« Reply #31 on: 13 April 2015, 10:41 »
Having owned too many to mention turbo cars and turbo Diesels, the torque feel is that wave of thrust you feel in a powerful Diesel (the older PD Diesels were the best to demonstrate this, particularly the 1.9 8v units).
Drive a remapped turbo car and you'll know exactly what I mean instantly - the tuners will get the car to boost much more strongly from initial peak turbo spool and you feel a real thrust (this is what kills clutches) from about 2000rpm on a TDI or small turbo'd GTI and a little higher on an R.
The factory map the engine so that the torque does a bit of a plateau but a tuner will generally give it a bit of a mountain so people don't sit on forums saying "yeah it might be a bit quicker but feels a bit flat still" and instead come back raving saying the car feels a million times quicker which in turn generates more remap sales... it's the feel of the car more than the actuality of the power on hand.
On a Diesel you will notice the torque thrust either on a trailing throttle application or a progressive acceleration - these types of acceleration suit turbo Diesels best as they're slower revving than petrols so you need to ride the torque to get the best out of the thrust, and obviously a turbo is a wheel that needs to increase in speed to provide more boost so snapping the pedal down won't provide the best acceleration, rather more you need to quickly but smoothly push the accelerator pedal.
A mk7 GTI has Diesel like torque (same output in lb ft or NM as the revered old 170 BHP PD unit Diesels) and is fairly low revving so rather than snapping the throttle open it works really well in the mid range if you drive it a bit like a Diesel if you're not going flat out and therefore it allows you to ride the torque plateau to reasonably high revs making the car feel almost like a remapped mk5 GTI.
If you drive it like that with a DSG in anything other than paddle mode it will just change gear non stop making the engine feel flat and laggy, and it's not just VW's that suffer this.

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‘25 8.5R, ‘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