Fred's Thoughts on Mk8 GTI ownership

[fredgroves]

So having setup speed limit warnings the other day, I noticed yesterday they weren't working.

This morning I got round to looking at the setup and it had unchecked the warnings magically.

Nice 

[ar899]

....Does the GTI have a smaller wheel than the rest of the range and it wasn't taken into account during the dash design phase, maybe?

Completely off topic, but have you seen the Peugeot 308's i-cockpit dash?  Many hours of careful analysis and design has resulted in the steering wheel upper rim perfectly obscuring all the instruments!  Alternatively, if you want to actually see the instruments, the steering wheel must be positioned ridiculously low in your lap.  Utter lunacy.

But anyway, as you were....

I haven't.  Wouldn't touch a French car with a 10-foot baguette!

Why is that? Bad experience with one?

[fredgroves]

French cars.... I've had a few... they are "quirky" and one of the consistent things with them are the wild array of different versions of parts fitted to them.

Whereas a million VW's will all have the same say clutch for a whole MY, you might find identical models of a Peugeot will have had half a dozen different clutch assemblies for the same MY.

They also tend to make some very poor design choices with other things that can mean what looks like a simple job becoming a major strip down and rebuild.

They don't tend to think about these sorts of things...

You can also see that with Renault's effect on Nissan. Nissan used to be super reliable sensible cars, since Renault partnered with them a Nissan can be absolute hell on earth.

The other thing is they really seem to relish avant garde design. Quite often things are really quite "out there" with them. German design is usually very much more conservative. I guess that's just a national trait though.

[Wrex22]

What’s the H&K like?

[fredgroves]

What’s the H&K like?

Its pretty good.... with one exception - there are no instructions. Literally none. VW refuse to provide any and HK say they don't have any for a subsystem licenced by VW. Because of that I'm unsure if I am getting actual peak audio.

Its a bit weird, you have a graphic equalizer (think its 6 sliders plus sub) and then these 4 "mood" buttons, which do change the output, but how isn't clear. You definitely don't have the usual EQ preset buttons where each toggles the EQ settings. The one set of EQ is across all 4 "moods". On top of that, you have a setting for "surround" that goes from "stereo" to "surround". It definitely has an effect, quite what I don't really understand. I don't really understand it much, which is annoying.

The sound is pretty good though, clear, no distortions at high volumes. The bass is present but not skull crushing.

I can't decide if the "surround" sound is a good thing or not though. Sometimes it seems to add to the music, other times it seems to make it worse. Would be nicer if the thing had those EQ buttons so you could define some profiles for yourself.

For example, my default setup sounds great for The Prodigy, not so great for Motorhead.

Would I order it again, maybe....the standard VW system doesn't sound terrible to be honest.

[Wrex22]

I’m debating wether to add it to my order. Looking at the output from the standard system it seem like it’s only 80w which is quite low compared to the H&K

[fredgroves]

I’m debating wether to add it to my order. Looking at the output from the standard system it seem like it’s only 80w which is quite low compared to the H&K

On paper it is.... the normal system has 7 speakers though... and HK is what, 700 quid?

My previous 2 Mk7's never had uprated stereo gear, they were not terrible by a long old way. Not like other marques where the basic unit can really suck.

[Wrex22]

The standard system in my GTD 7.5 was fine. This is why I’m thinking I should save the £625. 😕 but then I don’t know what the standard system in the 8 is like compared to the 7.5

[fredgroves]

When I test drove the basic Mk8 GTI, the sound quality was pretty much the same as my Mk7.5 GTD.

If you are happy with that, I'd not pay for HK...

[theminty1]

So regarding speaker setup in the front only, is it just like a 6inch in the front door and a tweeter on the A pillar.
I guess its the same number of speakers if standard or using HK....