Standard GTI MkVII 12 month review (in-depth)

[Hawaii-Five-O]

Grab yourself a cuppa, this may take a while...

With all the chatter and excitement of ordering an R or salivating over the R400 I thought I'd post my long-term review of the owing and driving a standard Golf GTI.

Summary
It's going to sound like a cliche but the GTI really is a supreme all rounder. Raucous and feisty if you're feeling loutish yet smooth and refined when the mood takes. Coming from a long line of VW Golf's this is easily the best yet. It's not perfect but it's getting close.

Note of warning - involves lots of VW Scirocco comparisons!

Ordering (PP vs Stock)
Looking back to March 2013 I must admit to feeling the pressure of ordering my new GTI with the performance pack. Every Tom, Dick and Harry said it was a "no brainer" and you'd be mad not to spec it. The motoring journalists were the same. Well, I resisted and saved myself just shy of a grand. Part of me can only wonder what difference it may have made to driving on the limit but alas I'll never know. From what I hear it's a superb piece of engineering.

DCC (Dynamic Chassis Control) vs Standard set-up
Now then, this was another optional extra I didn't tick. I had it in my last car, a Scirocco, and convinced myself I could live without it this time, especially as the old system wasn't hugely different between settings (and it was standard spec). Again I can only wonder what difference it may or may not have made. Many on here say it's brilliant and turns the car into a limo when set to 'comfort'. What I can tell you is that the standard set-up of the GTI is excellent. Because the Mk7 MQB platform is such a huge leap from the Mk5/Mk6 chassis it made me realise I could live without DCC. The standard set-up of the Mk7 GTI is quality and way better than the Scirocco - even when it was set to comfort mode.

Tech (standard and optional extras)
Here in the UK we're lucky to have such a well specced standard car. The guys over in Ireland and some parts of Europe have some strange omissions like no Xenons. Crazy! This was one of the big draws when I was considering the GTI - generous standard spec (enough to please most tight arses).

I particularly love the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC). With the type of traffic I face on a daily basis this feature is a godsend, particularly when coupled with DSG, as the car practically drives itself in heavy traffic. Climate Control is spot on and keeps the cabin just nice (quiet too), Keyless entry (optional extra) with push button stop/go gives the car an upmarket feel and the interior lighting is classy and understated. The leather steering wheel is chunky, nice to hold and has a logical button arrangement. Standard infotainment system is good, although the screen is a tad small (Scirocco's was bigger), but the sound quality is excellent for what I need. Bluetooth works well and the voice quality is clear even at 80 mph. DAB is a nice to have and works flawlessly.

I particularly like the Xenon headlights, DRL's and rear led design, especially at night. They're powerful, produce a clean white light and even look mean in the day due to the DRL design. Having the cornering light and adaptive function just makes them even cooler.

Soundaktor (sound actuator)
I distinctly remember my first test drive in an early GTI and how it sounded under hard acceleration in 'Sport' mode. I remember thinking this sounds a bit like a tractor and I didn't like it. For many of us the sound the actuator produces a Marmite moment. We either love it or hate it. I'm kinda sat in the middle neither loving it or hating it. If you're going to pump fake sound into the cabin I want it to feel more realistic. To me they haven't achieved this. It sounds too gruff and doesn't purr like a V6 (or V8), but it should.

DSG
I had the dry 7 speed box in my Scirocco and have the older wet 6 speed design in this. I can't really tell much difference as they're both silky smooth in operation. I do know the newer 7 speed unit produces better mpg than a manual. However the older 6 speed box uses more fuel but can handle more torque. The gear level is much better quality and slicker in the new GTI. I also enjoy the decoupling sensation when you take your foot off the gas and the DSG coasts in 'Eco' mode. All in the name a save fuel (Bluemotion tech).

Don't think I could go back to manual now after driving DSG for the past five years. It's simply a fantastic system which is so well engineered and suits my life at the moment. When the kids have flown the nest and I stop commuting on a daily basis I see no reason to got back to manual. Always fancied a classic 911 to poodle about in and take it on track days occasionally. A man can dream...

