Review | 2018 VW Golf R | Specs Often Lie

I just finished a long video about the VW GTI, now it's time for the Golf R. You're probably expecting some kind of snide comment about how I had to carry a code reader with me or if I needed a platform. waiting and sorry to disappoint you. I didn't need any of those for this car. Now that you've seen the exterior setup, I'll tell you something when I saw this in person for the first time. I thought it was supposed to be like that. some kind of hatchback sports car, you've got to be kidding me, it's so unstylishly styled it looks so bland and people will say, well he's mature, he's an adult, well I get it, I mean if you take a look to the Civic type-r. and you run out, that's one extreme, this is the other, but if you're someone who likes that understated look, this will definitely tickle your rectum.

Now, the biggest and most welcome update is the full LED headlights at the front, which are automatic. -Adjustingly, they ditched the xenon bulbs and then you have the optional Continental 235 Series tires which in my opinion are excellent here, they give you great grip and don't move like concrete which surprised me. Everything else is standard Golf. R stuff, you've got this shiny black trim on the bottom half of the car, which will be a nightmare to clean and the quad tip exhausts, look at the hatch area, now my friend Slade said you know my mom wants to go on a date. with you, can you believe I said yes, why not, I agree, so I picked her up in the Golf R and said ma'am.

K, how do you like it? She said, well, I'm a little worried, my ex-husband had an Equinox that is always in the store, but it had everything I needed and I said, well, what do you want to put here? and she said, well, me. She worries me that she won't drag my books. I said honey, where are we going, you won't need books. I put her in the passenger seat. She fell asleep in about three minutes. I took her to the library and she was completely surprised. the space here the way the seats were folded, I mean she couldn't even contain herself and she's a closet case archaeologist so there's a lot of things I learned that day, let me tell you the space inside there are some schools, the idea About this, the first one is that I think this will hold up extremely well over time in terms of design, in 10 years you will look back and think well, this is a classic interior space, the door panel design, the handles, the top, the bottom.

In some parts there just isn't much trickery here, they didn't add yellow or green accents or anything out of the depth, but at the same time that's the controversy, it's very monochromatic, it's sterile green and lacks personality, but again, that's a Big plus to this, it will age well with the exception of the shiny black plastic. I don't understand. I keep talking about this in every video and I feel like the design departments for these cars at these car studios are now like Oh, what is everyone else doing? Because I can't think of an original idea anymore.

It's just the dumbest material for an interior space. Now back to the good stuff: the seats, the Golf R has these very supportive leather seats with a high backrest. It's not like cement, you can get in here, they're pretty flexible and they hold you pretty well and they're not some kind of racing seat, it's not trying to be an extreme track seat, it's just a little more supportive than a standard seat. one so that when you move it you don't slip everywhere. Some people may like it, others may not. The driver's seat is electronically adjustable, which is great.

The passenger seat is half down which is strange to me but that's what the HVAC controls are you don't have to do it they are not tied to the touch screen you can perform all of your functions without even touching the screen touch screen, which is one of the best designs, the infotainment, very similar to the GTI, is the panasonic derived head unit and the audio. The system is splendorous, but it's actually Panasonic. Everything works extremely well. If this is one of the fastest infotainment systems you will ever find. I still don't like the fact that it's so bright even though it's an IPS panel which means you get better black levels and its gauge cluster is also a digital display in this car, much like the one in the Audi, you can customize it, you can set it in daylight, it looks great, but at night like all screens it's too bright, you can't dim it. low enough and then I wonder my biggest question about these screens is, let's say you had this car for five or six years and I worked in the technology field around thousands of screens that were on all the time and had burn-in problems . or they would have dead pixels or weird ghosting issues or brightness uniformity issues and that's something I'm really curious to see how these things hold up over time and then of course the cost of replacing them now that the interior space As a whole it's the same as the GT, there were only subtle differences, like the gear shift knob is no longer a

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ball, it has some kind of carbon fiber wrap, the armrest can't be opened, it's Factory locked because it is a German import.

