RE: PH Fleet: VW Golf GTI Edition 35

[heebeegeetee]

leef44 said:

OK, yes it would be nice if they could what Alfa did with the 8C - "we haven't got enough budget, OK cut the advertising/marketing budget and put the money in engineering and design". But such is business.

Eh? 'Alfa' and 'engineering' in one sentence?

I thought Alfa just blinged Fiats up.

[kambites]

heebeegeetee said:

I thought Alfa just blinged Fiats up.

Maseratis, in this case.

[Lucas Ayde]

MikeGTi said:

I spent about 28k on my GTI.

Didn't want an S3 - don't like the interior or the stigma that follows Audi drivers, don't like Focus STs or RSs - Not a big fan of the interior or the shouty looks of the RS, didn't want a Civic Type R - had one, suspension is too hard, needs to be above 5500 rpm to go fast, and I didn't want a second hand car particularly.

So I got a GTI, remapped it, and it's cracking. Love the interior, power all the way through the rev range with a minor flat spot from the remap, sterio's awesome, ride is great, German build quality (mostly) and it's just as good at cruising as it is at hooning.

Nobody is forcing anyone to buy the car or spend £30k+ on it, that's why there are different models.

I don't know what everyone is bhing about?

It's just the usual sheep mentality that pervades this forum as people queue up to out-Clarkson each other.

The Golf is the current car to hate, and VAG is the group of manufacturers to hate.

[Buster73]

EdM said:

lots of comments here about price so evidently not alone in thinking this is just silly money for a golf, sure it is a great, competent car but who in their right mind is going to go to a VW dealership and fork out over 30k on a golf..???- madness

Me for one , I was quite happy to pay my £500 deposit and will be taking delivery in march.

Some of you posting on here are forgetting that discounts are available to those prepared to haggle , I accept it is a lot for a Golf but the comparison with a Skoda is irrelevant , not even on my radar tbh.

[Fox-]

Dave Hedgehog said:

does that make A3 owners even dumber?

Damn right it does, it amazes me people still buy those new. At least the Golf is a fresh car. Since the A3 was introduced VW have gone from the Mk4 to the Mk5 to the Mk6 Golf, BMW have introduced and then replaced the 1 Series.. yet STILL the 2003 A3 is being flogged for top money.

The latest ones look really rather amusing with the blatantly tarted up blingy front ends that were never part of the original design... its a car thats really outstayed its welcome. Audi must be loving the fact they are still raking in the sales on such an old car simply because it has a diesel engine with an SLINE badge on it.

[dasherdiablo1]

Crikey that is alot of money; okay it's brand new but for that money you could have some seriously nice cars WITH warranty from a main dealer. I'm thinking any of these german cars from the list below can be had from a main dealer for the same money:

BMW M5, fully loaded, 2008reg 34k miles. 1yr warranty
BMW M3, fully loaded, 2008reg 22k miles. 1yr warranty
Porsche C2S Coupe, reasonable spec, 2005reg, 34k miles. 2yr warranty
Audi S6 V10, fully loaded, 2008reg 21k miles. 1yr warranty AND still have £7grand in the bank!
Audi RS4, fully loaded, 2007reg 29k miles, 1 yr warranty AND still have £5grand in your pocket!

So anyone still want a Golf???

[Fox-]

dasherdiablo1 said:

Crikey that is alot of money; okay it's brand new but for that money you could have some seriously nice cars WITH warranty from a main dealer. I'm thinking any of these german cars from the list below can be had from a main dealer for the same money:

BMW M5, fully loaded, 2008reg 34k miles. 1yr warranty
BMW M3, fully loaded, 2008reg 22k miles. 1yr warranty
Porsche C2S Coupe, reasonable spec, 2005reg, 34k miles. 2yr warranty
Audi S6 V10, fully loaded, 2008reg 21k miles. 1yr warranty AND still have £7grand in the bank!
Audi RS4, fully loaded, 2007reg 29k miles, 1 yr warranty AND still have £5grand in your pocket!

So anyone still want a Golf???

Comparing brand new cars with 4-5 year old cars is pointless.

Nobody who is buying a Golf wants a 5 year old V10 BMW M5.

