Here's Why the 2018 Volkswagen Golf R Is Better Than its Rivals

this is a

2018

volkswagen

golf

r and it is a hot hatchback now

volkswagen

practically invented the hot hatchback like 40 years ago with the original gti and this is the most popular volkswagen hatchback so far it has all wheel drive and 292 horsepower which is almost 100 more than the current gti it is also the best hatchback on sale today and today i will show you why i borrowed this car

here

in san diego from cartboy which is a manufacturer of performance parts for subaru and is a about to expand to volkswagen. Performance parts too now this is the latest

golf

r and it has a dual clutch automatic transmission and a sticker price of just over 42,000.

I know what you're thinking. 42 thousand dollars for a golf, but listen to me, it's worth it. Start with a little overview: The Golf R has three main competitors: the Ford Focus RS, the Honda Civic Type R and the Subaru WRX STI, but while those three cars look like the kind of things you would have wanted when you thought you were crazy tight it was an appropriate way to describe something this car is a little more discreet a little more subtle a little more adult but it's also less powerful the civic type r and the wrx sti have a little over 300 horsepower the focus rs has 350 this is in 292.

So how can it be

better

if it is slower? Well it's not as simple as I'm going to show you so today I'm going to take you on a tour of the golf r and show you all of its cool quirks and features then I'm going to get behind the wheel and drive it and then I'm going to give it an excellent rating and to To learn more of my thoughts on golf, click the link below to visit Autotrader. oversteer.com, w

here

I also compiled a list of my favorite Volkswagen hatchbacks ranked from best to worst over the years.

Now I'm going to start with two of the most interesting and unusual features of this car, one of which is here on the tailgate now, if you look at the tailgate you will see that there is no latch that you can use to open it, so what? How do you get into the loading area? Well, you actually push the VW badge in and then you can lift it up from here, which is pretty cool. characteristic in itself, but it is not that unusual. Volkswagen has been doing that for a while. The unusual part is that when you put the car in reverse the Volkswagen badge also appears and hides the camera under which the camera is located and it is only revealed when you are in reverse so it can show you that you are reversing with your camera reverse, but the interesting thing is that if you go in here to open the tailgate and use it as a latch and look underneath, you can see that there is no camera exactly.

Where are they hiding it? It's magical, apparently the camera is in a little plastic cubby under the latch area and only when you reverse does the camera part appear; otherwise you just open the logo and it appears without a camera, it's a lot. of witchcraft that Volkswagen and the Germans surely spent too much time, money and energy on engineering, but it's great for a video about quirks and features. The next especially exciting and unusual quirk or feature of the Golf R is in the infotainment system. in the parking and maneuvering settings and you can choose the volume of the parking assist alerts when it sounds, if you're about to hit something the volume is no surprise but you can also choose the tone, basically the tone of the sound that comes out For example, listen now because you can change the pitch and because there are multiple different settings.

If you have a Golf R, you can go into your infotainment system's parking sensor settings and play a song. Listen to mine, but head back outside anyway. of the car I want to go back to the back for a minute specifically to the cargo area, you open the back door, you will see that there is a small cargo floor at the bottom and it says volkswagen cargo protection system, you understand it because it is a car that goes and it's cargo too oh that's a great one and it will make up for cheating the epa and the line about your emissions anyway when you open the cargo protection system open the floor in the cargo area you'll find the roadside assistance and this.

It's not just a small roadside assistance kit, it's like a roadside assistance briefcase, it's a huge size, so you might be wondering what exactly could be inside this thing if it's so big, the answer is quite a bit, you have for example, duct tape inside this thing with many other items, you have jumper cables that come with the car, that's great, you have gloves for changing tires on the road, you have a warning triangle, you have a handheld flashlight that doesn't needs to be recharged. have them change the light bulb just squeeze it and that charges it and then you can see and then you have my personal favorite which would be the emergency rain poncho and check it out even though these people are in an emergency and therefore They use their emergency.

Rain ponchos are quite stylish and are an attractive pair if I were to run an emergency rain poncho company, those are the exact people I would want modeling my products. Next we move on to the front of the car, there are a couple of interesting items. It's worth discussing something that I've always liked about this car: On the grille, you can see that the grille has this little silver stripe that goes across nicely. The headlights also have a silver stripe and they connect, so it looks like it's just one piece and that the grill goes directly towards the headlights, it is not like that, of course, but it has that look, it looks somewhat modern and elegant with that silver strip that runs along the entire front of the car.

