A year with my GTI
(8 minutes reading time)
I’ve had my GTI for a year. I’ve done 11,000 miles in it. I drive it everyday. I said before how I waited 10 years to get one.. And I love it.
But I haven’t always thought it was the right decision…
The tears
Alloys
I took the car in on the first week of having it for all the tyres, rear pads and discs, plus the driver’s side wing mirror to be replaced. The signal light on the side mirror didn’t work and it was full of moss.
When I got the car back from VW they’d scratched the perfect, recently refurbed alloys! I was quite annoyed and shirty on their follow up customer satisfaction call. Thankfully they offered to have these resprayed at no cost to me.
The guy who did the respray did a good job. He turned up at the car park at work and I watched from my office window. Said it was about £45 per wheel anyway, which is good to know for future reference…
I’ve sinced kerbed my alloys to bits. Seriously. 😖
Bumper scratch
This Easter, I had a mishap.
Read more about it on my Instagram (if you follow me).
That was pretty upsetting, but not as troublesome as…
The ABS
In the first week of driving, I wasy struck by this trinity of warning lights.
These lights would disappear as soon as I restarted the car.
The first thing I found on the forums was someone saying that their GTI always did this if they went round a corner a bit fast. Now these forums are normally fantastic for finding out obscure info about your car and getting some advice. But they are full of people who are… somewhat… risky? I guess that’s the best description. I mean, these are people willing to “have a go” and modify their cars but aren’t qualified mechanics. This person was rather cavalier about it and didn’t seem to give a damn. Anyway I was worried but trying not to be.
It happened again several times. At one point it was every couple of weeks, usually after cornering. I think I was engaging the stability control and triggering the ABS failure.
My local VW independent specialist had no idea what was going on as the fault scan was saying a sensor was having an “implausible signal”. They needed to run a scan while the fault was still “live” and not after being cleared by switching off the engine. When it happened again after a few weeks, I rushed back to the garage. Except I absent mindedly switched the ignition off just as I got out of the car… 😭
So I opted to buy a VAGCOM to try and get the full logs before switching off the engine. Then it was fine for several months. The moment it happened for the first time since getting the VAGCOM, I had issues with my MacBook not being able to run the USB drivers for the Windows VM (the software is Windows only). Pro tip: never update Virtualbox. When I did manage to capture the fault as it happened (staying up until 1am to sort it out) the diagnostic reported a fault with the ABS control module.
We decided to get the ABS control module replaced. This turned out to be a common fault with the ABS and VW made repair kits for just replacing the module. That was just going to be about £200. My garage were about to do the swap when they realised my ABS didn’t have a BOSCH manufactured module. It was a French manufacturer (still an OEM supplier) who didn’t make repair kits. I was now facing a £1000 replacement of the entire ABS at a dealer. Only dealers can carry out an ABS replacement because of key codes.
The indie garage suggested finding a specialist who can do a repair. So I found one (thanks to someone’s advice on the owners forums), gave them the fault report and got a quote. The garage took the ABS out for me but that meant leaving the car with them. I had to put up with public transport for TWO WEEKS while this specialist sat on the thing. When they finally got round to looking at it, they were done in 2 days. The garage whipped it back in and only charged me for an hour and a half’s labour. That was £300 all in. It was worth a go…
Except it didn’t fix the problem. The module itself was fixed, but the sensor (which cannot be replaced) still had a problem. Which was now getting more frequent. I was even starting to think about getting rid of the car I was that sad about it.
Instead I bit the bullet and forked out the grand to get it replaced. This wiped the last of my personal savings. OK it wasn’t an uncommon problem and if I owned another car that had it, I’d more likely be able to fix it with the £200 repair kit. But this is my car. The night before I took it to the dealer, the fault lights flashed up again. It was a sign that it had to be done. And frankly all of the ABS based safety features weren’t working - such as the Electronic Brake Distribution and the Stability Control. If I did an emergency stop, 9 times out of 10 I would just skid and it would be Christmas on my dashboard again.
Now, it works.
Since then I have had an instance when I really needed the ABS. I was going down the hill, giving space to the car in front of me but a Land Rover was quite close behind. We all had to stop suddenly as a rubbish lorry was in the way along a couple of blind corners. My ABS thankfully did its job on the wet, sloping road. The Land Rover started screeching towards me. I let the brakes off to give it a bit more room… I’m sure I would’ve gone into the back of the car in front of me if I didn’t have the ABS that day.
The lesson here is never skip on the safety features on your car.
The only real problem I’ve had with my GTI has been the most epic.
And the joy
Happy Birthday Batmobile
It is my (car) joy. The first few weeks I drove it, the acceleration was an intense and exhilerating thrill that I would whoop for. I’m really sad that “honeymoon” is over. I’m used to its acceleration now and though it still makes me grin, that manic rush of feeling slightly out of my depth is no longer there. I suppose only driving a supercar would give me that same feeling.
The other thing I found weird to begin with (and I’ve since discovered that other DSG cars have this) is how early the auto shifts up. It felt alien to me. The box shifts well below the revs I would change at. Since then I’ve grown accustomed to it and realise that it’s the more economical option. Well that is except for when I go up a hill fairly slowly. It’s best to take over then and stay in one gear rather than let the gears bounce up and down.
Speaking of economical driving, I’ve kept a log and nearly every receipt from each time I’ve filled up on fuel. I recorded how many litres I filled up with and the odometer reading. I’ve used that to chart my consumption. I was also curious to see if it matched the car’s own MPG reading and it did.
But I’m at a major disadvantage where I live as I’m surrounded by hills. My daily commute involves going down into a valley, then coming back up along a steep hill. The depressing thing is that I’m only getting an average of 25-26 MPG. If I drive anywhere else I get 30-32 MPG. Sometimes I’ll hit 36 MPG. My record I think was once reaching 37 MPG.
I won’t bother keeping the receipts after a fill up anymore. For one thing I’ve still to finish the data entry from my existing pile. Anyway after a year’s worth of data I’m pretty clear what my fuel economy is like. And it’s not the car, it’s my environment 😏
The main things about my GTI are that the cornering is good, the balance is right, the torque is sweet, the DSG + paddle shifts are immense fun and then it’s really, really comfortable to be in.
I can’t imagine having another car.