The VW red i on GTi

[phumy]

I need some clarification as there is a debate raging in the office at the moment.

My mate says:

The petrol engined GTi of 2001 should have a red i on the GTi badge

I say:

Only cars fitted with a diesel engine (150bhp TDi) would have had the GTi badge with a red i.

Please help on this one as there is eleventy gazzilion bottles of beer riding on it.

[tuffer]

Nope, the Red "i" was also used to denote the higher (150hp) output Petrol engines.

Beer please.

[phumy]

I bet you know my mate and youre just siding with him

[drybeer]

IIRC the GTi all in Silver was the 1.8 or 2.0 NON turbo cars.

GTi with red i would be 150 bhp petrol turbo, 180bhp petrol turbo or 115 / 130 diesels.

The red D and i on a car badged GTTDi would indicate 150 bhp diesel.

Edited by drybeer on Wednesday 29th August 11:45

[Vee]

There were 2 petrol engined GTi aroudn then. A 1.8T and a 2.0 na
The 1.8T should have had the red badge, as well as the GTTDi PD150.

Basically dealers couldn't be arsed to change the silver ones to red as they were supposed to do.

[Fidgits]

I always thought the red i was to denote the turbo on the GTi (as someone said, the difference between the slow 2.0 N/A and the 1.8T) and the higher output on the GT TDi?

[Fourmotion]

This has been argued about many times on ukmkiv. It has been said that dealers just used the badges as they saw fit, so didn't always follows the VW standard, so the same badge on two cars might not mean the same thing.

The boot sticker is still the only true authority on the engine spec.

[AKA8]

phumy said:

I need some clarification as there is a debate raging in the office at the moment.

My mate says:

The petrol engined GTi of 2001 should have a red i on the GTi badge

I say:

Only cars fitted with a diesel engine (150bhp TDi) would have had the GTi badge with a red i.

Please help on this one as there is eleventy gazzilion bottles of beer riding on it.

Imports didn't have a red i whether they were turbo or not. You're both kind of right

[thefallacy]

You can always look for the bigger wheels, to see if it's a turbo or not. If it's a UK supplied car, then the red I denotes it's a turbo.

[drybeer]

Fidgits said:

I always thought the red i was to denote the turbo on the GTi (as someone said, the difference between the slow 2.0 N/A and the 1.8T) and the higher output on the GT TDi?

Although horrifyingly there were also some 1.8 normally aspirated cars called GTi too!

How they could call that a GTi is beyond me!

[Onz]

I've got a GTi TDi Anniversary (150bhp) and only got a silver GTi badge on the boot...where's my red 'i'?!

[phumy]

I have a 150 GTi PD TDi and it has the red i, i suppose this confusion can be put down to the usual crap info that normally eminates from the main dealers, nothing changes.

Edited by phumy on Thursday 30th August 06:20

[GreenMan]

The Polo GTI 6n2 (00-02) vintage also has a red "i"....

[GreenMan]

Also, someone told me once that VW boot badges are stuck on by the dealer pre-delivery, thereby allowing people to opt for the "debadged" look if they prefer. I guess if that is the case it's pretty hard to control exactly which badge gets stuck on which model.

[jamesm]

the red 'i' mean nothing at all......... VW just thought it looked better, and some of the dealers replenished their stock with the new style, some didn't. All golfs are 150 bar the anni model which is 180.

[phumy]

jamesm said:

All golfs are 150 bar the anni model which is 180.

Bit of a sweeping statement, i thought they had engines of lots of different power outputs

[Fidgits]

phumy said:

jamesm said:

All golfs are 150 bar the anni model which is 180.

Bit of a sweeping statement, i thought they had engines of lots of different power outputs

and lets not forget were on the fifth generation too