Now, speaking of the headlights, one thing I love the look of this car is the turn signals when they are on. Take a look at these things. They both turn on and look so modern and cool and do turn signals. I do not know but I like it. Look at it now, another thing you'll notice on the front that's kind of interesting, the VW badge is kind of encased in something that's because it's the adaptive cruise control sensor, that's right, this car has adaptive cruise control, like that Although it is a 42 thousand dollar Golf. I can't believe I paid so much for a golf course.

It has adaptive cruise, which is a nice feature. Something that is not so good in terms of features, which would be the seats. This car has a power driver seat but a manual passenger seat. seat, which is just the ultimate sign of cost cutting, you know they were sitting there thinking how can we get eight more dollars out of this car and that's what they did. There is no greater reminder of cost-cutting than when your passenger tries to move his seat. a car 42,000 and they have to go like this. Next we move on to other interesting interior features of this car.

I'm going to start with the center of the steering wheel. Now no one likes to look at just cheap, smooth plastic on the steering wheel. center, so Volkswagen decided to add some texture to theirs and the texture they added is a little strange, it's a lot of hexagons, a lot of hexagons, it starts with bigger hexagons on the outside and continues with smaller hexagons as you get closer to the center . The steering wheel has an interesting look, another interesting element in this car is the key. Now when you look at the key, it looks like a pretty normal Volkswagen key, except it says r on the bottom to commemorate that it's a golf r, but that's what it is. it's not how the key was delivered when you buy a golf r you get the key with just a little piece of plastic on the bottom and then volkswagen gives you a little silver thingy that says r that you can change, they even give you this nice little screw in so you can attach your little R piece instead of the standard black plastic piece.

Now you might be thinking why don't they just give you the r key from the start instead of asking you to assemble the key so it's an r key, I have no idea but this is Volkswagen and this is how they do things. Another interesting little element with the key that you'll notice if you look at the key, it's got all the usual buttons, lock, unlock, you name it, there's a red one too. button with like a guy running, I think that sets off the alarm, it's supposed to imply that someone is breaking in, then you set off the alarm and then he runs away, it's a very strange plot to set off the alarm, but that's what they chose.

For this car, we next move on to the climate controls, which have a couple of interesting quirks: one is that when you turn off the climate controls, it uses the same screen as the temperature readout, so it's big, but the other f is the decimal place for the temperature and that's why it's much smaller, so it looks like it says off when you turn off the climate controls. The other cool thing about the climate controls is that you can control them using the physical buttons here in the middle or on the touch screen, if you prefer you can use the physical buttons, but if you press the menu, it brings up the climate controls on the touch screen and then you can adjust the temperature, you can adjust where the air comes out just like you can with the buttons below.

Kind of a redundancy for people who prefer the screen or for people who prefer real buttons. Now, one interesting thing to note about the climate controls and this infotainment screen in general is that it can detect if your finger is nearby, basically what happens is it will go away. in a sort of display mode where it shows you things, but if you put your finger near it, not touching it but just close, it will sort of pop up with various things that you can adjust if you take your finger away long enough. returns to display mode bring your finger over and over appears with the adjustment so it can detect if your finger is nearby and give you any adjustments you might need next continue with the infotainment screen there are several unusual quirks and features with the screen starting with the drive modes, you can now press a small button next to the gear lever on the center console, you can open the drive modes, you have five different options, each of which displays an image that represents that drive mode . it's in the reflection of a volkswagen golf so we start with echo and you can see there's the golf and then there's like a hilly field with some leaves and there's a wind power plant that you move around to get comfortable and there's a nice I walk on a nice day. with some trees, move back to normal and there is a path that is just a hillside.

I don't really know the difference between comfort and normal then you go to the race and you're on a race track and it's such an exciting race track it actually says run on the race track that's how you know how exciting it is but my favorite is the custom one, the custom one lets you choose from all of them so it has one image that fits everything, you have a snowy mountain and snowy trees and then there is a road that is also a race track and then on the side of the road you have a wind farm to represent the environment so that's as much as possible in one image another thing I like about the infotainment system when you press the settings button on the bottom right In the corner of almost any menu, the screen rotates a bit and then the settings page appears for whatever item you are on.

Now I'm going to start with the navigation settings. An interesting element in the navigation settings is if you go into the root options. you can check a little box that says suggest three alternative routes, so if you're the type of person who types in a navigation destination and then maybe yeah, I don't want to go that way, it can suggest four different routes and then you can choose the route that you like the most. I really don't know why anyone would do that, but you have the option of another cool item you have and the root options.

