I had the use of a forum member's Bluefinned GTI on Monday for a 100-ish mile round trip.
When I'd first planned the trip I was expecting cold and crisp weather and fairly empty roads as it was an evening run.
Life never pans out how you expect and instead I was greeted with storm force winds, torrential rain, made worse by the spray from lorries, and the trip was moved to an earlier time so I also had traffic to contend with on the first leg.
Now, obviously being a sensible Golf driver I wasn't going to be doing anything above the legal speed limit, and much of the trip was done at much less than that thanks to the weather. Again, the weather put paid to any quick cornering or quick anything really. So this certainly isn't going to be a performance and willy waving test.
But I'll say one thing, when you drive a car in the worst conditions it quickly shows up any shortcomings. And apart from one or two visibility issues the GTI doesn't have any shortcomings. It really is a polished car. No doubt an R would have been even better in the conditions, but was by no means anywhere near
necessary thanks to the basic competence of the GTI.
The only even slightly dodgy moments were caused by aquaplaning and you can't blame the car for that. Everything else was catered for in absolute comfort and with great confidence. Gushing praise really which is unusual for me I know, so I'll apologise for that right away...
So, what of the Bluefin part of the experience? Well, despite all that I've said above about going slowly and sensibly, the Bluefin was really quite handy. Steep dual carriageway hills were made to feel like I was driving on flat Fenland roads thanks to the extra torque. The extra boost comes on strongly but not viciously enabling the car to easily overtake lorries spraying water everywhere on uphill sections to clear the car and passengers away from danger without resorting to heavy throttle use or high revs, thus keeping progress smooth.
Accelerating out of roundabouts and away from traffic lights was brisk enough for the conditions and almost no loss of traction was experienced despite the very, very wet conditions.
So, the conditions show that the Bluefinned car has plenty enough torque for brisk progress without having too much torque that would occasionally hinder it.
A previous mk6 I had acquaintance with was fitted with REVO stage 1 software. It was excellent. And for a road car so is the Bluefin I reckon from this limited test.
Obviously if I wanted to use the car for track work then stage 2 REVO would probably give the best results, but that requires hardware additions that a) push up the cost and b) throw off the GTI balance meaning further upgrades would be needed such as brakes and suspension mods to go with the considerable added power to bring the thing back on an even keel. In which case you'd probably be a lot better off buying a K04 car in the first place.
As a sorted road car, the Bluefin GTI does what it needs to do very well, with the option to add a little more in the future.
