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That's a good question. I believe it peaked around 92 degrees or so. I do want to give the disclaimer that the car was sitting out in the sun basically all day long, and even with a/c, it has leather seats that really don't breathe all that great. And, I could have very well switched the a/c over to Max but was just relying on the automatic climate to do its thing. So hindsight says to try that. I think that, most days, it's absolutely fine.
92°F is a cold day here in the summer! One of my few annoyances with my Cayman is I feel the A/C occasionally struggles on longer drives on the hottest days, which is odd for such a small cabin and for a system that feels like it blows a ton of air and is extremely noisy. The ventilated seats are a real benefit. That's actually a main reason I decided not to order a 718 GT4, because Porsche refused my CXX request for ventilated seats.
The Mk8 GTI has ventilated seats as an option, so it'll be interesting to see the reviews on those and hopefully they'll be made available on the R as well.
92°F is a cold day here in the summer! One of my few annoyances with my Cayman is I feel the A/C occasionally struggles on longer drives on the hottest days, which is odd for such a small cabin and for a system that feels like it blows a ton of air and is extremely noisy. The ventilated seats are a real benefit. That's actually a main reason I decided not to order a 718 GT4, because Porsche refused my CXX request for ventilated seats.
The Mk8 GTI has ventilated seats as an option, so it'll be interesting to see the reviews on those and hopefully they'll be made available on the R as well.
Yeah I am a big fan of summer, but not for reasons of leather seats in cars. I don't know how much I'd drive out in the desert.
The Mk8 is looking like a big step forward in many ways. Though I am not the biggest fan of some of the new controls, I do like the added horsepower, the new gauges, and the overall interior aesthetic they went for. The front of the car is growing on me, but I think the Mk7 and Mk7.5 are going to age better.
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My car went in for its second oil change and tire rotation on September 11th, along with a new set of NGK spark plugs to replace the factory ones (also manufactured by NGK, but with an expensive "VW AG" badge...). I also switched over to Liqui Moly's 5W-40 "Leichtlauf" oil. After these changes... the car feels exactly the same. I guess, considering the car is bone-stock, that's a good thing.
Yesterday, my friend and I went and attacked some back roads. Call it breaking in the new oil (which is not a thing), as well as enjoying the weather while it lasts. I guess the following picture is an implication that I am okay with revealing my face. Also, I really need a haircut... And, to go clothes-shopping...
ANYWAY, the reason we pulled over is because, just before we got to the good roads, my car gave me a tire pressure warning light. When we pulled over, I got out my handy-dandy tire inflator, which read 39 PSI on both front tires. Nope, must be the rears, I thought. The rears read 36 PSI and 35.5 PSI. Not low enough to trigger the warning, really, though lower than ideal for spirited driving (cold tire pressure is supposedly 37 PSI on this car). So, I inflated both rears to match the fronts at 39 PSI, and we continued on with a reset/clear of the warning light. Blame German engineering.
There were lots of 90-degree bends on the farm-road-like two-lanes we found ourselves on, near Liberty, MO. Those turns felt great! The limited-slip diff in its Sport mode setting really works some magic, even mid-corner, to help offset the understeer of this car. I see a lot of reviews where folks bash the GTI when it comes to more aggressive driving. I don't get it. If you're totally ham-fisted with your inputs, yes, the car will plow wide. But, if you just balance it on the edge of what it can do, the car responds in an unnaturally-precise way thanks to the XDS+ brake vectoring and VAQ limited-slip differential system. It works well enough that my friend and I, with his 335i on Michelin PS4S tires, were doing essentially identical cornering speeds - though obviously, a Stage-1-tuned 335i is going to walk away on the straights. That really made me want to look into a tune as well - even if it'll never quite be as fast as a six-cylinder BMW! Overall, what a fun day. Hopefully I'll get to abuse the good weather like this again before it gets cold!
The Mk8 is looking like a big step forward in many ways. Though I am not the biggest fan of some of the new controls, I do like the added horsepower, the new gauges, and the overall interior aesthetic they went for. The front of the car is growing on me, but I think the Mk7 and Mk7.5 are going to age better.