And I don't understand why they couldn't have the dealers do PDI to remove the bolts, so that's something you'll have to do, but they make up for it here with so much attention to detail that the flat bottom steering wheel feels. Great, the door pocket areas are lined with felt or carpet so when you put hard plastics in there it doesn't make as much noise, the build quality, fit and finish here has to be an 8 out of 10 and it's for that you are I'm going to enjoy this car for years to come and that's why so many people love it so much and from a non-fan perspective I could see myself owning a car like this and driving it every day okay let's go to the workshop and let's take a look at the technical aspects of the Golf R, it's here, the Golfs are mmm so impressed, you're impressed, this is more than what we saw with the GTI, it's on the MQB platform, which is the bread and butter from Volkswagen, everything, well, not everything, but them.

They are driven with the same thing, they have been using it for 15 or 20 years, yes, that's how and I talked about this with the GTI and the Tiguan, that's how they can mass produce cars, so good, there they are. They are basically giant Legos and when you master this like they have and you like what Toyota is doing now, you can have a car that drives amazing and

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is just a good example of how well you can do it if you do it right from the beginning. one of the best cars to drive and its segment and there's also not a lot of fancy stuff here to do it, you know, in terms of no, it's very basic, yeah, with the Gulf there are some differences, you've got a big sway bar, you've got more sway and rear end, yes the suspension has been changed, it has adaptive Monroe shocks made in Spain and I constantly talk about adaptive shocks being a bad thing for most companies, not here, they make them worth it, They are soft, it has a comfort mode, the comfort mode is true. comfort mode doesn't work like it doesn't work like oh okay, comfort mode is difficult and then you go to track mode and it's like hitting your butt, it's not comfort mode the other day we had a 1995 Lincoln Town Car and that thing was Comfort, well, yeah, well, it's never going to be a comfort mode like that, but it can be used.

You know, there's a definite difference that's really nice on the road for a car that you want to drive more aggressively. You can really use this as a For a daily driver, the next thing you'll notice when driving the Scot is that it has a 2.1 turn lock-to-lock variable gear ratio steering rack and will go from 9 5 to 14 1 in terms of gear changes. direction and you will definitely notice it. this is like a parking lot you're like holy this thing turns / quickly you know I mean I like it definitely you know in some cars you don't notice it as much, but in this one you definitely do the next thing you do We'll notice it before we get to the back Scott is a big deal, this is completely German.

The other Golfs in North America are made in Mexico, the GTI and all the basics, the engine is made in Hungary, but the transmission and total assembly are made in Germany, so if you are someone who wants a Volkswagen made in Germany, this it's one of those, so it's kind of a pro if you look at it that way, the next thing you'll see is very similar to the GTI, you've got a front end. -Haldex front differential with all wheel drive now of course this is all wheel drive which is why you get the Golf R but BorgWarner makes the front differential and it works almost identically to the GTI.

Now BorgWarner is a huge OEM and you see it working on all the cars. by the time they do it, they make everything, they make turbos, they make differentials, they make bearings, they make everything, yeah, so there they could probably make a car if they wanted to, but they're smart enough, no, yeah, exactly their bread and butter. sell parts to companies that don't want to make their own stuff, the Gulf is one of the main reasons you would buy this and I'm going to say clearly that I wouldn't even consider the GTI after driving it because all the problems the GTI had with understeer terminal, a rarity with the Haldex at the front is solved with four-wheel drive.

Now the Haldex at the rear is interesting because it's a downwind powered electro-hydraulic system that uses a multi-plate clutch so this is and the ECU is here so the ECU looks at it's connected to the front half of the car and when you feel this wheel slip in the front it instantly engages this whole setup this will activate the hydraulic fluid slip and as it slips the clutches and it will take 50% of the torque up to 50% of the travel to the rear and because of that those clutches can slip, it can send power to each wheel when you need it and it will also use the stability control system to break the innermost wheel to get the whole system working properly.

