This’ll be a bit boring so apologies in advance, but forums are about sharing info and opinions so I’ll try and add a little update just over 12 months in.
I’d probably not bother normally but being as there’s a lot of negativity still toward the model and the fact there are a lot still waiting to be built, maybe prospective or pending owners might like to know what it’s like spending (just under) a year at the helm of a mk8 Clubsport.
I’m a couple weeks late for the actual anniversary, current mileage stands at just over 7k and the only visit to the dealer it’s had was for the first service a few weeks ago.
The mileage would probably have been around 12k now but for the first three months the car was hardly used due to being blocked in by other cars and surrounded by my youngest son’s possessions whilst he was waiting for his house to be built. He and his girlfriend seemed to have purchased the whole Cox & Cox catalogue plus a heap more besides, hoping to squeeze it all in to a house the size of a shoe box.
Come March, six months after the house was due to be completed, he had the green light to move in and suddenly I had space in my garage, inside my house and on my drive. The Clubsport then became my daily driver until late summer when it had a break because I had a short lived spell of having to commute into the city centre working normal office hours and having to leave the car in a public car park. I decided to use my older car that hadn’t been started for a few months as I was less precious about it being left somewhere a bit vulnerable to damage. Besides, the older car needed MOT’ing and an aircon re-gas, plus the battery needed a bit of charging. I prefer to charge by driving rather than alternatives.
After a month or so having put a few thousand miles under the belt of the little Diesel I summoned the GTI back from its resting place and it’s been used every day ever since.
What’s it been like? Well, it’s a Golf. It has still generally been exactly how you’d expect a Golf GTI to be.
It’s been through floods, a bit of slushy snow, warm weather, frosts, high winds etc and never skipped a beat.
The Pilot Sport 4S’s didn’t like the slushy stuff (which only lasted an hour) but have coped superbly with everything else. Tyre tread after just under 7k miles at the first service was reported at 5mm fronts and 6mm rear. That probably tells you I don’t drive the car anywhere near hard enough!
Software for the UI is still on what it was shipped with out of the factory when new. Yeah it can be buggy on occasion but mine’s not been terrible unlike some owners reports.
The occasional frontal assist warnings bong at me when the front camera has trouble peering through a dewy screen, once or twice the rear assist stuff decided it briefly wasn’t going to play, an occasional crash of the media screen etc still occurs...
I don’t use ACC as I just plain prefer to be in full control so I don’t know if my car suffers the same issues with that feature others report.
I managed to drive from my west country lair up to Dudley and back again via Cheltenham and Bristol a couple weeks ago in one 24 hour midweek stint and didn’t miss cruise control one bit. That’s a personal thing with electing not to use ACC. What’s of note there is how ‘normal’ the car was on that mid-December trip. It rode well (non DCC with 19” wheels), did 40mpg on the motorway, the seats didn’t kill my back and the media worked just fine.
A bit of a different driving routine to its more usual country road commuting, and these rural rat runs are the roads where the car really shines. I’ve written plenty on my (very positive) thoughts about the chassis, the excellently weighted brakes, the responsive engine and Jekyll and Hyde gearbox elsewhere.
A clear 5am run and the car makes for a sublime sports hatch, a busy midday commute sees the car doing a good impression of ‘relaxing and comfortable’ sat behind dawdling old people and tourists.
Talking of old people, well I’m rapidly becoming old people myself.
The looks of the car are probably just about the right blend of low key socially acceptable and sporty aggression. Mine lacks the black roof/wheel/mirror cap accessories of the Ed45 and is much more discrete visually than my previous Ed40 and TCR, so possibly more suitable at my advancing age!
On balance, I think, to my tastes the Clubsport (including Ed45) is the best looker of the range.
A bit more purposeful than a regular GTI, and the R I can’t make my mind up about. I’ve seen a few examples of the latter, a couple of blue launch spec cars in Devon and a white R near Wilton that might have had a bit higher spec. I’ll perhaps have a decent look at one at some point, they’re still pretty uncommon though.
Anyway, aside from personal opinions on the car’s looks, the usual moans could be levelled still at the centre iPad’s unlit button slider thingies but the rest of the UI is quickly learned.
Lane assist is very quickly switched off and on, it becomes second nature at start up to disable the feature and turn down the steering wheel heating which takes all of three seconds.
Not really much else I can moan about, hence me padding this out with other crap.
The interior is fine, the exterior grows on you, the mechanical bits are a mild upgrade from the mk7 and the tech is well documented elsewhere.
Is the breakdown assist worth a moan? Surely any breakdown should be covered free for an under warranty car, so why does it cost circa £100 for VW Assist? Plus I don’t need European cover.
Normally after six months I’m starting to think towards the car’s replacement, then ready to move around 12 - 24 months.
After 12 months (in atmittedly strange times) I can’t think of anything I’d replace it with. There isn’t a car that I’d wait 6 - 12 months to be built that I’d realistically replace the Clubsport with.
I like the new RS3 but it’s silly expensive. I like the MINI Electric but range and load capacity are a bit too compromised for my needs right now. Nothing else out there floats my boat.
Cars are getting far too expensive for me now anyway.