Considering cancelling my order......

[CraigW]

Apart from those who haven't ordered yet and who want cloth, heated seats, that is.  Anyone like Norbreck is in luck, but it still looks like the option is no longer available on the GTD/GTI.

I have had confirmation from VW that it is still available Jules. I actually added it tonight to my spec. 

[Sootchucker]

Yeah great news Norbreck.... Did you ask the Sales Manager if the demo was available for a test drive or was it purely for show only?

Demo GTi won't be available for test until the end of next week apparently. They also said they are not allowed to sell it for 6 months even if someone came in and offered £10k over book price for it

Think it's going to become the managing directors car.

[Jules Winfield]

That's good to hear - thanks, Craig.  I'm not planning on changing for a couple of years, but I had horrible visions of spending the intervening time trying desperately to come up with a worthy successor to my GTD.  Now I don't need to bother.

It does make me wonder, though - what are VW UK up to with the configurator?

1. No Carbon Grey (available since day 1).
2. No 2014 options like heated windscreen.
3. Mysterious removal of winter pack for cloth seats.

[Gung-Ho]

Thanks Norbreck...

But I still find it hard to believe they're not prepared to sell for love or money... Dealers would sell their own mothers given half a chance!  hahaha

[dippy_x]

So... Cloth with heated seats is still ok?  No need to get in touch with dealer to confirm?

[Sootchucker]

I'd probably still check. Whist mine "appears" at least to be progressing with its winter pack in place, if VW have since changed the goalposts since I ordered, it may or may not still affect some people.

Doesn't do any harm to check.

[monkeyhanger]

I do wonder how honest these dealers are going to be when trying to sell the GTI demos that aren't full UK spec. The lack of ADC should in theory be a significant change in risk (for the worse) as far as the insurance companies go. It puzzles me why the UK demos don't have ADC, it's not as if the equipment hasn't been available before the real UK customer GTI/GTD orders will be built. Do the Irish cars have it? If not then maybe they've just built Irish spec GTIs for launch demos. If ADC is missing I wonder what else is (nothing I can see from photos already provided here).

[Sootchucker]

Maybe they haven't been type approved for the UK yet (as far as insurance goes) - only guessing ?

Either that or maybe the calibration required for the ADC cameras makes build times longer and hence with VW's desire to get demo cars into dealers hands ASAP, they deliberately missed it off to speed up production times ?

[Bill_the_Bear]

[mad wild guessing]
Demos are for selling cars.  Which really means they need to look good, and if they will be test driven then they need to drive good.  So anything not going towards these aims is a waste of money.

So maybe they've said "the ADC is not going to contribute to a sale by being present on the demo, but a nice paint job, big sat nav etc might." hence the choice of equipment.  Do the dealers get these demos at a huge discount?  Again VW would want to save money by not providing features that they don't need to.
[/mad wild guessing]

[JohnP]

My dealer confirmed with VW - cloth seats with winter pack still ok. Panic over!

I guess these things keep us occupied while we are waiting for the car to arrive......