What's wrong with it? Competition mode. Unfortunately, he doesn't know the competition mode. But it has a career mode, which you can consider as a competition mode. Now people are talking. Well, how is the stability control? Can you turn it off? I've tried it with it on and off and I feel like it's still there, but it has to be because this is all controlled electronically through sensors, so even if you turn off the stability control, it still needs to carry data from the front wheels. at Again understanding how to transfer power, I mean, dividing the power equally to balance the car, so really with a system like this there is no way to do it.

I'm totally analog and you know that's a pro or con depending on who. you are the all-wheel drive system is capable of, as I'm starting to say, disengage itself, it will run in front-wheel drive only mode and will only drive the rear wheels during an event, a cornering event, or a stall pull, so It's extremely efficient, you don't lose much fuel economy with this, but you have the rear end available when you need it, sounds like your kind of day, well the last thing we can talk about is something simple, this car is 0.2 inches longer lower than the GTI, so you're getting extra performance and there's also been some changes to the toe links, so that's why you're getting extreme performance with the Golf R.

I would say extreme performance improves performance, yeah yeah Scott under the hood what do we have some TSI? our power yes, 2 liters turbocharged ei eight eight eight, this has been recycled, reused, except in the Golf R, we have more power and torque because they have completely changed the design of the cylinder head, including the pistons, although in reality it is not the hood, but the interior. There are changes here, don't rev it too much, it will come into contact with the head, so be part of the attack, yes, okay, good point, it has cooled the EGR, it has a different turbocharger, different settings, obviously, to go with everything that and this has to be one of the best tuned modern poppers I've ever driven where it's really smooth all the time perfect idle obviously this is new 9,000 miles there's no weirdness there's no question no acceleration it really is great to drive this now let's talk about some of the negatives of this Scott engine, yes you can take it away because it has a different high pressure fuel pump in the US.

I'm not really sure why and I need to do more research on this, but we won't have dual injection engines. we're still just getting direct injection here and when I posted that this car was going to be featured in a video, finally some of the patreon people said could you please talk about the lockdown? It's a part of it, talking about the fine print of that. So I'm going to say that Volkswagen in recent history has had some issues with quality and some of them are just down to the choice of parts that we were talking about.

It has an electronic water pump, which is a fairly common failure point.Damn, Dex bombs. They tend to go out and need to be replaced if you drive like crazy, high pressure fuel pumps will fail and you have problems with carbon buildup, things like premature spark plug failure, check engine lights for misfires or random misfires, weird things about to happen. So we all know why we had random misfires, probably why they're probably carbon issues and no one wants to admit it while it's under warranty, so you know exactly what they are. VWs definitely have a major problem with carbon buildup, so all these things together.

You wonder why you would consider something like this and the straight answer is that not everyone has many problems, but it largely depends on the car you buy, which is even scarier. Some people will say they've had it forever. I've had twenty tunes with 7,000 horsepower and they never had a problem. You know, it's just that you talk to different people. You'll get a different answer. What I can say is that some of the design is questionable. Why they do certain things the way they do. It's incredible, but at the same time VW has responded by extending the warranty on all of these new cars.

It has a six-year, seventy-two thousand mile warranty, which is plenty of time if you finance or lease it; no, you should get rid of this crap before the warranty is up, if it has it, it's at the six year mark and you're under that mileage and you know how many problems you're probably going to be fine with, assuming you do the maintenance, change the diff oil , you know, proactively, preventatively, you make the spark plugs, you know, you clean the carbon. on the valve train, I would definitely say keep it, but if you have problems early on, like some people rent this, don't stick with it and you've had to work on these, what's the type of that? you don't have to deal with anything, they are bulletproof, good answer.