Build quality
Now, the Scirocco was a nice place to sit, it looked nice, had a great low down driving position which made you feel snug and sporty, but once you experience the build quality in the Mk7 GTI you realise it's in another league. Don't get me wrong, the Scirocco was a quality car and had an interesting interior, albeit mostly nicked from the Volkswagen Eos. However, I can't get over how well screwed together the Mk7 GTI is. There are no rattles, squeaks or vibrations anywhere, at least not in mine. This was one of the biggest surprises coming from the Scirocco. Right from the off my Scirocco never had that solid 'Germanic' feel to it (maybe due to being built in Portugal). Too many squeaks and vibrations for my liking. But, you learn to live with them.

Ride & Refinement
My Scirocco sat on 18" tyres and came equipped with ACC (Adaptive Chassis Control). Despite this it always had a hard ride (softened to some extent in ACC comfort mode) and created a lot of tyre noise especially over poor tarmac. Jumping in the GTI its incredible by comparison. It also rides on 18" tyres yet the noise suppression is amazing. Traveling over the same noisy stretch of tarmac the difference is chalk and cheese. I don't have ACC (DCC) on my the GTI yet the ride quality and refinement are amazing for a car of this type. Some would say its too refined but I welcome it after coming for the rather raw Scirocco. This GTI doesn't suffer the suspension crashes over large potholes either. Again impressive for a sporty hatchback.

Performance
This is harder for me to judge. My Scirocco was the Twin-Changer TSI with only 160ps yet it felt very quick. Much quicker than the power would suggest. This still bemuses me. However, the GTI has 220ps yet doesn't feel blisteringly quick by comparison - despite having 37.5% more power. Why is this? Could it be because your cushioned better from the road and that sound insulation is far superior so you don't get the 'impression' of speed? The GTI's power delivery is a little smoother than the twin-changer, and has a lot more torque too. Yet somehow it doesn't feel as vicious as my Scirocco used to. All in all I can't really put my finger on it but it's a little disappointing.

Looks
The GTI is a fine looking family hatchback with sharp crease, cleaver detailing, great alloys and gorgeous xenon headlights and rear led's. I really like the simple yet purposeful twin chrome exhausts which make the GTI look quick. But it can't hold a candle to the rakish profile of the Scirocco which I believe is a modern classic. As it was designed as a proper two door coupe it's a little unfair to compare directly. I know the Scirocco is looking a little dated in parts (front and rear lights and front indicators in particular - which they've now addressed) but the basic profile still looks good even after 6 years. Its design spawned many copycats which is a great compliment to the designers.

Warranty work
During its first year I've been in for warranty work twice. First up was the grinding, squeaky front suspension issue. Completely solved due to incorrect replacement of the suspension gators (either at the factory, or more likely, during transport). Second was the gloss black rear spoiler fin which had stared to come off. Fixed. I dared not ask how! And lastly I had a coolant temperature sensor fail. This was replaced and has performed perfectly ever since. These faults are part and parcel of owning a car from new and it doesn't annoy me too much - as long as they get fixed under warranty.

Bugbears
My number 1 bugbear... Even with the new 'anti-tramping' technology I'm still baffled as to why I can't put all the power down in first and second gear. Annoying is not the word!! Being front wheel drive I still don't believe they've sorted it. It could be my tyres (Continental's with 3mm remaining) or that I'm too heavy with my right foot but I expect to put nearly all of the engines available power into thrusting me forward without the sodding EPS light flickering on the dash. This is one of the reasons my next car may have four wheel drive.

Not as fast as I'd hoped coming from a fairly quick Scirocco. Not much I can do about that apart from getting it remapped (or tuning box). And no, I'm not switching to an R like everybody else on this forum ;-) It's my belief that all modern cars are getting quicker. I think you'd need to drive an R or M135I to put an appreciable gap between the many reps driving pretty powerful 170 bhp Audi's these days. This trend contributes to my/your GTI not feeling as quick as it should.

