Manual gearbox is coming soon for the GTi/GTi+ 👍
Cheers mcmaddy, i'll keep my eyes peeled.👍
Any ideas when we might see the 1.5 TSi Evo? I note SEAT have temporarily stopped taking orders for it in the Ibiza.
I wouldn't count on a manual Polo GTI/GTI+ any time soon. Some say you'll be able to order one from September, but with the current waits of around 42 weeks, you'll be pushing towards a 69 plate next year to actually get one.
I have one on order that is getting built next week or the week after, to replace the wife's 3 door A1 1.6TDI Sport, which would be a perfectly good car to keep if it were 5 door. There are rumours are that the SA Uitenhage plant is shutting down for 2 or 3 months, depending on the source. Whether this is the cause of the 42 week wait is debateable (is it a 30 week wait + shutdown time, so post shutdown placed orders "only" take 30 weeks?).
As much as I dislike the DSG for it not doing what i'd do for 5% of the time (yes i'm a harsh critic, but not being stuck in crawling traffic on my commute, the convenience of how the DSG handles the commuter crawl -saving your left knee from clutch cramp is not something i'd benefit from), I think VW is taking the gearbox choice away from us for anything that impacts their fleet CO2 ratings significantly.
With WLTP coming in, I think we'll see the end of manuals for all but the most frugal of 1.0TSI variants (and even then, if the market will stomach it, VW may decide to end manuals altogether to narrow their inventory). On paper DSG 6 speed outdoes the manual for CO2 on current test cycles, even though in the real world they're about 10% thirstier, will WLTP be more realistic on that score? The 7 speed DSGs are modestly better on mpg than manuals in the real world where people actually do motorway speeds and that tall 7th gear pays dividends.
I managed to jump on a scheduled build for a GTI+ that had a few options I would not have bought myself. It had to be Flash Red (Pearl Black was 2nd option, but then the grilles would be lost in that colour - although some may say that the red strip would be lost in Flash Red), with Brescias (much like the standard Golf R wheels are fugly to me, so it is with the standard Polo and Golf GTI wheels, and the Brescias are only a £350 extra). Options are Nav with app net (useful), and rear camera (which I think is a total waste of money, never found the ultrasonic front/rear sensors lacking in letting me know how close that obstacle is).
I had looked at the Seat Ibiza 1.5TSI EVO, heavily discounted to cover the poor residuals - the wife was put right off by one tiny aspect of the Ibiza, manual rear windows only (elegance model excepted, with only 1.0TSI engines). Getting a local Seat dealer to actually take an interest in a paying customer was also an issue, they just have no interest in selling anything as Seat seem to have pulled almost everything for order ahead of having to comply with WLTP.
I like the Polo aesthetic in the flesh, that crease is quite muscular, and the front end of the Polo GTI looks considerably better than the normal models I like that the rear lights aren't fussy, but the tail pipes could have a bit more to them, than the twin pipes in the style of Golf GTD (central twins perhaps, like the Lupo GTI used to have). It's all fairly safe evolutionary stuff, just like the Golf does. Apart from the 4 pipes, unless you pick Lapiz Blue and/or Prets, the R is very under the radar compared to the GTI/GTD.
I think that the Polo GTI+ is a bargain next to the Golf GTI, comparable in equipment levels - I can live without auto climate control for adjustable suspension that isn't the full-blown DCC, pretty much everything else on the Golf GTI is also on the Polo GTI+. No grab handles is a plus for me, as I hate to see my friend Dave hanging off mine in the Golf with all his weight, blocking half my the passenger window with his meaty arm. It's a pity that the whole door card is the same hard material as the bottom 3/4 of the Golf's door card, and i'm not a fan of the extended bonnet via the painted strip in the front grille, but those are my only gripes. I prefer the look of the seats in the Polo GTI, shaped more like the MK6 Golf GTI's seats There's a lot to like - I can see a lot of people downsizing into one in future, and I mean downsizing in a very understated way - the Polo has 10mm less rear legroom than my R when I've adjusted the front seat to drive - I measured it up.
90% of the car for 2/3 of the money, and the residual expectations from GFVs are a smidge better than the Golf GTI's (although that may soften a bit over the lifecycle of the car).
Will the Golf 8 have fairly obvious cost savings over the 7? I think the MK5 was the pinnacle of the Golf so far - it was value for money (just under £21k for the GTI when it phased out for MK6) and had the most sophisticated multilink rear suspension VW have ever made for the Golf. VW have been cost cutting, yet charging more for the privilege ever since (but still managing to be a little more premium than pretty much everyone but Audi). In 10 years for the newer version of the same car to almost be 50% more costly during a period of record low inflation seems very wrong.
I'm aiming to keep the R until at least the 8R or all new S3 comes out, I have the 5 year factory warranty, I can't think of anything I want to replace it with right now - and i'm not in the least bit bored by it (I usually develop an itch for something newer after 2 years), but don't clean it half as often as I should.
On another note - Sootchucker's comments about the R and to a lesser extent all performance VWs - i'd agree they're all getting a little boring as they improve in their composure. My Scirocco 170TDI was far more exciting than my 7GTD, and felt faster, even though it wasn't. I put that down to the now very linear power delivery and how much more composed the MQB platform is. Standard GTD bored me, boxed GTD was a different animal.
Similarly, the R's increased rate of acceleration over the GTI made it a much more exciting car for me on the occasion you do find yourself with room to open it up from a low speed (like the Newcastle central motorway from the coast road, where the sliproad is on the right, dumping you into the fast lane from a relatively slow speed. It was worth the extra for me, that 4WD isn't really intrusive once you're beyond tramping range for a 2WD. I suspect in a similar way, the Clubsport feels a completely different animal to a 220ps GTI, that raw acceleration does overcome the linearity of power development for me.
If we wanted a greater rate of excitement, we'd all be in slippery Toyota GT86s (my neighbour has one that is cocooned between November and March because he dares not drive it below 5C), or putting Michelins on the front wheels and Bridgestones on the back. Excitement s being eroded by progress.