I had her while not doing a turbo on a TIG with some low miles, you know her extended warranty and they try to deny it because she made her own. oil changes, of course, they made her find all the receipts for the oil and filters that she bought, well, so I mean, it's like it's insurance that they want to get out of it. Carbon problems, coils, sometimes, aw, it's the coils, some misfires, no, it's the Carbon and you have problems, what were you talking about? Some people with the Gulf like that it won't start because they know what coolant it is, but I don't know.

Continuous problem for Volkswagen and Audi. Coolant temperature sensors shit and become dumb. the ECU and the car can't start when it's cold yesterday saturday 215 degrees with a cold start, luckily it was warm enough outside for the car to start but when they launched those last few cold mornings we had they couldn't start. the car and it's usually just locked at a certain temperature, so that's the reality of some of these things. Each manufacturer has some strange and quirky connectors, as if one of your viewers knows a guy. I mean, even being new, it's like the connectors are breaking.

Yeah, you can't do that when he's 5-10 years old. Don't know. I would love to see the specialist unplug them without breaking them. All the guys who actually designed the connectors. No, I'm the Volkswagen guys. I know they know it. a trick and my trick is just a little screwdriver in there and pry it back enough, but then you usually end up sometimes jamming the little bar and then you have to put the screwdriver on its side or pick it up. I don't know if I have done it. I've never discovered a Volkswagen connector so these are the weird things you'll find with these cars and I mean we could probably go on for a long time about the damn intake, yeah it has a weird PCV system. - I mean, again, different cars have different quirks and problems and you know that's the thing with this, you just have to be aware of it before you get in it and get behind the wheel of the new golf r and luckily, I've been getting in and coming out of all the competitive vehicles in the last month, including the GTI, so I have a pretty good idea of ​​how this car performs against the competition, but more importantly, people will be wondering: do you know what the advantages are? ? and the disadvantages of driving a vehicle like this, namely its price of close to forty thousand dollars, which is a lot of money, so let's leave this aside.

When you get behind the wheel of the Golf R you'll immediately notice that it's very similar to the GTI (it's pretty much the same here), this has to be one of the best performance cars on the road you've ever seen from solidity, the silence, the smoothness, there is the feeling that you are not driving some kind of ecological box and that is something that you are paying a lot of money for the second thing you are going to notice is the steering. Everyone talks about steering now and it's almost comical, but because of the variable gear ratio steering, it can go from ridiculously fast to turning. a little slower and it depends on the speed, it depends on the situation and some of its driving modes and the turn from lock to lock is very fast.

I mean, it's one of the most notable things behind the wheel of this car now in terms of the inputs. you know I talked about the steering, it's very quick, it feels great for the most part, there's not a lot of feel, you know you're going into inputs like shifter on the clutch, shifter on the clutch, most of people want, you know? It's direct? Can you find the equipment you are looking for? I feel like it takes me some time to get used to the ship during the broadcast. It's not really bad, they are very easy to use and again I'm sorry. like they're set up for someone who's going to drive this every day you can go in traffic and there's a lot of wiggle room on the clutch release it's not like that it's not an on off switch so when you go from the first, a second, a third, you can always be fluid with this, now the penalty is that it feels like it's not connected to anything.

This is a straight video game setup, in fact, as my fan, my tech shifter and my clutch pedal feel more real than this car does and you know it's always in gear, you never have a hard time finding which gear you're putting in. , but it has absolutely no mechanical connection, it just feels like a hollow piece of plastic and the clutch feels like it's actually connected to nothing but the benefit means that every shift is smooth, there's no trying to be smooth, you don't have to than tuning the clutch like in many cars, you don't make uncomfortable or abrupt shifts when driving hard, this is really more. suited and set up to run every day and it feels so good to do that and obviously you know you want a high performance machine or a high performance hatch and you might be wondering if this thing is too soft so let's take it to curvier roads at higher speed. speeds and see how the suspension works and just about everything, and when you start to tear it up on the back roads or wherever you drive i.e. on the street, its diversity and mode selection is a blessing because when you go from comfort or writing individual to race I mean, the race mode even on the street is really comfortable, I mean compared to some of the competition, it's still less firm than the STI RA, it's much less firm than the RS and it's pretty much on par with the Type R.

