World Record Setting VW Golf Is No More in The U.S.

Goodbye , Golf.

 

The 8th gen is amazing, especially the wagon. I spent a few hours poring over specs and utube videos of the 8th gen golf wagon, the Variant. It's gorgeous. Once again, I am punked by the tyranny of the marketplace. Nobody in NA wants hatchbacks let alone wagons unless they are jacked up with AWD and lots of cladding to look like SUVs. Sad.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZdwzeAUD6WfEW5e17

 

Amen. A 2020 Golf 1.4 TSI 8AT with start/stop would be nice. I'm not sure why it costs so
much more than the Jetta. I know part of it is the better suspension , but $4K worth ?
It even has smaller wheels/tires than the Jetta ( which is nice ).

 

Good point. I wonder if they just build a middle-optioned bunch of Golfs? The Jetta seems to have a more luxurious top end and starts with a stripped down model.



What I don't get is the EPA ratings. Shouldn't city ratings be the same for these two models, unless there is some weight difference? And it is nice that the Golf MT has better highway rating than the automatic, whereas transmission type doesn't seem to affect the Jetta's numbers.

 

For me, the Kia Niro is the nearest thing to the Golf. The Niro rides a little higher and is slightly bigger, but is a wagon and FWD only and gets decent MPGs. I cannot even consider a gasoline-only (edit: make that ICE only) car any more... I know, the Niro doesn't have the driving fun factor.

 

I really liked the Niro and Ioniq at one time. I was ready to plop my money down and buy one of the two and decided that I would test drive both and decide. After the test drives I ran away from both. The Ioniq's throttle response was so dreadful that I nearly crashed pulling out of the parking lot and into traffic. I kept stepping on the gas and it kept not going. It was so bad that I immediately pulled over and looked for a set parking brake or something I was doing crazy wrong but no. That's just the way it is. Next up was the Niro. It also had dreadful throttle response but it was much better sorted than the Ioniq.

At some point I liked the Golf Sportwagen. I sat in one at the county fair and was really impressed with the build quality and it has a lot of neat little features. I didn't drive it, but I was really warming up to it. Then they discontinued it. I understand that they still make the 7th gen in Mexico and dealers will order one for you if you ask. But I want the 8th gen.

 

Not quite as good looking (personal opinion) as the Golf, but the Honda Fit would be a close match for size and efficiency. The Fit hybrid would have been a nice addition here in the US, but maybe the HR-V will do if Honda decides to sell that here. The regular HR-V's slightly bigger and less efficient and doesn't have a manual transmission. The e:HEV wouldn't have any shortage on the efficiency front.

 

The Golf is such a great car on paper. Such a great car to drive, too. Such a horrible car to maintain. After my experience with two Mk4 VWs (Golf TDI and Jetta SportWagen, both of which cost me over 30 cents a mile to maintain). The Jetta is the only car that has ever died and left me stranded in traffic. I would never think about owning another VWAG product again. Loved the TDI and its outrageously good mpg, don't get me wrong -- and that's what VW counts on. Too bad, because I otherwise love the departed Golf SportWagen, especially with wagons quickly approaching extinction.

Actually, besides the obvious Mazda3 and Civic Hatches a nice and often overlooked hatchback alternative to the Golf, though sadly not as fuel efficient, is the Hyundai Elantra GT - and its cargo space matches that of the HR-V despite not really being bigger on the outside. One solution to the FE problem with that car is to seek out a 2013 model, which had the plenty-peppy 148hp, 1.8L engine and got 26/37 mpg.

Speaking of the HR-V, while it may be true that the HR-V doesn't have a manual transmission (although it did for the first two years, and it is possible to find a used HR-V MT today), that has become nearly true of the Fit. Honda REALLY doesn't want to sell you one, and that's been true for a long time. Back in 2011, when I was seriously shopping for a Fit, I checked every Honda dealer in the Portland metro area, and there was only ONE manual Fit on any of the dealer lots, out of a couple hundred cars total. And that was ten years ago.

