New person with Pre-purchase Questions

[Jackie Treehorn]

Thanks very much all,

The best i can find for a broker (which as you say involves selling mine privately) was an extra £500 so i guess if that is the route some wish to take it all adds up, but personally i would like the convenience of the trade in.  But if no one is budging on the each month drop i may as well put it on Autotrader and see if i can get a little more, before i trade it to them.

Thanks also for the link to  capconnect.  It came back with my car showing £100 below the maximum for "trade in clean" so perhaps the dealer are giving me the potential max for trade in.

Like you mention I am a little wary of options long term, my 80 year old dad would say "it's just another thing to go wrong" but the keyless and DCC look attractive but 6-8-10 years down the line, i may be better with a lesser complex range of model options.  I am done with buying and selling cars every 2 years as its been costing me a fortune and i would just like a good long term competent fun car.  GTI it is 

Thanks again for the help, I feel like I am coming from a point of a little more knowledge on the subject.

[MrBinks]

Just to piggybank in here - Having never had a VW or indeed a car with DCC, is that something that would tend to go wrong after a few years?  I was looking at ticking that box myself and, as with Jackie, was intending to keep the car for around 7 years or so. Would adding that essentially be an expensive ticking time bomb?

[Exonian]

DCC is quite complex yes but you don't hear of many failures on the various forums that I've noticed. Best in mind it's fitted as standard to Sciroccos which have been around for a few years now and early ones are well out of warranty.
How I look on it is that any shock absorber is well past it by 70k miles and if the car is out of warranty the DCC shocks are going to be big ££££ to replace - my usual policy when stuff is out of warranty is to uprate anyway which is usually cheaper!!!

[Jackie Treehorn]

I feel the same about adaptive and why I don't think i will spec it. I'm sure its a very good system. I fitted Bilstein B8 shocks when i wanted to replace my m-sport as the m-sport were pretty expensive i thought.

Can I ask if anyone knows if the calipers are just bigger, or 4 pot on the PP GTI?  Who makes them? 

Also what are the chances of easy replacement in the aftermarket in the future?  I guess the standard GTi may have something usable across the VAG range, but what about the PP version front brakes?  Not something i need to be thinking about in the next 3 years i know, but as the car is a keeper it may be important.

Are the pads different too?

Sooo many questions, sorry. 

[corgi]

They're just bigger rotors and I think different calipers and pads, but not four-pot (which you'd might expect)...

There are bound to be options either from the VW parts bin or after-market...

[Gorocco]

DCC is quite complex yes but you don't hear of many failures on the various forums that I've noticed. Best in mind it's fitted as standard to Sciroccos which have been around for a few years now and early ones are well out of warranty.
How I look on it is that any shock absorber is well past it by 70k miles and if the car is out of warranty the DCC shocks are going to be big ££££ to replace - my usual policy when stuff is out of warranty is to uprate anyway which is usually cheaper!!!

I had a Scirocco and was very impressed with DCC and therefore followed suit in my GTI. The increase in price to replace is a small price to pay for having the DCC ( if I decide to keep the car ). The steering on my GTI is a million miles better than that on the Rocco too. Unfortunately, well travelled highly engineered cars cost money when out of warranty.

[Mark V GTD]

In contrast I also had it on a Scirocco and could tell the difference between any of the settings!

[Jackie Treehorn]

They're just bigger rotors and I think different calipers and pads, but not four-pot (which you'd might expect)...

There are bound to be options either from the VW parts bin or after-market...

Ah ok, so it just a basic caliper.  I suppose it just has an extended backing plate to push the caliper out further to incorporate the larger disc.  That's a bit of a shame but it I guess you can't expect much for your £900 for the PP pack. I Would happily pay it for the Diff alone TBH.

At least it won't be too hard to get aftermarket textar or other soon.

Going to order tomorrow and then the wait...

Still unsure on colour...but will just "wing it" on the day     

[Jackie Treehorn]

Ok placed an order yesterday.

Performance pack
Dynaudio
Tornado Red....on red badges, on red calipers, on red stitching.  I hope i don't mind red too much

I liked the other colours, but not enough to pay for them.  If something was stand out WOW i would have happily paid for it, but white and various shades of grey/silver or darker were all nice, but nothing that i really wanted to give VW 500 quid for. TBH the colour choice is pretty poor compared to what the Germans get to choose. I guess i would have gone for Lapis blue if it was available, but not sure it would work with the red strip at the front.

Walking around the dealers forecourt It became apparent that the new and used cars they had were either Reflex silver or a variation of this, white or a none de-script selection of v dark/dull/greys/blues. This isn't a criticism of VW because on the way home all i seemed to see were dark dull colours.  I guess either the manufacturers think we are nervous about bold colours and won't buy them or they only offer plain "blend in colours" at the moment.

A friend has a BMW M3 in Laguna Seca blue and i think it looks stunning, but perhaps even i would shy away from ticking that box on a Brand new GTI