Thinking of changing…advice needed!

[Kgti8]

Hi All

Thinking of changing during next Summer. I’m between going up to. Clubsport or a R. Interested to know if anyone here has experience of both the 245 GTI (my current is actually manual) and the Clubsport…interested to know your thoughts, how they compare and if it would be worth it.

Looking ahead If I buy a Clubsport I will likely then want the 50th edition (assuming that’s a thing) for a last ICE hurrah in 3-4 years time haha before I go electric…

Or alternatively I’ve an itch to try an R and am thinking it’s now or never, keep it for five years or so and then go electric. Only issue really is the R is expensive in Ireland but have been offered very strong money for my current car so they are holding value incredibly well so any of these cars is a good investment imo.

Probably the wrong forum to ask…! But wondering then about Clubsport V R. Some say the CS feels more engaging and a thrill than the R which is a bit more planted I suppose with 4WD. On the other hand 300 bhp is a lot of power to the front for our roads. Anyone had similar thoughts before buying?

[Mk8Clubby]

My last car was a mk7.5 GTI PP in manual. It was an excellent car and having driven that car in DSG as well I actually preferred the manual gearbox, not 100% sure why tbh, just seemed to suit the car better. Couple of years later however, and doing a lot of town driving, I really wanted to try DSG again. Did a few test drives of the mk8 Clubsport on the back excellent reviews by Volkswizard and Joe Achilles, really liked it, so went ahead and bought one. Was a bit worried I was not going to like the DSG but have to say I love it and haven't missed the manual at all. To me the DSG suits the Clubsport better than the mk7.5 245pp. Probably a combination of the extra power, newer generation box and fact that the gearbox is tuned differently to the standard GTI. As I mentioned in another post 'about 18months in for me and I enjoy driving it more with time. 10/10 driving car imo; fast, quick gearbox, handles really well and brakes are great too'. Overall, a big step up from the mk7.5 manual imo.

[Exonian]

Kgti8, if you have an itch to try the 8R then why not have a close look at the R 20 Years?
As it’s a special model it has unique features that will ensure it’ll hold value better than a normal R with a few options ticked.
A few options ticked is far more desirable on an R model as it’s the range topper so why not start at a conveniently marketed anniversary model with plenty of spec as standard(?)

I have no experience of the 8R and likely never will, but that’s almost a coincidence as the Clubsport happened to be launched first and that coincided with when I changed cars, with the R launch happening a couple of months later. If VW had launched them vice versa I’d quite possibly be owning an R right now.

I owned the full suite of Performance Golfs in mk7 guise (GTI PP, R, GTD, Ed40, TCR) so am aware of how different the 2wd vs 4wd models can feel.

I can fully and wholeheartedly recommend a mk8 Clubsport (looks good, fast, super sharp handling, good on fuel, best seats… ) but if you’ve not owned an R before then why not try one out. Everyone should own a Golf R at some point in their life, they’re outstandingly good cars.
So maybe have a close look at the R 20 years and own something a bit special (even if it’s only a tiny bit special)

[evo1986]

If money allows I would go Golf R 20th edition no questions asked future classic hyper desirable.

How much is the anniversary Golf R over a Clubsport in Ireland like for like specs?

[JoeGTI]

If money allows I would go Golf R 20th edition no questions asked future classic hyper desirable.

How much is the anniversary Golf R over a Clubsport in Ireland like for like specs?

I had a look on VW Ireland’s website / configurator and I’m not seeing any reference to the R20 here. The standard R is mind boggling expensive here now. They start at about €75k! You’ll hit €90k without much difficulty if you add a few common options such as the performance pack, leather, wheels, etc. it’s absolute lunacy. The MK8 R has sold in very small numbers here as a result (and I guess the supply chain issues haven’t helped either). On that basis I’d be surprised if VW Ireland import the R20 at all here, if they do it’ll be an 85k++ car and exceptionally rare…

I got lucky myself with the timing of my mk8 Clubsport purchase. At the time (18 months ago) the prices were more realistic and VW were doing very attractive finance deals. All that is gone now, there’s been a few price hikes, the low finance offers are gone, supply chain issues are still bad and the Government have further penalised cars like this in terms of taxation (which further inflates the purchase price).
All in all, you need very deep pockets in this country to own anything interesting now!

[Kgti8]

Thanks all for the responses, very interesting.

The manual gearbox in the MK8 GTI is very slick but it seems to be a general consensus that once you change to DSG you don’t really want to go back. Noted also the general theme that one should try an R!

Not convinced about the R20, as anniversary editions go it’s a bit naff I think, doesn’t really have any highly desirable feature the normal car doesn’t have, I don’t think it’s like an Edition 40, TCR etc who seem to be going for very strong money now second hand.

As Joe pointed out it doesn’t even seem to be available in Ireland anyway. I did drop VWCS an email to find out though out of curiosity, the Edition 45 was available here.

Joe agreed on the below and it is rather frustrating. I bought mine around the same time and it has soared in price since. But all prices seem to have skyrocketed…a 1.5 TSI 130hp manual (not even 150!) is now €37k (I bought a 1.4 TSI 150 5 years ago for 29k!)…or when I looked at the electric alternative an ID4 GTX would be €78k and it looks practically the same as the ordinary one! An ID5 GTX is €83k…

The rapid rise in prices though seems to be filtering through to the second hand market, looking at Carzone dealers seem to be selling 211/212 regs etc for the same or even more then they would have cost at the time but still a sizeable jump to a new one. Good I suppose for anyone with one already looking to trade, I’ve been offered not far back of what I paid (based on a trade in next Summer when the car is 2.5 years old) and I loaded the options at the time. I imagine the values will only get better as new prices increase further in coming years and good spec examples get rarer and we get nearer the dreaded 2030.

All in all I have some further thinking to do.

[MaggotsRus]

Get a clubsport 45 (I own one and enjoy it) I just can’t see the edition R 20th edition every achieving the status of the clubsport S or even the Ford Focus RS Heritage edition for example and it’s way of the quality of the Audi RS3. That’s my view anyway others may have differing thoughts.