I’ll have a proper read of that review a bit later Fred, but yeah, the ID.4 is a tub of lard that hasn’t had anywhere near the chassis development of the ICE GTI’s.
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Splashalot, in the interests of science and following on from comments here I popped into MINI today, as I had an hour to kill, and took their demo car out for a spin.
I only had it half an hour, it was peeing it down and the traffic was shocking but I got it out onto some quieter roads I know well.
This is a Golf forum so size, styling and all that jazz is down to personal requirements and taste.
But it’s a GTI forum so driving fun is 100% relevant.
I got in, shoved it straight into Sport mode as I consider all other settings irrelevant as far as my uses are concerned, and headed out into the traffic.
The power delivery takes me back to the Diesel hot hatch heydays of the mk4 and mk5 era.
Loads of shove from the off but then power plateaus(sp?) and feels a bit flat after a trip in a 300 PS petrol.
Real world quick but lacking something. And not just noise.
Lack of diesel tickover vibration is a plus, as is the missing sudden abrupt stall you get when you find yourself in too high a gear at low speed driving a derv.
Bushings versus ride quality are on the comfortable side of sporty.
Plenty of wheelspin and torque steer in the wet too when nailing it but that’s not a bad thing as it reminds you to drive according to the conditions rather than fooling yourself you’re invincible unlike certain 4WD fast hatches.
Cornering is flat but the car doesn’t literally pivot on its axles for pinpoint accuracy like the Clubsport. I’ve gotten used to the Clubsport handling which is truly exceptional for a standard VW product (I’ve had heaps of modified GTI’s in the past so have good grounding). But the little EV is quick through the corners and accelerates very very rapidly up to (and possibly beyond?
) the speed limit.
The brakes didn’t feel woolly unlike the VW ID’s plus there was a lot more regen going on, so in fact the brakes were hardly touched except for testing them.
The MINI SE is great fun on the right roads unlike the ID.3 but lacks the interior space (a completely different league) and range.
Just like after driving the ID.3 it was nice to get back in my Golf again though. And yet again not a single warning light came on in the VW for the 30 mile round trip in nasty weather.