If you scroll to the bottom, you can check a little box that says include trailer and that way the navigation system knows that you are towing a trailer with your golf r and therefore will not send you onto very narrow roads or roads with towing restrictions or roads that have sharp turns, I'm not sure if anyone would ever check this out in a golf r, but you have the option of another interesting item in the navigation settings. If you enter the fuel options, you have the possibility to choose your preferred fuel station. You can choose from a full list if you are one of those. people who say oh, I'll just go to the gas station even though all the studies have said that gasoline is practically identical at all gas stations.

I've met some people who say no, I would never go to any gas station, those things are rubbish and it's like you're really sure it's not the same as everything else, but they are convinced and the golf r gives them an option so your neuroses can be satisfied on the infotainment system. Here's another really weird one in the infotainment settings you can check out. a little box that says synchronized mirror adjustment and what it does is when you adjust one mirror, the other mirror adjusts as well, soif you click left to adjust the mirror and start moving the left mirror towards the passenger The mirror also moves out simultaneously.

I'm not sure why anyone would want this synchronized mirror adjustment, except maybe once when you first buy the car, if the mirrors are all the way in or something, but it gives you that option if for some reason you want it. your mirrors adjust at the same rate and at the same time, I've never seen that before, but hey, there it is. Next we move on to the screen in the gauge cluster, which is a pretty big screen, especially for a car like this, you won't find one. Many other small hatchbacks have a full map in the driver's gauge cluster, it really makes everything feel like a cockpit.

Of course you can get directions from the navigation system there and it's a really cool feature, it's like what Audis have, I noticed though. The screen is not as beautiful as the Audis. You also have some other options in that group of indicators. If you don't want to look at the map, for example, you can scroll down to driving data and it shows your fuel economy. range your trip time you can also scroll to the lap timer and that will show your lap times or you can scroll to the vehicle status which in this case says engine on because the seat belt is unbuckled.

I have no idea what that means when the engine is on and my seat belt is unbuckled, but I don't think the engine is on because the seat belt is unbuckled. I don't think this car's engine starts when you unbuckle your seat belt, however that's what the state of the vehicle says at the moment. Moving on to the golf r owner's manual and I've already read it and there are a couple of interesting items in here. I'll start on page 52, which describes crash safety and shows a diagram of what I can do. I just describe it as a mine cart with seats that hit a brick wall.

I'm serious, it really does look like a mine cart, so even on rails and there's a brick wall, I think it's supposed to illustrate the forces involved when you get into an accident, but it really reminds me of that Donkey Kong level where you're in a mine cart and then you crash into a wall and Donkey Kong dies. Now, another interesting thing about this owner's manual, no matter where you look in this manual, you will find items. That says Warning: Failure to heed warning lights or text warnings may result in vehicle damage. I'm serious, open a random page and you'll find that on virtually every page of this owner's manual and you have to wonder what Volkswagen's lawyer said. for him when they were writing this no no rick remember we didn't have it once and some guy sued us and won so you have to put it on every page and rick did too and now it's on every page.

Now, another interesting item that you will find in the glove compartment along with the owner's manual. Here are the original warnings that appear on the side of the car when it comes to the dealer. This is described as the check engine light that comes on if you don't screw the gas cap on my favorite, it even shows the special check engine light for the new beetle which of course has its own light that mimics the vehicle shape. I find it especially interesting because this is just a small piece. of paper they put in the car when you buy it, but they still go to the trouble of displaying the new Beetle's distinctive warning light.

Now we move on to the back seat, which I must note is quite tight when I sit here as an adult. where a full grown adult would sit in the front my knees are right against the front seat this is not exactly a car I would use for serious family transportation but of course it can carry smaller or larger people over short distances now the only interesting thing The item in the back seat comes in the rear center armrest where you have these little plastic pieces that you can use to adjust the size of the cup holder.

Now it's set up so you can have two cup holders, they point in opposite directions, you can stick two cups together. there, but you can adjust it to whatever you want in case you have, for example, a large oval shaped cup or my personal favorite, you can set them up to have a very important cup in the middle of the cup holder that uses both small ones. plastic stuff these are the games you can play if you are the rear passenger of a golf r, so those are the quirks and features of the

