I blame you lot...

[Exonian]

Nice write-up Andy. Always a pleasure to read your essays.

I am very happy with most things on my R now except one:
Road roar mainly due to the Bridgestones and also perhaps due to lack of effective noise proofing coupled with the ultra thin panels. But in the name of lightness one has to accept this. The boot floor for instance is so thin that it can be depressed with finger pressure. The panels in the foot wells are also very thin. A change of tyres should help a bit, I hope. Perhaps the less focused GTI and GTD are a bit better from a noise perspective.

Am glad you are bonding with the car. Does the missus like it?

My mad rantings don't you mean? 

Yes, the mk7 has crap panels, fully agreed.
The GTI/D don't have quite the same volume of piped in crap sounds unless you have the Sport and Sound in the GTD which is a better noise than the screen vibrator and quite amusing. I'd happily live with a GTD with S&S and if the R hadn't popped up as a cancelled rent boy order I may well have opted for a GTD so equipped next year.

Wifey hasn't even sat in the car yet. She has no interest in it and is happy to run about in our other ancient rattle box which in turn makes me happy 

..............................................

I didn't get to finish writing my 'essay' earlier and stopped short of the interior.

I know there was a lot of disharmony about the seats in the R when it was released and expected to dislike the interior.
I'll ignore the VW leather options as all Golfs specced with leather will look very similar inside so will go purely on the standard cloth.
The GTI's tartan is something I'm pretty fond of and it's one of the bits I miss most about the car but I have to say I can't see what all the fuss was about with the R's standard seats. They're really quite nice in the flesh. Ok, they make the interior very black and I can see why they went with light grey side panels but I really like the interior. It doesn't have the character of the GTI inside but it's nice in a Germanic sort of way.

And I love the dials in the R.
10/10 to VW for the dials in the R.

The blue lighting highlights draw lots of positive comments from people. "Different" and they seem popular.
Shame VW cheaped out and didn't put the lights in the back doors or sills. The 3 door is much more harmonious in this respect with no painted metal on view in the back and nice little cup holders beside the seats.

[am1w]

I love the R's seats and VW have got it just right IMO. If there is such a thing as premium looking cloth seats, this is it. I find leather uncomfortable and most of the VW leather is vinyl, except for the seat back and base. So perhaps 60% is Vienna Vinyl unfortunately. Same for the Carbon seats. The door cards are all vinyl.
Audi do it so much better.

I agree that VW have been skin flints in not lighting up the rear doors and sills. But one can't have everything on a volume hatch even though we are charged premium prices.

Love the blue dials, needles etc. Very sixties disco!

[Booth11]

Mr Ex, thanks for such a detailed post, a great read with some very helpful info, all much appreciated.  
As for the Asker stylee presentation - Asker had better watch out, you'll be doing Asker better than he does himself!  Ahem, you know what I mean

Your explanation of the pedal box is really useful.  If you ever give up the night job!  I'm sure, as you say, being indoctrinated with the Mk5 and Mk6 throttle response, I will be more than familiar with it, and coupled with the obvious improvement over my current drive, that should be enough to satisfy me, for a while anyway.  And if, in time, I find myself wanting a more spontaneous response, and to lose the dead zone, there are options and I know who to ask.

Don't get me started on the R Line subject  ......but I like your description of the R being an enigma.  It brings back a memory from my school days, when my parents attended a parent's evening.  On their return home I asked what my form teacher had said and the reply was "she said you were an enigma!"  We still joke about it.  So maybe the R and I are destined for each other, lol.

See, I liked the original Tallegedas very much and I understand what VW were trying to do with the Cadiz, but in diamond cut form, some of the presence has got lost along the way.  I don't think Pretorias are girly either or weak looking as some do, in fact I like them for the reasons you state, the similarity to a lightweight motorsport wheel.

The Pro Nav is ridiculously expensive for what it is and if it hadn't have come up at a reduced price via the tech pack, I wouldn't have bothered, especially with the new MiB II screen now on the scene, but I know I'll love it.  Every now and then I'll post a seductive pic of it just to feed your envy. 

As for the quad pipes, having seen them in the flesh, I like them a lot, and the R has to show off just a little bit, doesn't it!

[am1w]

 
As for the Asker stylee presentation - Asker had better watch out, you'll be doing Asker better than he does himself!  Ahem, you know what I mean

Did you not know that Andy and I going to have a forum wedding with you as the matron of honour? Sorry to break the news in such a callous manner. I realise it is a bit of a shock! Hope Andy does not mind my rather sudden and surprising overtures.  

[Booth11]

 
As for the Asker stylee presentation - Asker had better watch out, you'll be doing Asker better than he does himself!  Ahem, you know what I mean

Did you not know that Andy and I going to have a forum wedding with you as the matron of honour? Sorry to break the news in such a callous manner. I realise it is a bit of a shock! Hope Andy does not mind my rather sudden and surprising overtures.  

