Hi all,
I thought I’d share my thoughts after 6 months of ownership and 5000 miles with a MK7 GTI.
Background: Bought the car nearly new with 5000 miles on the clock. Negotiated some money off and a very good part-ex deal on an 8 year old Polo believe it or not.
Options on the car include:
- Winter Pack
- DCC
- Dis Nav Pro
- Rear view camera
- 19 inch alloys
- Metallic Black
- HBA
- Performance pack
Type of driving: Commute roughly 50 miles a day on A roads and spend a lot of time in town at slow speeds and country lanes.
Performance: Excellent. Shame it can’t be used to the full potential all the time, but nonetheless it is useable and fun on most journeys. Reasonable low end torque (I came from a diesel with roughly the same) and real shove above 4000 rpm, exciting. Excellent overtaking, inspires confidence in general. Feels very quick flat out and coupled with the DSG in incredibly competent. Super fast gear changes –bullet proof. Feels like you might be missing out on the final 5% of ‘fun’ that could be had with the manual, but the ease of use and integration with ACC, makes the DSG a no brainer for me.
Acceleration at 20 mph and above - excellent levels of grip, the LSD comes into to its own accelerating out of bends, incredible confidence if you were to floor it mid corner.
Below 20mph relatively moderate acceleration, in wet and dry, can induce a strange, at times loud and annoying ‘hopping/bumping/banging’ for a brief second until the traction control works out whats going on and sorts it out. Annoying and I wonder if its due to the tyres that came as standard? Dunlops?
Acceleration from relatively low speeds in the wet is better than any other front wheel drive car I’ve driven. The LSD appears to (once its thought about for a millisecond) transfer just the right amount of power/torque to the require wheel.
Never had any torque steer whatsoever.
Interior: Standard tartan: fun, superb quality, lots of positive comments. In general more interesting than Audi (boring) and far and away exceeds other hot hatch competitors eg.. Ford/Renault and many other cars than should be of same or better quality.
Seats – very comfortable on long journeys. Zero complaints. Winter pack heated worth every penny.
Steering wheel: Just the right width – all the buttons in the right place. But why why why can’t the driving mode be control from the wheel? Seems like a basic/stupid omission for hot hatch.
Tech: Dis Nav Pro:
- Position: I find the position of the unit to be slightly too low and when properly following the Sat Nav map it takes your eyes a bit too far away from the road for my liking. Central unit between rev/speedo which also displays directions make up for this to a certain extent but would prefer it to be higher def and allow a small moving map.
- Maps and routing: 50% of the time: reasonable; 50%: terrible. The traffic shown on the maps invariably out of date with jams either clear when it wants to route you around or not recognising new jams that google traffic does notice. Not completely reliable but generally gets you to the destination if by a convoluted route. Don’t know if updates help this? Mainly due to the ridiculous update process.
- Screen: Looks great. It really completes the whole look of the whole interior dash over the standard screen. Had the frozen screen issue when cold where screen does not respond to input. Very poor from a £1750 unit, basically unacceptable.
- Jukebox: 8GB? of storage space – excellent to permanently store music in the car not worry about phone etc. No issues. Why can’t tracks be directly loaded to the j.box from a phone? Mad. Having to use an SD is old school and annoying. Who has ever stored music on a SD card ?!?. Plays videos whilst at a standstill, good novelty feature.
Ride and handling – 19inch alloys
The only option I didn’t want on the car was the 19inch alloys. I prefer the look of them over the 18s (I think they really make the car look special) but I was worried about the ride.
Over pot holes and large-ish imperfections the 19s are crashy, probably unavoidable for tyres with this profile. Everywhere else the DCC really makes up for the limited tyre cushioning amazingly well. I would not want the 19s without DCC.
Road noise - not as silent as the 18s im sure, but acceptable. M25 beige concrete section – moderately loud ….
Feels stable and confident at all speeds.