2018

volkswagen golf r, now it's time to get behind the wheel and see how well it handles when driving the golf r now this car is a lot of fun its very clear from the moment you get in and start trying however i will say you dont have to get in and start trying thats one of the benefits of this car , I think I'm finding it's also a very capable car if you just want to cruise around and enjoy a nice hatchback drive like this, usually on a normal road that goes 35 miles. an hour it seems very tame, the ride quality is quite good, significantly

better

than the focus rs and civic type r to the point where you feel like you are driving like it's a comfortable car, I wouldn't necessarily say a luxury car, but but It's almost a luxury car, it really has a kind of Audi feel, but then you take a fun road with a little curve and some speed, it's very fast, very, very, very fast, you can tell it's not that fast like the Focus rs it just doesn't feel as explosive and it's not as explosive um this feels like a fast car but not crazy like the focus rs you say wow I can't believe it's so fast this car is fast but it's not uh en In a way, at that level, though, obviously, there are trade-offs in everything and the trade-offs, you know, they're not as fast as the Focusrs, but the benefits you get are that it's just nicer, I mean, the seat is feels more comfortable, the interior is much better in terms of quality, the ride quality is better, it feels very quick, the transmission shifts incredibly fast and in fact, if you're not one of those manual obsessed people, twice as much clutch will help you recover some of the time. difference zero to sixty zero to a hundred whatever between focus rs civic type r if you are actually doing like a drag racer on a track obviously this is better and if you are doing a drag race against some kind of focus rs that is not totally in that, I could In fact, I see this thing is pretty close now in the corners, I think that's where this car performs best.

It really feels tight and planted to the ground, you can tell it's not like a real sports car, it doesn't have that feeling. um like if you're sitting low in the car you can tell the center of gravity is a little bit higher but the grip is exceptional and the steering feel is fantastic it's a little bit light but I would say It's as good as the focus rs, uh. Maybe as good as the Civic Type R it can be a little better. I think this car is just fantastic to drive. It could be the fact that I'm getting older and, you know, the civic type r I think is just ridiculous looking and the focus rs.

It kind of hits you um and the sti isn't as nice inside and you drive this and it's better than those cars and all that stuff it's a more realistic car if you want to use it every day um but it also has some 7 8 of the performance of those cars and maybe 8 8 type r or sti I think the focus rs is more of an exciting car um this is the hot hatch that I would really like to use every day if I were going to the race track or if I was doing a lot of high performance driving If I was buying a car just to use it on the weekend, I'd be a focus artist for a Civic Type R, but then why am I buying a hatchback like I should?

I would rather have a Miata or some other sports car in that segment. If you really want to drive it every day and your commute doesn't involve the dragon's tail, then this is a very good option and that is the 2018 Volkswagen Golf. Here's the deal: this is not the fastest hatchback, but it is still very It's fast and handles great, and if you get it, you won't have to put up with the harsh handling of the Focus RS or the dated interior of the STI. or the ridiculously ridiculous styling of the civic type r, if you want the fastest, most exciting, craziest hot hatch, the focus rs is a better car than this, but if you want the best all-around hot hatch, the best hot hatch Whether you can drive on the weekends on canyon roads or during the week when commuting to work, this is the best option and when your friend with a focus rs complains about his back pain and cheap plastic interior, you can laugh at him even if you can.

I didn't quite beat it in a drag race and with that in mind, Doug's score, starting with the weekend and design categories, the golf r is a good-looking car, but ultimately it's a beautiful hatchback, not a sports car, and it gets a six out of 10. 0-60 acceleration and 4.9 seconds, giving it a 6 out of 10. Handling is excellent, especially for a hatchback, and it gets a 6 out of 10. The factor of fun is less than that of its

rivals

, it is fun, of course, but it is less complicated. and it goes crazy that a civic type r a focus rs and it gets a 6 out of 10.

Same goes for the cool factor, the golf r just looks like a normal golf and doesn't have the it factor or the weirdness of the type r and the focus rs and gets a 5 out of 10 for a weekend score of 29 out of 50 and here's how it compares to its closest

rivals

: they all beat it except the civic type r, which is penalized for its ugliness, next in line diary. categories and features the golf r has some high tech things and also some disappointing things like the manual passenger seat it gets a six out of 10. The quality is impressive as the interior is very upscale and everything feels nice to the touch We'll see about reliability. but for now it scores a 7 out of 10.

Practicality is impressive, it has more cargo space than its hot hatch rivals and fuel economy is solid, scoring a surprisingly high 8 out of 10. Finally, there's value: the golf r is more expensive. than its rivals and less powerful, but it is also a much better car with a much better driving experience when you include comfort and build quality and it scores a 7 out of 10 for an overall daily score of 34 out of 50 and you can see it here . beats the competition combined and Doug's score is 63 out of 100 and here is a comparison with the main rivals: the golf r ties with the focus rs, the focus is much better in the weekend score, but the advantages of the golf r in the daily category balance it out.

Although the audi rs3 is a little better overall