WHAT!!! I'm devastated!!       (not that much of a shock)

No!  I must try to be magnanimous and give you both my blessing   I'm sure Andy (Mr Ex) has been waiting for your proposal with bated breath, er, I mean with trepidation.  Now, Matron of Honour?  Oh go on then, but can I please have a different title - Matron sounds so, well matronly, or even bit 'ooh, er missus'

Now back to the interior....(of the R that is)

I'm looking forward to the blue dials, bored with red needles now.  Shame about the lack of lighting strips in the rear doors and sills, same with the inclusion of some interior LED bulbs but not others.  VW always just let themselves down with the penny pinching.  Those thrifty little Germans....Bless!

I will be having the lovely black as Hell, Vienna Vinyl.  Sticky in summer, rigid in winter, easy wipe clean, what's not to like, and I do like a dark cave cabin     But even the fake carbon nappa confection is too OTT for me.  What is it with you blokes and carbon fibre trim? 

Now will someone, maybe the rogue, killer Wolfsburg robot, please build my R, Pronto!!!

[monkeyhanger]

Had a visitor from Denmark at work today, the company chief of Quality (i'm Quality manager at our site - the new job). He seems much more what i'm used to from a Quality professional, and is a bit of a car nut.

Someone had told him about my car and the first thing he did when he arrived (to discuss a forthcoming audit) was ask if it was true that I had a Golf R. When I said that I did, he insisted on seeing it during the morning break. So we went out to the car park for a look around and in it. At lunchtime he asked where the nearest place to buy a sandwich was - so I took him out in the car to the Tesco extra 1/2 a mile away, going the long way via a junction of the A1 and let it rip for the way back along the junction once the oil had warmed.

He had a look at the price in Denmark, about £90k including the environmental tax (although it does not show in the brochure, the pricelist has a 300ps 4-motion Golf, but they don't call it an R, must be badged up as one though). 

[monkeyhanger]

most of the VW leather is vinyl, except for the seat back and base. So perhaps 60% is Vienna Vinyl unfortunately. Same for the Carbon seats. The door cards are all vinyl.
Audi do it so much better.

Audi use an abundance of pleather too. If your arse or back doesn't touch it, you can almost certainly count on it being pleather in all VAG cars that have "leather".

[Exonian]

 
As for the Asker stylee presentation - Asker had better watch out, you'll be doing Asker better than he does himself!  Ahem, you know what I mean

Did you not know that Andy and I going to have a forum wedding with you as the matron of honour? Sorry to break the news in such a callous manner. I realise it is a bit of a shock! Hope Andy does not mind my rather sudden and surprising overtures.  

It's neither sudden nor unexpected Asker, our long cyber engagement has been a fruitful one even after you cheated on us all with a BMW.

@ Matron B, I might be imagining it but I think there are now more LED's on the cabin than there were on my 2013/14 model. The vanity mirror lights are now LED's according to one of my colleagues. I've not looked to be honest but the warning sticker on the passenger sun visor is also different and is even more garish and hideous.

@ MH, good to see you've hit it off with the big cheese and a surprise to hear the R isn't an R in Denmark. How odd. Even more of an enigma in that trim but as you say, in the flesh it's probably badged up as an R.


In other news: I spent the afternoon sweating and straining and got my spacers fitted. The Cadiz now look 99.9% better.
I'm just out of the bath now and will give them a shakedown later.
No photos I'm afraid of either the car with spacers or of me just out of the bath.
I did attempt photos of the former but they came out crap. The latter looks generally crap so not worth photographing!! 

[am1w]

Andy:
We don't need wedding bells. A couple of Rs with the ting-a-ling-a-ling turbos would do us fine. Rebecca can do the confetti which I am sure she would have detailed to death before chucking them all over the place!

Rebecca:
Ooh, Matron! Don't be gutted. I just could not ask you to indulge in unholy matrimony as I don't know you long or well enough. But I do love your bandaging skills. Besides you don't yet belong to the R fraternity.

Matt:
Will the Danish pastry give you a rise so that you can buy some PSS rubber? You should have bought him a sandwich at least. Taking him to Tesco ,,,,,,, O dear, how cheap!

[monkeyhanger]

Andy:
We don't need wedding bells. A couple of Rs with the ting-a-ling-a-ling turbos would do us fine. Rebecca can do the confetti which I am sure she would have detailed to death before chucking them all over the place!

Rebecca:
Ooh, Matron! Don't be gutted. I just could not ask you to indulge in unholy matrimony as I don't know you long or well enough. But I do love your bandaging skills. Besides you don't yet belong to the R fraternity.

Matt:
Will the Danish pastry give you a rise so that you can buy some PSS rubber? You should have bought him a sandwich at least. Taking him to Tesco ,,,,,,, O dear, how cheap!

He actually bought me a sandwich - joking that i'd probably just used 1/2 a gallon of fuel opening it up on the long route. He probably thinks he needs a pay rise and I need a pay cut as i'm driving that. 

He has a company car - a Volvo V40 D5, and is about to change for something else. He's looking at a GTD or a BMW 330d. I told him to get the BMW unless he's allowed a tuning box on the GTD!