Right lads and lasses, there's been a bit of negativity around here lately (rightly so in Jimble's case with the disgracious showing from VW on his car), so thought I'd inject some Sunday evening positivity.
Had my first proper long distance run over the weekend from home, to my parents house, then down to Cardiff to spend the weekend with my 18 year old nephew that's just started University there.
As my parents are quite old and the drives too long for my father, I was nominated the driver and the GTD was obviously the car. Right so first things first, extra air in the tyres (39psi fronts and 42 rears), as per the filler flap recommendation for a full load - and boy was it a full load ! Checked the oil, still on max, water fine and screen wash topped up.
Now I'm not exactly a small person (6'2) and quite wide and my fathers the same. My mothers (how do I put this politely), is big boned
, so the wife was the only petite one of the 4 of us. Us 4 adults and a FULL boot load meant the car was well laden and the tyres had started to disappear in the wheel arches - so the GTD was certainly heavy. A full tank of Esso's finest and 216 miles laid ahead of us in Saturday.
First thing to comment, whilst you could certainly feel the weight, the suspension remained very compliant in comfort mode, and never crashed and still had plenty of travel. My father commented how much better it road than his Mercedes ! Route was M6, M5, M50, M4 and A48 into Cardiff. Decided to use the adaptive cruise on the motorways set at 76mph and it did fantastically and made the journey very pleasant.
The Sat Nav was superb and very accurate with the traffic warnings being especially accurate. The car just cruised all the way down and after just under 4 hours with a single stop we arrived at our destination. Everyone (including myself) got out of the car feeling not in the least bit tired or stiff - a testament to how good the seats, suspension and noise suppression were. Checked the fuel computer on arrival and was surprised to see 56.2 mpg indicated (and don't forget that's fully laden at 75mph plus).
Coming home today was a bit of a magical mystery tour as the M5 was totally closed due to an accident (thank you TMC - it warned me about the closure 30 minutes before it made the radio broadcasts). Because of this we decided to come all the way up the A49 - through Hereford, Leominster, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Whitchurch etc., which meant quite a bit of stop/start traffic in the towns.
Also, as it got dark about 4:30, and the A49 has large sections unlit, it was a real chance to test out the Xenons and the adaptive lighting which predictably was superb. I also for the first time used the auto main beam feature I'd opted for and found it fantastic. It switched to main beam, then the second it saw either taillights or headlights in the distance immediately switched to dipped beam - then just as quick back to Main beam. TBH this feature worked much better than I had expected.
Also, had some fun on the way back as the A49 is a twisty single carriageway for large parts, and when coming up behind a slow moving car or truck, when it was safe to do so, I hoofed the accelerator and the car (despite the load) just catapulted round the slow moving vehicle - the speed at which it accelerated really surprised me and left a huge smile on my face. Also the DSG performed impeccably, maintaining gears when cruising and instantly changing down when i needed to accelerate.
On my return (after dropping my parents back off at their house), I stopped to fill up again and the computer said...... 59.8mpg, and on doing a brim fill I calculated (for the whole journey weekend 476 miles), 56.4mpg (and I still had 140 miles left on the trip before I filled up).
Overall then (if you have read this far), the car performed impeccably and the fuel consumption giving the speed and acceleration bursts I was doing in a fully laden car made me very happy. The cars just clicked over 2000 miles on the return, so I still think when it's loosened up a little more, she will still have a little extra to give. Overall the 10/10 for the new GTD (although it's now filthy), and defiantly very happy with it so far.
Thanks for reading.