Fuel consumption is nowhere near what VW quoted. My long-term average is about 37-38 mpg. I accept this is a quick car but I don't know how car manufacturers get away with it. Hermetically sealed rolling roads should be banned when used to published official consumption figures. Use real roads people!

Whoever put that small channel behind the standard alloy wheel needs shooting. Collects crap and makes the alloys hard to clean and dry! There must have been a better way to design them.

Steering wheel paddles could/should be bigger. The new Audi S3's look about right.

Paintwork is on the thin side imo. The Scirocco faired much better even after four years of driving. My GTI is peppered and I've had to use touch up on the bigger chips.

Conclusion
All-in-all as an everyday performance family hatchback the GTI is hard to beat. It excels at almost everything it does. It's well screwed together, nicely styled, has just enough menace to suggest it's quick, practical, roomy, sporty, refined, has a low squat stance, lovely retro tartan seats (which are very comfy), has a good quality unfussy interior, produces a nice exhaust note when you nailing it and holds its resell value well.

And lastly it has heritage. This is something its competitors would dearly love. Ask almost anyone what a GTI is and they'll probably tell you it stands for iconic fast hatchback... and that's exactly what it is.

[monkeyhanger]

I get the whole “it doesn’t feel as fast as my last car”, I think it’s down to refinement of the new chassis. My 170TDI Scirocco felt faster than my GTD and off the line it most definitely was – no tramping at all in the last car, even in wet weather and full throttle in 1st. I can get the wheels to spin in 3rd at 45mph+ under hard acceleration, and 1st/2nd in the wet are ½ throttle at most if you don’t want the car’s front wheels to tramp.

[Exonian]

Good effort H5O!
Nicely put, nice photos (as ever  ) and just 'nice'.

258lb ft is an awful lot to put through the front wheels so I understand the traction issues and would guess there's no real answer other than 4wd unfortunately

And the reason the 160 twin charged engine feels so aggressive is the supercharger. No spool time with that little charger so the car will just rocket off the line. I used to have a Polo G40 many many years ago and it was the same. Only 113bhp but would wipe the floor with many cars and always always put a smile on my face. Just a lag free deep lunged feel.

[Sootchucker]

Nice write up Mike.

Although I "only" have a GTD, I pretty much agree with most of what you say. For me, I smile when people look at the car and without reading the badges say "ooh....very nice GTI. Unless you are in the know, they look pretty similar and I suppose it's a compliment that people think it's a GTI 

Agree with the lack of squeaks or rattles, but to be fair, I must have got a good Rocco as mine was brilliantly screwed together. Weirdly, and as you say, my 184ps GTD doesn't feel appreciably quicker than my 140ps Rocco, so as you think the same on the petrol side, it must be down to the added refinement.

I do have DCC on my GTD and it's a massively better system than on the Rocco and does indeed turn the car into a very comfortable long distance cruiser.

Downsides - not many really and those criticisms I have could be easily sorted. For instance, the Bluetooth, as the Golf is the newer car why can't I access my phone book in the DIS screen like I could on the Rocco. Instead I either have to look at the screen and scroll whilst driving, or use the voice system which it seems is only accurate about 50% of the time. Door opening warning lights should be standard on a nearly £30k car and things like car-net and traffic sign recognition should be standard for this price of car. My car came with Bridgestone tyres which can be downright dangerous in the wet so whoever at VW negotiated that deal on tyres for the GTI/GTD wants taking outside and shooting. These are performance cars and deserve tyres to suit. 

I suppose the proof of the pudding for me is that even after a year, when locking it and walking away, I quite often give it a reverse glance, and do really enjoy still driving it.

Like you say bloody good, but could have been very nearly perfect.

[matchboy]

Nice review!! 