The new Mk8 controls are the biggest concern for me. I don't like the current trend of non-customizable, heavily-integrated interfaces that hide very simple and frequently-used controls behind touchscreen menus or at least without clear delineation and/or any tactile feedback whatsoever.
Also definitely not a fan of the Mk8 exterior either, but less of an issue.
I've been having quite a time with this car lately - good, bad, and unexpected.
A couple friends and I have established the "Dark Gray Car Club", or just "Gray Car Club" for short.
So, here's me blending in with the darkness along with them. We really need to just meet up during the day, but hey, I guess we have to work to make money to be able to afford cars.
Anyway, a couple of weeks after that, I go out to the garage to hop in the car to take it to the car wash, and what happens to me? Well, I lose an "I".
That's right - apparently something on the road hit the car and took the "I" in "GTI" with it. So, I've been downgraded to having just a "GT". One of my friends joked that I should check the carburetors. I decided to de-badge the grille because I'd rather have no badge than incomplete badge. What do you know, it's also not ideal...
So, I had to shell out $51 for a new red GTI badge, which I am still waiting on shipping.
One thing for which I didn't have to wait long was something much more interesting: a Cobb Accessport! I decided, after a few days of waffling, to go the Cobb route in terms of tuning this car, for the simple reasons of functionality and cost. With the Accessport, it's pretty easy to datalog and have custom gauges to monitor while driving, something I find really interesting. On top of that, through the Accessport, Cobb has the cheapest path to get a DSG tune, another thing I've thought would be a nice touch. I could add more horsepower, sure, but making the transmission shift faster and with a sportier shift schedule could really transform the experience.
If you've never flashed a car before, you may not know that it can be quite a scary process. All the lights on the dash light up, and I mean all of them. The car thinks something is seriously wrong when the ECU image is being flashed because it can't talk to a lot of the things it normally does. I had an even scarier thing happen - the flash failed on my first attempt! Apparently the OBDII cable was not plugged-in quite securely enough, and it came loose during the flash, about 11% of the way in. I decided to use some Scotch tape (yes) to hold it in place and restarted. Thankfully, Cobb has thought of this scenario, and it finished up just fine (after another 20 minutes). I was very paranoid that I had turned my ECU into a brick, but the car started up fine afterwards.
I've flashed it to Cobb's off-the-shelf Stage 1 map, specifically the 91 octane version. Since my car is currently stock outside of this flash, it made the most sense - and 93-octane availability is spotty here in the Midwest. As you might expect, this tune doesn't actually change much from behind the wheel until I floor it. Then, I can feel a difference. It's nothing that knocks my socks off, but there's more pull, especially right around 4000 RPM. By 6000 RPM it seems to taper off slightly, which is not unlike the stock car. I did a few 3rd-gear pulls to check for knock, and found none! I have noticed some boost oscillation, but it has seemed to improve with each log I take. Maybe the ECU will adapt.
Unfortunately, the one major problem I am having is that my Accessport does not seem to support DSG flashing, even though I paid for it. There's even a barcode sticker on the box that says, "Cobb Tuning Accessport V3 With DSG Fl...". So, I've got support tickets open with both Cobb and ECS Tuning to see where the screw-up was. I really want to share my thoughts on how it is after the complete, intended transformation is done, not just the ECU re-map. So far though, I do like the way it drives now - feels very OEM+, if you will.
My car lasted almost 8 months with no modifications!
Are the american made ones better made ? We have the german made ones, and they tend to be a little bit of a lottery game after 145'000 km.
Mine was made in Mexico. From what I have seen, there's not a significant difference in the quality between plants. After all, most of the components are either assembled in Germany or were already coming from Mexico anyway.
Well, I got all my shenanigans with ECS and Cobb over with, and got my DSG tuning after all! It turns out ECS simply labeled the box incorrectly, so they shipped me what they thought was the correct product, but wasn't. All it took was a phone call to Cobb, and presumably a payment from ECS to Cobb to get me a feature key.
And, what do you know, it worked without a hitch. In less than 5 minutes, it re-flashed the DSG control unit.
I went with the "OEM+" map, because... well, frankly, that's more or less the theme of my car, I'd say. I want to keep things conservative and overall in keeping with what the GTI is about - zippy performance and handling in a usable daily-driver.
