« Reply #5 on: 09 December 2014, 19:43 »
I always think the best thing to do when you're feeling a little of the love for the GTI going is to go and drive something else.
It's then when you get back in your GTI you realise why you bought one in the first place.
I was coming out of B&Q yesterday evening with my £2.48 bag of spring washers (to fix a bed, long story) into the gloom of the car park. There was one car in the car park that immediately caught my eye - a very tidy mk6 GTI.
With just rear LEDs and a nice set of alloys the mk6 GTI still looks great.
An ED30 is an old car now, someone else would have had the best years out of it and considering how much they still change hands for you've got to accept there will be a point which I think is coming up soon where, like the 25th Anni before it, it's just another older car requiring quite a bit of money being spent on it to keep it mint. The mk7 R is the car that's going to replace the ED30 as the modern classic Golf.
What do you get with an ED30 that you don't with a mk6 GTI? More horsepower coming from a bigger turbo that therefore needs more fuel to get the best out of it, produced at much higher revs than a mk6 GTI.
So you get a slower response at lower revs and it drinks fuel if you drive it fast.
As your mk6 GTI is out of warranty it would be a much better drivers car at normal road speeds with just a simple remap giving you about 300 lb ft of torque at nice low revs making it a very quick cross country car and still not drink much fuel.
A slightly nicer set of seats in the ED30 that the leather will be starting to show its age by now in most examples.
And what else?
Yes you can still buy mint ED30s with minimal miles but you'll pay top dollar for them and unless it's your full time job keeping it mint and low mileage you won't get the return you've invested in it.
A 330 BMW is an amazingly capable machine but it's not a GTI.
A friend of mine hired a 335d x-drive for the weekend a couple of months ago. Brand spanking new with hardly any miles on it.
At first I was bowled over with the huge torque, smoothness and general solidity. Then came a few bends and roundabouts.
A 335d might have all wheel drive, it might have oodles of grunt, it might even sound good for a Diesel but it doesn't drive like a GTI around the twisties. So a 330d ain't going to be any better.
Go spend a few hours in a 330d and then get back into the GTI and take it for a blast then make your mind up where your priorities in motoring lie...
Then again if you're young and have no ties with a burning desire to try out new things then you will already know your destiny and won't listen to an old fart like me who's been there and done it, I think you already know what you're going to do!
Logged
‘23 8R, ‘20 8CS, ‘19 135iX, ‘19 TCR, ‘17 Ed40, ‘17 GTD, ‘15 7R, ‘13 GTI PP, ‘11 GTI, ‘09 GTI, ‘98 Ibiza Cupra, ‘05 GTI, ‘06 Polo GTI, ‘04 GT TDI, ‘05 Fabia vRS, ‘02 GTI T, ‘03 Ibiza TDI 130, ‘01 Leon 180, ‘89 mk2 16v, ‘99 Ibiza TDI, ‘96 VR6, ‘98 Ibiza TDI, ‘92 VR6, ‘88 mk2 8v, ‘92 Polo G40, ‘91 mk2 8v, ‘89 mk2 8v, 205 GTI 1.9, ‘83 mk1 GTI, ‘80 Scirocco GTI, plus some others I’ve forgotten
