What have you bought for your Mk8?

[monkeyhanger]

I'm definitely paying £370 less than expected, not entirely sure how they worked it out. I'm presuming that somewhere they gave my discount before VAT, so the saving is bigger than I expected. It might be the £2400 discount  (£1400 margin dealership plus £1000 of the £3000 deposit contribution is supposedly from the dealer.). Add VAT to the £2400.and you're up at £2880, not far away from the total discount when you add VWFS's £2k on.

Just had an email to sat that my car has arrived at the dealership, but sales guy is off until Monday, so unless someone else is prepared to hand over, it'll be next week now.

[monkeyhanger]

Picking up tomorrow, confirmed - train to Grimsby booked.

[monkeyhanger]

Had a real "Trains, Panes and Automobiles" journey to get the car at Grimsby and bring it back to Newcastle.

Had 2 trains booked - Newcastle to Doncaster, then Doncaster to Grimsby, if only it went that smoothly...

All Edinburgh to London trans cancelled, someone mown down and killed on the tracks south of Darlington, so got the Metro to Sunderland, train from Sunderland to Thornaby, train from Thornaby to York, train from York to Doncaster, which was dangerously full (the first train from Edinburgh since the Darlington accident), and finally got a train from Doncaster to Grimsby.

It was worth it when I got there:-





More pics from home, not the greatest as the weather is crap - you can see the fog on the Tyne.









I could've headed out west to get straight onto the A1, but I thought i'd drive over the Humber bridge, as i've never done it before, then skirt around York up the A19.

The car was great - as nice and smooth as BEVs are, they're a bit dull/soul-less - zero drama.

The Bridgestone curse has struck again: S005 Potenza this time - they seem as hard and noisy as any of the previous incarnations - might bin them immediately for some Michelins or Goodyears from Costco.

Early days as everything is as everything is tight as a drum, but mpg was a little dissappointing - 160 miles of mixed driving - half semi-windy A-roads, half dual carriageway sat at 75mph and I got 34.2mpg. Was looking for the high 30s, given that 7th cog my 2015 manual R never had.

The elasticated nets in the boot and on the back of the front seats (with a hard plastic back to those seats) are a nice standard touch to stop anything loose from rattling around. The stubby little DSG selector is new - need to get used to that. Otherwise, very nice seats. Did the OBD11 fixes for stuff like Lane Assist memory (set it to off and it stays off beyond the ignition cycle).

Just got on to VWFS to withdraw from the finance and retain the £3k deposit contribution - 10.1% APR is just nuts, on those terms you pay more interest than capital over a 3 or 4 year PCP term.

[Snoopy]

Sounds like the luck I have on trips. Glad the ending was worth it. Shame its chucking it down up here today. I expect the mpg will improve with miles. They could have cleaned the leaves out of the handover bay   

[BillSan]

Congrats on getting the S3 sorted mate.  I hope you'll enjoy it and I'm sure you won't be disappointed with the performance.  I'd get one too if I could afford it but my CS lease still has a year to run.  Although the bongs are an annoying distraction nobody can get the same cost/benefit now that we could all get two years ago.

I'm also not a fan of the huge grille on the S3 but I'd get used to it - I wasn't over keen on the front of CS either but it has grown on me.

[Exonian]

The S3 looks very nice MH 
Glad you picked it up ok, not too long a wait even if a faff to collect on the day.

MPG sounds about right. I did 150+ miles yesterday and averaged circa 34mpg. Some crappy lanes, mostly fast A roads, light traffic, dry and not too cold.
A few days ago I managed nearly 40mpg on a fairly steady 70mph run plus some slower A roads.
It seems to vary day to day like that, sometimes no rhyme nor reason why it does better or worse mpg.

[monkeyhanger]

Congrats on getting the S3 sorted mate.  I hope you'll enjoy it and I'm sure you won't be disappointed with the performance.  I'd get one too if I could afford it but my CS lease still has a year to run.  Although the bongs are an annoying distraction nobody can get the same cost/benefit now that we could all get two years ago.

I'm also not a fan of the huge grille on the S3 but I'd get used to it - I wasn't over keen on the front of CS either but it has grown on me.

I slightly prefer the S3 grille to the Golf 8 droopy front end - that still hasn't grown on me, the MK7 looked so much better. Having no wait by grabbing a stock car just built and waiting a month for it to arrive, as well as the £3k deposit contribution (pocketed and withdrawn from my agreement the day after collection) made it an easy decision to go S3 rather than R.

No bongs yet - are these notifications of temporary unavailability of certain safety systems e.g. front assist sensor impaired etc? The Born gets them occasionally.

[Ceefeesh]

Car looks good. An S3 is still appealing. Can’t comment on the prospect of bongs. I’m still bong free🤞

[monkeyhanger]

The S3 looks very nice MH 
Glad you picked it up ok, not too long a wait even if a faff to collect on the day.

MPG sounds about right. I did 150+ miles yesterday and averaged circa 34mpg. Some crappy lanes, mostly fast A roads, light traffic, dry and not too cold.
A few days ago I managed nearly 40mpg on a fairly steady 70mph run plus some slower A roads.
It seems to vary day to day like that, sometimes no rhyme nor reason why it does better or worse mpg.

I really thought I'd be pushing 40mpg, but my main motivation for chopping in the Cupra Born for this was so my monthly(ish) commute to MK doesn't involve having to stop every 1.5 to 2 hours for a 40 minute wait to recharge, at a cost of 25p a mile. Winter motorway range on EVs is truly sh!te. Look forward to the car ticking over 620 miles (1000 km) when it unlocks most, if not all the output.

I'm surprised that VAG hasn't implemented the Budack cycle running for the EA888 4 the Polo.GTI+ has on its EA888 3b variant. At constant low output (mainly motorway cruising), the mpg was ridiculously good - 53mpg at a constant 70mph, and 47mpg at a constant 80mph.

The mpg did take a huge tumble on a forced GPF regen with that Polo though.

A few interior pics.

[Ceefeesh]

Not original but I fitted a RacingLine bonnet strut to my Mk 8. A two minute job.



Pity the AliExpress black mirror caps wouldn’t fit as well. I have now broken several clips on the driver’s side trying to get them on.  Cheap crap but to my knowledge there are no oem VW black caps with side assist available. Note the lovely engine cover! Not.

Good job I looked at this photo. I had left my ratchet and socket inside!