I think the dry modes. works extremely well now, as you can see when you're breaking it in, one of the most important things about this car is that even when you leave the stability control in its finely tuned state to help you take corners, you can notice that the system in all four wheels -The drive system here is really good, unlike the GTI where it literally understeered off the road and there was a delay before the Haldex transferred power. You can feel like he's doing exactly the same thing in this car, but instead of something nice.

When you cut the power or feel that strange pull at the front you feel the power going further back and the best part is that it turns in, it no longer starts to understeer off road and even in tight terrain like this it is really satisfying when you know you can just push into the corner, it feels like it's going to understeer, but at the end of the day it pushes you through the corner with the rear end and that's why it's so much better than the GTI, the most important thing about driving the Golf R.

I mean, on the street now I can tell you flat out that this vehicle is so accessible, it's so accessible. I think for so many people who want to get in here and drive fast, they feel comfortable doing it, unlike the RS, where you're like a man, this thing is edgy, it's quirky, it's weird, you can't get comfortable, a lot of people don't. comfortable with it, you feel immediately comfortable here and you can drive it fast, the all-wheel drive system. it works, the manual transmission is really forgiving, the clutch is forgiving, it just feels like anyone could drive this car and really enjoy it every day and then if you want to spin around you can do it now, for aggressive driving I turn the control off of stability and traction and I really think this is just something you would have to do on a track or at an autocross because the default stability control system works so well that it is so integrated with the way the all-wheel drive system works from the little bit of braking that it does to help the car turn, obviously you know there's a lot of other tricks it's doing in terms of clutching and disengaging, but I think it starts to interfere with the drivability when you're at nine or ten tons. . and at least you have the ability to turn it off and it doesn't seem to interfere too much, doesn't mean you can tell it's there but it's not as annoying as it was with the GTI, I mean it's going to understeer. on the limit, but it's not understeer that's totally throwing you off your game and I'm going to talk about some of that with the final thoughts here, let's take a look at the final thoughts on the VW Golf R.

I'm going to use one word. to describe this duality and that's something you start to get into in performance cars because I did some number crunching and I don't normally work off the charts, but here are these four performance vehicles with the Veloster n excluded, for Of course, because I haven't driven it, but you take a look at these numbers and you start adding up what the best car is and the best car for me is not the best car on this list based on how I rated things like street performance, overall performance. Exterior styling, some of this is subjective of course, but the tie rod on paper and handling should be the better car.

I would like it more and I would say go buy it, but that's not the case, in fact one of my favorite cars, the Drive. turns out to be the St IRA even though it's far from the best car on this list and that's what happens when you get into vehicles that are designed to appeal to more than just getting from point A to point B and the Golf R is one of those cars, in fact, in terms of performance, I don't think it is the best car, but in terms of usability, driving it every day, the sense of enjoyment that you get there is practically the best and it continues to be one of the best.

The best street cars actually made in this segment. It is comfortable. Ride quality is excellent. The adaptive dampers work well. The all-wheel drive system is excellent. The manual transmission doesn't have any strange noises or issues when it's hot or cold. It's smooth, almost everything about this car is great except for the fact that you feel almost nothing emotionally when you drive it at a high level. It doesn't connect with someone like me who is more driver oriented. It's not the best driver's car, but it would do. certainly I say it's one of the best combinations of all those things and that's really the kind of takeaway from this.

I wish VW would inject some soul into it, from styling to performance. I wish they had a Golf R plus or something that was just more raw. but VW has never been like that and if you're someone who likes that more sterile, low-key approach to a performance machine, this will be the car for you and I'll tell you right now, I hope it helps take care of you