Steering: Limited feel with the electric power steering, but all in all not bad. Sport mode, feels a bit heavier than perhaps it should be.
DCC and modes itself: Brilliant – couldn’t live without this. It gives the car a range of characters to suit your mood. An essential option in my mind. I change modes three/four times every journey. Comfort is well damped over bumps, even with the 19s. I leave the suspension in this mode 80% of the time and it gives a relaxing ride. Sport is firmer but not a disaster on uneven surfaces, not skittish like some other ‘sports’ suspension set ups. Other modes: Eco – makes me feel sick. Push the accelerator and the car slows down momentarily as it engages a gear and pushes you forward in the seat belt when you expect to go backwards.
Stopped using after 1 week. Normal – as you’d expect - and strangely appears to give the best fuel economy. I only use it on long journeys for this reason. In town either in comfort or sport.
Economy: this is where the car has amazed me and really makes the ownership experience more palatable. On any 10 mile + journey (without traffic – with normal driving and some bursts of acceleration) 30 mpg can be guaranteed, this has increased to 32-34 mpg recently. On longer journeys (40 + miles) I’ve had 40 mpg, which I find incredible, and this has been without having to be super careful with the right foot. More than 40 appears to be possible. On more engaging drives (again > 5-10miles) I rarely get below 25-27 mpg again brilliant. With the reduced fuel prices and petrol over diesel I’m not spending a huge amount more than the Polo.
ACC: again, another option that has transformed the driving experience. Great on motorways and in motorway traffic, very relaxing. Useful in town. Can exhibit some moderately dangerous behaviour. E.g. if you are in ACC sport mode, with the speed setting at say 30 or more mph and the car in front pulls away from a standstill or is at a slow speed and turns right for example, the car lose the lock and will accelerate hard towards whatever you are pointed, which could be pedestrians or other things you wouldn’t want to run in to. In some (certainly not all) situations this can be dangerous. You just need to make sure the speed setting is right, which it may not be if you’ve come of a main road for example.
It sometimes loses the lock on the car in front and accelerates hard towards it, I’ve had this both on the motorway and in town - Need to stay alert - Doesn’t always pick cars up in spray.
Quick run through of the options for anyone considering them:
- Winter Pack – heated seats: excellent, bigger washer sprayer tank: almost takes a 5 litre bottle, very useful. Headlamp washers – do they actually do anything?! Yet to discover.
- DCC – Essential option, gives the car multiple characters.
- Dis Nav Pro – For £1750 - this is not good enough – unacceptable. If money is no object, get it as it makes the interior of the car look great. If options are limited I’d think hard about choosing something else.
- Rear view camera – Pretty good, useful turn in/wheel marker parking feature. Doesn’t appear to work above a certain speed. And yes I agree it feels weird trying to open the boot whilst its still on. Also sometimes people honk their horn at you thinking you’ve left the boot open when its on.
- 19 inch alloys – complete the look of the car. I would be worried, ride wise, choosing these over the 18 without DCC.
- Metallic Black – I wanted carbon grey, but black has grown on me. Now prefer it and when cleaned properly it looks great.
- HBA – Very useful but in my experience doesn’t dip the beam quite fast enough. Needs to be 0.25 second quicker.
- Performance pack – No brainer for the LSD alone – no torque steer, maximum confidence. Nothing to compare the brakes or extra power too. But for £900, excellent.
Fixed price service pack - great for piece of mind. Apart from when the VW dealer I took it to for its first service LEFT THE WINDOW FULLY OPEN OVERNIGHT WITH THE RAIN POURING IN (IN A DODGY AREA) AND LOST THE SERVICE BOOK. Never found out if it was lost or stolen from the car. Unacceptable.
Size
Boot: smaller than you think.
Back seats: Had 4 people in the other day for the first time, all very comfortable. Load through and 2/3 split very useful.
Overall: I struggle to think of a car that is as competent, fast, well rounded and practical. Probably the best all rounder there is – period.