I just did a national new-car inventory search on Edmunds ... their search shows 2944 new Fits currently at dealers visible to Edmunds. ZERO of them are manuals. None. Based on used-car listings, somewhere around 5% of Fits the last few years were manuals (versus 1-2% for HR-Vs in the years the manual was offered), but new ones appear to be gone forever already.

 

Thanks for that. That bad, huh? I sure like the Ioniq's combo of stellar mpg, generous cargo space and non-Prius looks, and they've seemed nice enough when I sat in them at car shows. I guess I shouldn't be so dismissive of the reviews that complain about the throttle response. It is sounding like it makes the Ioniq/Niro nearly undriveable. Sad!

And so senseless. I've experienced the lagginess and jerkiness of DCTs - in cars with only a gas engine. But with a 70hp electric motor sandwiched between the transmission and the wheels, there is NO excuse. Many hybrids now start out from a stop largely with the electric motor and then let the ICE catch up. Initial takeoff ought to be smooth as butter, just like in a full EV.

It might be one thing if these were first-year cars, but they are now in their fifth year of production. Why is Hyundai still stuck on the big-release deployment model, leaving a vehicle largely unimproved for five years? We in the software field learned Lean and Agile techniques from the auto industry ... why can't they learn Continuous Deployment from us? We have mostly abandoned huge, complex, infrequent releases, and now deploy minor tweaks to software weekly - or even daily, leading to a massive improvements in both productivity and quality.

It's possible there's a mechanical deficiency involved (and even if so, it still should have been fixed long ago). But I bet the problem with these cars is in the drive-control software, which could have been fixed mid-first-model-year with an update to the software installed in the cars. And a flash update could probably also have been provided to owners of existing vehicles. So disappointing.

 

re: throttle response

I know you guys are familiar with the various eco/normal/sport throttle settings. Is an aggressive ECO mode responsible for the poor driving feel described above, or is it worse as in the DCT not deciding on an appropriate gear in the lower range no matter which throttle setting you use?

 

With my 14 SportWagen TDI I've been pretty happy with the car itself, but not very happy with the dealer service. Last time I had it in, the intercooler had iced up. They towed it in, and it sat for a week before they even looked at it, and then when I got it back, they had lost one of the keys!

 

That reminds me of the dealer I bought my Mazda from. During various warranty repairs, they lost not only one of the original keys, but also the mini tire pressure gauge Mazda gave me, the PCV intake air hose, another hose, the wing-nut for the air cleaner, and a couple of other minor nuts and bolts---all replaced with conspicuously non-OE parts. Then they left a vacuum hose disconnected, and mangled the lug nuts.

 

In the case of the Ioniq, yes. The normal mode makes the throttle response more, uh, normal but it also kills the gas mileage.

 

It's definitely a tuning problem with the software. I'm more sensitive to throttle and braking response problems than most, I think, and I haven't driven a newer Ioniq/Niro--only the first year models. Take a test drive for yourself and see if you can live with them. They are nice cars that will swallow a lot of cargo and get great fuel economy.

 

I liked the Ioniq HEV and PHEV , but only on paper. I never drove one. I am accustomed
to the very soft reponse in "normal" mode in the Prius. After driving the Prius for a year and
a half , I drove my old 08 Civic ( which I had given to daughter #2 in 2015 ). The Civic was almost
undriveable ! I suppose I could get used to it after a while. I now regularly go back and forth
between 2015 Prius and 2014 Civic. The Civic is difficult to drive smoothly , but no more so than any manual car.

 

How does Normal mode kill the mpg? What does Eco vs Normal effect on that car other than throttle mapping? Shift points? Reduces EV mode?

 

I don't know exactly how but I know that it does. You have a choice of great fuel economy and terrible throttle response, or more normal throttle response and significantly reduced fuel economy.

We have drawn this thread way off topic.

 

Where is your post from the 2015 record breaking with all the stats? I'm having trouble finding it and would love to see average speed, etc.