A quick update if anyone is in the slightest bit interested.
The car hit the 1000 mile barrier on Saturday at the grand age of three months and a couple days.
The magic number clicked over on the North Devon Link road where the car was getting a bit of country air in its lungs on the fringes of Exmoor.
That was the first longish outing in the car really, 70 miles each way with a little bit of each type of road: motorway, B road, A road, town centre etc.
The car does feel a tiny bit more choppy than my previous mk7's which considering the GTI PP and R both rode on 19" wheels I'd definitely say the spring rates were harder in the Ed40.
As an aside I had a 20 or 30 minute drive out in a friend's mk5 GTI in the early hours of Saturday which made an interesting comparison back to back with the Clubsport GTI.
The mk5 has stage 1 REVO and pulls really well. The Ed40 felt a little flat after driving the GTI until it got into the higher stages of the rev band. Which was better to drive? That's a toughie as the Ed40 didn't struggle for grip and revved higher but the mk5 REVO car catapulted out of bends with plenty of drama. Where the Clubsport feels a lot more lithe and pointy after the R on certain roads the MK5 GTI feels a bit more old skool hot hatch struggling to put down immense torque through 17" tyres and eleven year old suspension components. The mk5 was great fun to drive on that little blast on dry roads in the cool night air.
I drove the same route a couple hours later in the Ed40 and there were a couple of things I immediately noticed.
Obviously with newer components and another ten years of suspension development the Clubsport felt a lot smoother in handling transition, the steering was sharper, the brakes better and there was a little more noise from the exhaust even with the Soundaktor switched to Eco.
The seats felt better in the mk5, as did the steering wheel which is still a work of art until this day.
I liked the blue dials, the no frills spec (but a fancy radio had been added which was brought the tech up to date) and most of all the familiarity was great. The mk5 GTI was such a good car in its day and this reminded me that it still is. Testament to that is when you're not driving flat out is that it's surprising how many things feel almost exactly the same in the mk7.
The ride is similar.
The seating position is very similar.
The gear lever is in a similar position.
The view out is quite similar.
The switchgear is quite similar.
They both feel like they have the same DNA in other words.
The mk5 feels heftier than the mk7 though. I'm not sure what the kerb weight difference is but where the doors of the mk7 feel light and flimsy and the panels feel thin that same can't be said for the mk5. The mk5 feels like it's been carved out of a solid block to use a bit of a cliche. Granted the interior of the mk7 is a lot more fancy in some areas but you've still got to hand it to the mk5 that it still feels remarkably modern.
Going back to the Ed40 on its day out though, it was a pleasure to drive. Quick when I wanted it to be, relaxed when it needed to be and just as user friendly as a base spec model plus it did fairly ok in the MPG stakes too.
I'm not sure if it's because I only really use the car for commuting in the evenings or early mornings so it doesn't really encounter much traffic generally but I also think the throttle mapping might be a bit more aggressive than my GTI or R. That may well be in my imagination but when I gave my father in law a 12 mile lift I found the throttle hard to modulate in town traffic.
Obviously I run a pedalbox which amplifies the factory setting somewhat and I definitely think if i did a lot of town driving during the hours when normal people are out and about I'd turn the wick down a little on the pedalbox. Yet the pedal box is on the same setting as I used in the previous cars which all ended up with modified engines to go with the pedalbox (tuning boxes rather than remaps). My father in law is in his mid 70's and has arthritis of the spine so he doesn't appreciate hard suspension or my usual driving style! The Golf was just about smooth enough in the suspension and seats department for him but I did find it a bit hard to modulate light throttle openings when trying to ease out of junctions or onto roundabouts to maintain smoothness. The last thing he needed was a neck snapping burst of initial acceleration but the Ed40 just felt like it wanted to pick up its skirts and fly. 99.9% of the time it's just what I like but there does come a time when you really notice it because you're trying to drive around it rather than encourage it!
And before anyone says anything, it still has the same pedal travel and responses as every other Golf, but the ECU mapping itself *might* be slightly more aggressive. Either that or I'm not used to driving so gingerly.
