« Reply #225 on: 30 March 2021, 16:30 »
So long as it had an adequate clutch (and decent gear change) the Clubsport would have been fantastic in manual form.
The R is always going to accelerate MUCH faster under ideal conditions so a more engaging poor relation to that car with a manual box would have been nice. The manual 245 GTI doesn’t quite have the rev band to be missing link.
My DSG showed itself up once again on a detour thanks to roadworks.
A winding steep B road up through a forest which ordinarily would have been huge fun in the right car with no traffic ended up being merely irritating.
Due to the roadworks this road was taking all the non-HGV traffic so it was slow going through the constant zig-zag of bends following the usual SUV’s and dodging the road-hog works vans and Range Rovers coming the other way. It *should* have been a smooth drive in an auto though. But here we go again, every sharp uphill bend presented to the car and the TCU has a zoom committee meeting leaving me with zero power until a decision is made on which gear to shuffle into. The bends came up on the AID to warn me they were there despite hardly ever getting above 35 - 40 mph in the convoy of cars so the Clubby “manager” sure knew they were there.
I’m sorry but these cars are set up for some arbitrary tests under ideal conditions or for Evo magazine reading boy racers with everything in between an often poor compromise.
Yes, there are the paddles but there’s no way they should be necessary most of the time.
An amazing car let down by a piss poor TCU.
Hell even most of my random “bong!”s have stopped now of their own accord, aside from in thick fog at 4:30am today which kind of upset the front camera. So the car sure isn’t a duffer.
I’m no manual die-hard, in fact I’m not even a massive fan of manual gearboxes.
I need to find a workaround though or it’ll be a long four years.

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‘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