[Legacywr]

Fox- said:

dasherdiablo1 said:

Crikey that is alot of money; okay it's brand new but for that money you could have some seriously nice cars WITH warranty from a main dealer. I'm thinking any of these german cars from the list below can be had from a main dealer for the same money:

BMW M5, fully loaded, 2008reg 34k miles. 1yr warranty
BMW M3, fully loaded, 2008reg 22k miles. 1yr warranty
Porsche C2S Coupe, reasonable spec, 2005reg, 34k miles. 2yr warranty
Audi S6 V10, fully loaded, 2008reg 21k miles. 1yr warranty AND still have £7grand in the bank!
Audi RS4, fully loaded, 2007reg 29k miles, 1 yr warranty AND still have £5grand in your pocket!

So anyone still want a Golf???

Comparing brand new cars with 4-5 year old cars is pointless.

Nobody who is buying a Golf wants a 5 year old V10 BMW M5.

and... why didn't the person who bought the M5 new buy a 3 year old 997 turbo?

[Fox-]

Legacywr said:

and... why didn't the person who bought the M5 new buy a 3 year old 997 turbo?

Only a loser would buy a 3 year old 997 Turbo, why not a 6 year old F430?

[Wills2]

dasherdiablo1 said:

Crikey that is alot of money; okay it's brand new but for that money you could have some seriously nice cars WITH warranty from a main dealer. I'm thinking any of these german cars from the list below can be had from a main dealer for the same money:

BMW M5, fully loaded, 2008reg 34k miles. 1yr warranty
BMW M3, fully loaded, 2008reg 22k miles. 1yr warranty
Porsche C2S Coupe, reasonable spec, 2005reg, 34k miles. 2yr warranty
Audi S6 V10, fully loaded, 2008reg 21k miles. 1yr warranty AND still have £7grand in the bank!
Audi RS4, fully loaded, 2007reg 29k miles, 1 yr warranty AND still have £5grand in your pocket!

So anyone still want a Golf???

Pehaps not but that's what they will get given, or be told to buy. Lovely selection of cars but that's not the choice a Golf purchaser is faced with is it?

[Dave Hedgehog]

leef44 said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

does that make A3 owners even dumber?

I like these dumb people

I rely on them to spend their money on the latest "must have" so that there is a supply in the second hand market and then a tight ar*e like me has more choice and can get better value. If there is a market for premium priced cars then it provides more funding in the car industry and the innovation and technology can then feed its way down to the basic cars in time.

On the face of it, £31K looks expensive but if you look back to the MkV in 2005, you would pay £23K for a 5 door with DSG. Now add leather, uprated stereo, £1K or so for extra VAT (per someone's earlier post), the other optional extras included in that £31K price, inflation and you're up to £29K. Now add a premium for exclusivity of having the special edition and you're at £31K. I'm not saying I would buy it but there is a market for it. VW spent that money on the advertising and convinced the mass consumer (not us lot!) that the GOLF is worth it.

OK, yes it would be nice if they could what Alfa did with the 8C - "we haven't got enough budget, OK cut the advertising/marketing budget and put the money in engineering and design". But such is business.

My Names Dave, I bought a new golf, I am dumb

[Fox-]

Dave Hedgehog said:

My Names Dave, I bought a new golf, I am dumb

Whats a Golf RS? Never heard of that.

[MadDog1962]

RedWater said:

Nice car but too expensive as already said.

These are great cars, but I actually think the earlier generation (slightly more curvy looks much better).

But more than 30 grand for a Golf just seems silly. I really think I'd rather buy a good 3 or 4 year old one and blow a couple of grand on some fettling.

[Picard]

Seems to be a lot of chat regarding the price which I admit is a fair amount of wonga for any car given the current climate, let alone a hatchback.

SO

Just wonder what potential owners had down as an alternative to this? i.e. coupe, hatchback and what brands

Interesting to see what they perceived as the competition to the Golf....

AND

What put you off purchasing secondhand was it running costs, not being able to find the right spec or simply liking shiny new toys!

Did any secondhand cars make your shortlist and if so what?

[Colonial]

heebeegeetee said:

Fwiw, having realised that I know four Golf owners, three of whom have bought new, (1 x GTI, 2 x 105 BlueMotion), the four of them are *emphatically* not the type of person elementad describes.

Also fwiw, three of the four are in their fifties, one in his sixties. All of them have an interest in cars and motorsport.