I don't use this phrase often, but boy howdy, does the DSG tune change this car's personality. First-gear take-offs are more immediate, and it just feels like the accelerator pedal is wired straight to the engine now. There's overall less delay, or laziness, in the drivetrain. In fact, the car seems to accelerate more quickly in a straight line, too. I think the ECU or TCU was cutting power very sneakily before, because it feels like VTEC kicks in at about 5000 RPM now, which is a new phenomenon to me. Edit: After a little more driving, I believe what I was feeling was a combination of traction control interference followed by the limited-slip diff getting its act together - still, I don't recall this sensation prior to the tune. Overall, this transforms the car without upsetting its drivability - it still feels very natural in more relaxed driving - if anything, it feels better thanks to the more immediate clutch take-up. Imagine that - a tune that makes a car more daily-drivable! On top of that, I get a nifty gear indicator in "D" drive (note the "D1" below):
Overall, this was totally worth the money, and now it really feels like I've tuned the car. It's amazing what a little acceleration and responsiveness will do.
Well, the GTI is gone. If you guys have seen my recent thread on taking ownership of a new 2020 Jetta GLI, you are aware of this fact. I wanted to sum up why I got rid of it, as well as my overall conclusions on the nature of the past nine months and 8,000 miles with this vehicle.
The last decent photo I took of the car before trading it in, with my friend's 335i for some coffee.
So what happened?
There were a number of small issues nagging at me throughout the ownership of this car, and I eventually caved to them. I'll list them specifically, without going too deep on details.
Suspension creaks. I had this looked at by my mechanic and a dealership, none has any good guesses as to what it would be. One theory we had was strut top mounts, but the way to reproduce the sound was inconsistent with those. It made me cringe to drive over large bumps at moderate to low speeds.
Diverter valve control issues. It is much less obvious stock, but once I got tuned, power delivery came in surges at mid-range RPM. This did actually occur stock, but I wasn't able to notice it until I returned the vehicle to stock form and knew what it felt like. Sure enough, there was some surging and what I assume is overboost protection kicking in and hampering power delivery for a moment after.
General crashy feeling over bumps. After driving other cars, I found the GTI to be a little harsh on broken pavement. This seemed out of character with what I had read in reviews - along with the aforementioned creaking, something seemed wrong.
Peeling silver trim on the interior, and messed-up leather on the steering wheel. Some minor interior quality issues, but not things that are easy to fix.
A ticking, tapping sound from the driver's front door. This was really the last straw, as it was a relatively quiet noise, but just to the left of my left ear. This meant I was the only one who could hear it most of the time. Dealership was unable to diagnose on their first attempt, but I didn't want to leave the car with them for days or weeks just to be told the warranty doesn't cover it.
Having said all of that, I absolutely love the way the GTI drives. It genuinely feels special, and inspires spirited driving. The transmission is a stand-out, and though it sometimes stumbles in normal driving situations, the manual control of it makes up for most of those issues. The interior is no-nonsense but high quality, the car's looks are understated but distinct, and there's plenty of space and usability for most people. And of course, the combination of the suspension tuning and magical limited-slip diff means it's a blast to throw around the turns. I'd highly recommend it if you can get one in good condition, with a warranty.
After owning this car, I understand why the cult of GTI and Golf R exists - or even, for that matter, the VW fanboys in general. The GTI and even the GLI with which I replaced it have this unique feel compared to anything else I've driven, particularly the GTI. The combination of intuitive, unfussy design and a clear focus on tuning and dynamics make both average drivers and enthusiasts happy. Reliability is questionable and could probably be better, though honestly, mine got me from A to B every time and never threw any codes or legitimately had something break. For all I know, the noises, especially in the door, could have been caused by an unreported accident (especially seeing as how the front driver's-side fender and door are darker than the rears... suggesting a repaint and poor blending). That said, I think the GLI is a nice change of pace while still maintaining the overall spirit of the GTI. I'm already liking it a ton.
09-13-20, 01:52 PM
I don't know how much I'd drive out in the desert.
My GTI ownership has been eventful recently.