[mrlapou]

Having had similar disappointing wheel spin in 1st and 2nd gears (tyres had about 5.5mm tread), perhaps in time with all the extra torque through front wheels,  the GTi will be offered with an all wheel drive option like the new 227bhp Audi TT Quattro.

GTi PPAWD

[JBirchy]

Great review bud. I've been thinking of doing similar as I'm about to power through the 10,000 mile barrier but I may well leave it until its a year old in March.

Like yourself, I ordered a non-PP car with DSG and in 95% of situations I'm pleased with it. I do get the odd hankering for a more connected front end as I live in rural Lancashire and I'm surrounded by tight, narrow B-Roads. I believe the PP car would offer that thanks to that clever diff but I try not to think about it too much!

I did also spec DCC and it's wonderful. My local roads are pretty scabby, so much so that my wife's brand new 1-Series M-Sport does bounce around a bit thanks to a stiff (but well controlled) ride. The DCC set to Comfort mode honestly does ride as well as my Father-In-Laws Range Rover. Sounds stupid, and most people would not believe it but the sophistication of the damping/suspension calibration on the MK7 is quite special. It's the best road car set up I've used this side of a Porsche 997.2 911 on PASM adaptive dampers.

I'm writing some reports on my car for EVO Magazine as part of a Michelin Tyre feature, and in my latest one I've commented on the interior quality and how the red trim lighting, the high def gauges, the steering wheel, seats and angled centre console make it feel like a much more premium car than its base price of just over £25k would suggest.

Coming from a Passat CC I can relate to a lot of your comparisons with the Roc' too. The whole architecture is so much better. If they just updated the Roc' to the new MQB platform, it would be an incredible car.

I'm loving my GTI, I genuinely look forward to getting in it every day and driving to work. I often get tempted by an R and think that with an extra 80bhp and AWD, it must be an astonishing car! When I come round to change I'll need more space and will be most certainly considering the R Sportwagen, along with a BMW 330d xDrive Touring but one thing is for sure... The GTI is by far and away the best car I've owned.

[drisser]

h50

I actually agree with most of what you say and am also slightly confused with all the obsession about people ordering an R compared to a GTi

Am just about to write a short post on my back to back drives of R and GTi PP this weekend on exactly the same roads in exactly the same conditions..

I have been away from the forum for a bit having ordered a GTi PP about a year ago then had to move to Scotland so I bought a TT TDi Quattro as an all rounder which it is brilliant at.

That is about to change soon as I am moving back south so have been looking again at GTis etc.  Having driven both Golfs back to back on Saturday my over-riding impression is for looks, ability, cost and performance the GTi would be my preference.  I wouldn't order the R for the same reason I originally ordered a GTi over a BMW M135i - the only upside of the BMW was a faster 0-60 and quite frankly the opportunity to really wring it out from the lights when you happen to end up next to a car that is slightly faster or slower are next to zero and not really a concern to me..

I worry the R will get a bit of a bad reputation, when I was on the test drive I definitely noticed more "agressive" driving by people in front of me and behind me wanting to take me on.  I think the Gti is much better looking and more subtle.

It's like comparing a road test of a boggo std Porsche Cayman and a new Audi TTS - the Audi might be a tad quicker or whatever for the same price but at just over £40k I would rather have a Cayman for the way it drives and handles, regardless that the 0-60 is 5.7 seconds v 5 seconds.  As Autocar wrote in their test, the "Porsche is for people who care more about how they go fast, rather than how fast they go" and in the real world, a car with a 0-60 of 5 secs v 6 secs is quite minimal and reduced even more when you look at in gear acceleration.

My biggest gripe of the R was the fake noise though, artificially generated.  I got back in my £2000 15 year old Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo and its 5 Cylinder sounds 10 times better than the golf R, I just dont get the need for making fake engine noise.

