Overall ImpressionsI've put a little over 1500km on the car since I've got it and much of that time was spent driving relatively cautiously because I wanted to make sure to break in the engine properly, but now that I've done that and have pushed the boat out a little bit I feel confident sharing my impressions.
Overall, the MK8.5 feels like an upgrade in almost every way over the MK7. The DCC in comfort mode makes for a lovely relaxed ride for when you're driving family around and doing daily driver duties. It feels like a more solid, luxurious car in general.
Nurburgring mode when you're driving it on is amazing. It's like it was made for Irish roads with the damping. The throttle is much more responsive than the MK7 and the extra 70hp are more than noticeable. It's massively fast and incredibly fun to drive. I'm delighted with how it feels. Solid, composed, responsive and keen to push on. It's just a brilliant car to drive. I was worried it wouldn't feel like much of an upgrade on top of my MK7 but it really is.
The infotainment is top notch and very responsive. I have no complaints here and have had no issues with it. I like the dials too. Being able to customise with G forces, HP, and turbo pressure is really cool.
I've tried out the travel assist feature and it works surprisingly well. It's a little spooky to be honest. I'd like if the steering wheel was better at detecting your hand, when I rest my hand on it while using travel assist as I normally would while using adaptive cruise control, it often thinks I've let go of the wheel.
Area view is great, I really like being able to see exactly where the sides and the front of the car are. It's great peace of mind when navigating tight car parks. It really helps to get perfectly straight on in parking spaces.
I haven't tried the auto park yet, or the feature that will exit a parking space for you, I need to take it to a deserted car park to give it a proper go
Negative PointsThere are some annoyances. The fact that the speed warning turns back on every time just adds an annoying extra step to turning on the car. Same for lane departure. I hope the new VW encryption is broken so that we can somehow turn these off. They have at least make it really easy to turn these off, it's just a couple of taps.
The Harmon Kardon sound system does sound good, but it's not what I'd call amazing. Solid, but not spectacular.
There's not a huge amount of interior storage space and I'd really like if the cup holders had a sliding cover like the MK7 did.
The wireless charger isn't great. It fails to work every now and then. The cubby also isn't quite large enough to fit my Pixel 8 Pro and close the lid. I have a case with magsafe magnets in it, and I think this makes the charger less effective. They really need to improve that design.
The HUD is cool but I'm long sighted so it's usually out of focus when I'm looking at the road ahead. It's a nifty little addition, but I'm not sure I'd definitely go for it again.
I'd hoped the exhaust would be a little louder when pushing on. I don't really get too many pops and bangs. Emotion start is really nice though, I love that they've added that little feature.
I really don't like not having a spare wheel. I often do long road trips out and back to sports events in a single day and random punctures are a fact of life. I really don't like that I'd be somewhat helpless in this situation, waiting on roadside assist. I'll likely pick up a spare wheel, but that has the negative of not fitting on the front tyres so it would be a nightmare in the case of a front tyre puncture. I carry an inflator and might add a puncture repair kit too so I can maybe repair my own punctures.
