Ibiza with the evo 150 engine (petrol) and she’s averaging 43mpg and that engine comes in a golf etc and would proberbly be where I put my money if I was buying the car again.

[oldmanbm]

I've had a very positive experience with a 2017 GTD estate for a year and 25000 miles now. Brilliant car and quick enough when you want it to be and economical when in ECO and restraint - easy 55 mpg at a 75 mph canter on the motorway. I had wanted a new BMW 320D Touring but I could not justify the extra expense as I usually travel on my own. Had a Passat 1.4TSi estate dsg 150 for a couple of days recently as a hire vehicle and was blown away by it's economy and quiet pace. Try and get a GTD for a day or two and you will not be disappointed.

[Jag_NE]

I can’t understand why people keep saying the diesel doesn’t make sense. He does regular long runs and he will save a decent % on his fuel bill.

Test drive them both and decide for yourself which engine you prefer. If you prefer the diesel, absolute no brainer, I expect the screen price will be lower with all the media hype around diesel. If you prefer the petrol, buy the petrol if the additional costs are good value in terms of enjoyment factor.

If it’s euro6 there won’t be any tax/city access issues for a long time yet.

[Sheepshanks]

RammyMP said:

Mines similar but you can tell when it’s doing a regen, the throttle response changes and the revs stay higher when idling.

I've heard other people say the same but it's really not noticeable on ours (150 DSG Tiguan). The car gets parked in a corner with a garage door in front and a wall at the side and it's sometimes possible to detect the noise of the fan roaring but even then idle will be normal.

If you use stop/start then that gets disabled during active regen - we don't use that normally, but wife has learned to use it as a test if she arrives home and thinks the car is doing a regen.

[dylanlrthomas]

Thanks again guys!

So at the moment it looks almost 50/50 of whether or not a diesel would do me good. I just love that GTD! If a regen were to occur on the way to work, I'd have to stop it when I arrive as I won't have time to finish it. That being said I wouldn't mind taking it for a 15 minute drive on the motorway to clear it. Would that be enough do you think?

[Nickbrapp]

dylanlrthomas said:

Thanks again guys!

So at the moment it looks almost 50/50 of whether or not a diesel would do me good. I just love that GTD! If a regen were to occur on the way to work, I'd have to stop it when I arrive as I won't have time to finish it. That being said I wouldn't mind taking it for a 15 minute drive on the motorway to clear it. Would that be enough do you think?

What makes you really like the GTD over the GTI?
One thing I always consider if in the winter will the car get warm enough to produce any heat in a 4 mile drive? My leon is providing luke warm air by that point I think.

I think the fuel costs will be marginal over the occasional long trip. Plus the extra cost of the GTD In the first place


Are you buying it or is it a company car?

[gazza5]

I know its a different car, but I had a astra diesel (2.0 cdti), my commute was 5 miles, about 2 miles at 30 mph, 1 mile crawling in traffic and 2 miles at 50 mph.

In terms of heat - in winter it took a while to defrost car - resulting in rather than scraping but using de icer (prestone). No real heat even on air con until car had run for about 10 - 15 minutes - work journey is approx 20 mins.

I would occasionally have a regen on the way to work and it would finish by the time I got there - or I would sit in the car let it do its thing.

We use to do france 4 times a year (just outside paris) so that was th emain reason for the diesel, we did quite a few weekend trips etc, but some weekends the car would just sit at home - and just move monday to friday.

Tbh I had no problems with DPF's - maybe this was because I always tried to let it finish - I had one dpf regen each tank of fuel, roughly.

Annoyingly like others - do a massive journey over weekend etc - it then decides to re gen monday morning on the way to work - which was annoying.

Would I have diesel again - well depends tbh - enjoying being back in petrol - main reason for change is I wanted a automatic.

[Sheepshanks]

dylanlrthomas said:

I just love that GTD! If a regen were to occur on the way to work, I'd have to stop it when I arrive as I won't have time to finish it. That being said I wouldn't mind taking it for a 15 minute drive on the motorway to clear it. Would that be enough do you think?

I think that's why VW don't make it obvious it's doing a regen - they don't want people to think they've got to continue to drive. It'll restart the next time you drive the car. Certainly, from cold I can drive ours 3 miles (less than 10 mins) to kids school and it'll be doing a regen when I get there. It'll start again on the way back, but of course the car hasn't cooled down much.

It doesn't need a motorway blast - that's the point of active regen. Just normal driving.

We've had ours coming up to 3yrs and, touch wood, had no issues. It's only done 15K miles. There was no petrol option when we got it (it's one of the last of the mk1 Tiguans but it has the latest EA288 2 litre engine and is EU6) and I did some research on Tig forums and other people with similar use patterns had no problems.

One thing I would say is don't be fooled by the water temp gauge - the big electric heater makes these cars appear to get warm very quickly, but you can also see the oil temp in the display, and that takes about 14 miles of rolling driving to get up to temp.

[Big GT]

dylanlrthomas said:

Thanks again guys!

So at the moment it looks almost 50/50 of whether or not a diesel would do me good. I just love that GTD! If a regen were to occur on the way to work, I'd have to stop it when I arrive as I won't have time to finish it. That being said I wouldn't mind taking it for a 15 minute drive on the motorway to clear it. Would that be enough do you think?

OP, can you charge up?

If so the GTE would be ideal. Commute all week on battery power then at the weekend switch to Hybrid or GTE 204bhp mode. We have a GTE and the GTD engine in my Octavia VRS.
In GTE mode its quicker than the VRS as it has the torque as well.

Both great but I think the GTE will be a better choice.

[Sheepshanks]

gazza5 said:

No real heat even on air con until car had run for about 10 - 15 minutes -
.

That's unusual in a diesel as there's normally a hefty electric booster heater. In our VW is just works on its own, I don't recall any setting up needed. In my Merc it's selectable in the cluster computer but I just leave it in auto, however it doesn't work unless the car is actually moving - as it takes 140A! I don't know if the VW one works at idle, but you can feel warm air after a few hundred yards of driving in both cars.