No denying the R is a really rapid car in all conditions, but to be honest so is my TT Tdi Quattro once you are above 30mph.  I think the R will be really sensitive to spec as a used car as well - meaning you need to spec Leather, etc etc which will push the price up, whereas the std spec on the GTi is pretty good and you dont really need the leather seats etc.  I think speaking to the dealer as well, with deposit contribution there is chance of a good deal on a GTi and less so on an R

I can see why someone would like an R, but its not for me..

Andy

[monkeyhanger]

4 pipes aside, I wouldn't say the GTI looks less subtle than the R, quite the opposite. I think more people front and side would see a GTI (or even a GTD) standing out from standard Golf than an R and would recognise it for what it is. The only way an R is advertising itself from anywhere but the back end is when it is painted in Lapiz blue.

The "obsession" with the R was the much better GFVs (the gap has closed up a fair bit to 48% RRP on GTI and 51% on the R now), you could buy an R (costing about £4k more) and have a GFV about £4.5k more. Over the term, the R was less to own. There were also the cheap lease deals, so cheap that they made the GTI look positively expensive on a monthly basis. More car for less money - who wouldn't have an interest in that? The much higher GFVs also took the edge off the initial hit of chopping in your GTI/GTD much earlier than you might normally do.

It's a better car that's why it costs more, that's not to say you're really missing out with a GTI (it's not like the R is twice as good), they're both good cars, but when you look at the specs, VW aren't charging £4k more for nothing, the R is no worse for value for money than the GTI. If you could get the more expensive, higher performance R for the same 2 or 3 year ownership term, there's not many that wouldn't get the R if they were in the market for either car. With the GFVs as they were, buying an R instead of a GTI might have been the only true "no-brainer" choice when buying a Golf.

It might not make sense to chop in the GTI you already have prematurely because the R turned up (especially now the GFV is £3k lower).

Both cars sound fake, they both have Sounaktors proving a lot of audible "entertainment" (i'll probably have my R's output dialled down a bit by the dealership or maybe a lend of VCDS, I thought it was a bit loud on my test drive). The R shows off a little more with the active exhaust flaps.

The thing i'm most looking forward to in the R is some traction in 1st and 2nd (and sometimes even 3rd) after suffering badly from lack of it on my Bridgestone shod GTD (and the fact I was too tight to ditch 4 unworn tyres  ).

I'd also disagree with Leather being essential on the R but not the GTI. They both have unique seat coverings which become anonymous when leather is selected. I do think that Vienna VW leather is pretty crap in quality vs cost.

Whichever performance Golf you buy, you're not exactly slumming it, they're all great.

[drisser]

Totally get the GFV argument I saw it myself before they adjusted them and if you were making a decision based on monthly payment alone it was a no brainer, 100% agree.

However that argument holds true for a golf v non golf.  A couple of months ago you could get £1500 deposit contribution on a new Porsche Cayman and drive it away for £379 a month, with a GFV of over 60% and you can't put the two in the same category in terms of image,looks, overall driving. yes I know it's not an everyday car but if you are spending well over £30k on a performance car then you also look at what else that gets you, either on pcp or without pcp, especially if you don't need 5 doors and if I could have a cayman in the garage I would happily run around in a bought and paid for £3k golf tdi mon-fri.

It's not to say the gti bought new is a cheap car because it isn't.. I know anyone with an R or thinking of getting one will defend the rationale and I totally get why.  Outside of pcp quotes though, just looking at the total cost of the car, amazing 0-60 etc etc, its still a golf and let's face it many people will spec an R up quite heavily which starts to tread on the toes of a lot of other very very good cars. 

I do say again though, if you are in the market for the best new all round practical performance car and happy to do a pcp then trade it on, then I have no doubt its the best out there.  For me personally I don't necessarily need all the practicality wrapped up the same performance package so it makes you look very hard at the cost of changing, and I am not a huge fan of buying brand new, and a nicely specced R with interest added is knocking on £40k, and that makes my eyes water. 

Right now I am seeing mk7 gti's head to nearly £20k approved used and in a year or so they will look very compelling value..