So I arrived at the appointed time to be met by the salesman who started apologising immediately. He was meant to be going on a training course but had checked that everything was set for me before he went only to discover the demo had been sent down the road to have its tracker fitted. He was sent to retrieve it only to find it in pieces with no passenger side dashboard below the facia ! It was still driveable though, so off we went.
A lot of the electronics (stereo, nav, phone, profile settings etc) were all offline, so I couldn't play with any settings which was more than a little disappointing. The manager whose car it was had set the standard drive mode to Economy but we could shift the DSG box into sport but not into normal. Start-stop was active, but we switched that off almost straight away. I think it could be a pain when pulling out for a right turn even if the delay is only slight.
I picked my own test drive route for about an hour which involved some dull traffic-laden A roads, a bit of dual carriageway and lots of quiet B roads
On the A road and the dual carriageway the GTI was fine but nothing special. Brakes are sharp, you can tell the 220 hp power is there, it feels sorted but nothing distinctly different from driving any decent car these days. Plus I was not pushing it yet.
On the B roads however, wow !
As other reviews here and everywhere else have said, it is a fantastic drive. Get it into sport mode and it is very eager to please, although it does seem to hang on to 4th gear a bit too long I think. You can use the paddle of course (black plastic paddles for the guy who asked in another thread). Going round sharp bends at 50-60mph on rutted, potholed B roads in Yorkshire felt absolutely fine. The brakes are sharp but powerful. Seats are great and hugging and supportive. Didn't really look at the instruments so cannot comment much on those except to say you do get the full sweep from zero to full on engine startup. The demo had keyless entry and the start-stop button which was nice, but not worth £355 in my humble opinion.
The DSG box was silky smooth but perhaps a little dull in the economy mode. Changes were hardly noticeable on the A roads, it just did what it needed too. In sport mode it was much more eager as you would expect and some great engine noise could be heard as it revved up and changed. Little blips are emitted as you slow down quickly and it is forced to change down quickly which is kind of cool. Engine noise overall was a little muted (with windows shut admittedly) and if the stereo had been on I don't think you would hear it much at all.
That's about it. Certainly worth the money I am going to be paying out. Even though I have speccd DSG I could think of changing the order to a manual, but will probably leave it as DSG. Have not had a GTI or any sort of performance car before (have driven other peoples and on test days etc) so am thoroughly looking forward to my order.