I've noticed a bit of a trend on the back page of evo.

A lot of respected motorsport types run Golf GTI's.

I'm glad the ph massive know much better than them what a good daily driver is. What would they know anyway?

[carllll]

Dave Hedgehog said:

leef44 said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

does that make A3 owners even dumber?

I like these dumb people

I rely on them to spend their money on the latest "must have" so that there is a supply in the second hand market and then a tight ar*e like me has more choice and can get better value. If there is a market for premium priced cars then it provides more funding in the car industry and the innovation and technology can then feed its way down to the basic cars in time.

On the face of it, £31K looks expensive but if you look back to the MkV in 2005, you would pay £23K for a 5 door with DSG. Now add leather, uprated stereo, £1K or so for extra VAT (per someone's earlier post), the other optional extras included in that £31K price, inflation and you're up to £29K. Now add a premium for exclusivity of having the special edition and you're at £31K. I'm not saying I would buy it but there is a market for it. VW spent that money on the advertising and convinced the mass consumer (not us lot!) that the GOLF is worth it.

OK, yes it would be nice if they could what Alfa did with the 8C - "we haven't got enough budget, OK cut the advertising/marketing budget and put the money in engineering and design". But such is business.

My Names Dave, I bought a new golf, I am dumb

I must be dumber ive got a Golf Edition 35 on my driveway now and i paid well under 30k for it and it i love it. If you can afford it and you want why not.

People who think that someone is dumb because they buy new. Have they ever thought that so called dumb person are actually doing well and can afford to lose thousand's on a car. So you never know are you dumber than them ?

[aka_kerrly]

MadDog1962 said:

RedWater said:

Nice car but too expensive as already said.

These are great cars, but I actually think the earlier generation (slightly more curvy looks much better).

But more than 30 grand for a Golf just seems silly. I really think I'd rather buy a good 3 or 4 year old one and blow a couple of grand on some fettling.

The most irrelevant point to make.

As someone else has said find a list of brand new cars that are fair competitors for similar money and then decide if the VW is overpriced/not worth the money.

[toppstuff]

aka_kerrly said:

The most irrelevant point to make.

As someone else has said find a list of brand new cars that are fair competitors for similar money and then decide if the VW is overpriced/not worth the money.

Well a new Skoda Octavia VRS with the same engine and transmission at around 60% of the Golf's price is'nt a bad place to start ( you can easily pick one up for 17k) .

Of course the Golf is better in lots of ways, but it is a lot of extra cash to spend when the extra money is only paying for incremental improvements to the drive and a decent contribution to the ego of the driver.

[CDP]

Dave Hedgehog said:

elementad said:

They also choose to price them high to make the dumb masses believe the higher perceived value. It's exactly what happens with fashion and women's designer hand bags/shoes as a crude example.
Price at £20k and it gives the impression they are cheap. Price at £34k and people start to believe your actually buying £14 grands worth of quality over the other £20k cars of similar ilk.

does that make A3 owners even dumber?

Take a look at the list prices, if anything the A3's better vale at both ends of the range. Admittedly they don't do an exactly analogous model to the Edition 35.

At the bottom end the A3 is certainly the better buy. Audi don't seem to have put their prices up as much as VW, maybe they had bigger margins before and absorbed the exchange rate. They certain couldn't increase an A6 significantly as the XF would simply murder it.

[I WISH]

The Golf MkV and MkVI are great cars ... particularly the GTI .... but the hidden gem of the range is the GTD (in MkVI guise) or it's predecessor the GT TDI 170.
I have owned the latter for 3 years now and can honestly say that it's the best all rounder I have ever owned.
It handles like a GTI ... has oodles more torque than a GTI .... and has much better fuel economy than a GTI. You can specify just as many toys .... mine has DSG/leather/heated seats/satnav/18" alloys/climate/winter pack/parking sensors/6CD etc ..... but all with the comfort of knowing that it will return between 40 - 50 mpg depending on usage.
These are genuinely quick cars. Sure they won't out drag many petrol cars 0 - 20mph .... but the mid range acceleration is seriously impressive.

I honestly can't think of any other car less than £30k that I would prefer as a day to day all rounder .... but then I do also have an S1 Elise in the garage to play with.