Volkswagen Golf GTI, is the go-to hot hatch still any good? | ReDriven VW Golf GTI (Mk7/7.5) review.

Good morning guys and welcome to drive it again now this is not a spoiler for the rest of the video but when it's new there's a

good

chance the

golf

gti is the perfect car when it's new these things are just amazing all around , but here's the thing. These are no longer new after thousands of kilometers, in this case six years of use, are they

still

worthy of their reputation as a perfect car? What's wrong with them? What do you like to live with every day? How much do they cost to own and maintain? The most important thing is that if you buy one, let's find out before we delve into the

golf

gti, do us a favor and hit the like, subscribe and bell icon buttons, and hey, why not follow us on all social media too now that the golf gti debuted?

Back in 1975. This particular car is a 2015 Mark 7 performance and look, in this video we're going to focus on the Australian Golf GDI Mark 7 and 7.5 variants from 2014 to 2020, but if you're not from Australia, don't. Be worried because everything that will happen should be related to the gdi in your local market. Now the performance basically filled the price and equipment gap between the standard GTI and the Golf R. For the extra money, it received a number of cosmetic upgrades, larger brakes, and much redder brakes. Borrowed from the golf r, more power and most importantly a very clever electronically controlled differential which we will look at later and as you have probably already noticed the performance of this gti is not exactly standard, it has been reduced, it is very attractive. aftermarket wheels and has a front splitter.

Now the Mark 7 GTI received an update in 2017 that most people call the Mark 7.5 and we have received a lot of special and limited editions and we can't go into all the graphical details of each variant in this video because it will take too much time, But we've compiled all that information and included it in our handy re-boosted cheat sheets. Our cheat sheets are invaluable as they provide a full breakdown of the car's model range. It is common. Issues: what you should pay attention to before handing over your hard-earned money, how much of that cash you should hand over, and much more.

Check it out at the link below. What does the outside look like? First, subjective things, I think the GTI. It is one of those very rare cars that adapts perfectly to every scenario. I've seen these things cruising around racetracks and then pulling up outside the fanciest restaurants and it looks completely at home in both situations, but as far as quality goes, there may be some issues starting with the trunk handle because this is the trunk door handle. What's happening is that water can build up here and it's supposed to drain through this little hole, but the problem is that the little grommet is starting to deteriorate and basically water fills up. in the trunk and can cause all sorts of problems, it's a fairly easy fix but the next disappointing step is the hood release cable and hood release handle, both are starting to deteriorate and therefore fail, and it is very annoying to fix them early.

Golfs with a sunroof had a problem where these plastic rain gutters would crack and let water leak into the car, unfortunately to fix this you have to remove the entire roof lining to repair it. Volkswagen fixed it on later GTI models, but if the GTI you're looking at has a sunroof, be sure to check it out. It could be disastrous. Speaking of water leaking into the car, there are some reports of water seeping through the door cavities and out the bottom of the speaker grille, filling the footwell with water instead of pouring out. the drain holes at the bottom of the doors, it's pretty easy to fix, but again it's disappointing, it happens.

Open the hood and make sure all the plastics in the engine bay match and only look for signs of dodgy repair work. Now, because these are front-wheel drive performance cars, if driven poorly, they have a tendency to understeer in people's front yards, so as far as damage goes, make sure all panel gaps around the front of the panel leaving gaps everywhere, but especially around. the front of the car, make sure they all match perfectly and while you're at it, be sure to check that all the paint, not just in color but also consistency and texture, matches across the entire car, as well as many panel beaters They will never be able to do it. matches robot quality so yeah this front section, make sure it hasn't crashed into your neighbor's front yard, check the wheels for damage and for gutter rash because standard tires They are not that cheap.

Replacing and beautiful aftermarket jobs like these are quite expensive, plus try to get under the car as much as you can or feel under here to see if the undercarriage has had any problems with speed bumps or if it has even been abused at one stage rally. Although these are fairly common problems, this particular car has not suffered any of those problems, which means that there are some

good

examples out there, but yes, make sure you check well, what is the interior and exterior like from a standpoint? Subjective and design view, I think? It's perfect, it's the perfect balance between sporty and elegant.

Some people think it is too conservative, but they are wrong. I think it's fantastic. The seats are delightful, supportive but comfortable. Personally, I love the tartan finish like the standard seats. this one has the optional leather, there were also some optional sport seats available, these are just the standard ones, but even the supportive ones are fantastic, okay, they wear out first, the leather ages very well here, this is the daily driver of this type and the leather is exceptionally good ok the steering wheel is getting a little shiny the gear selector here are some small marks and cracks but yes the real leather is excellent also the seating position like this is a performance car and you can get a nice seat under the wheel. it's super adjustable and i love it, yes i love the seating position on these it just feels crouched and purposeful i love the whole switch

still

feels great no dramas with it oh it gave me a bump ok , here we go, um.

One thing is that this handle squeaks a little bit, like you know that's a little problem, but that's honestly the only problem I could find here, everything else is banging, oh, also another thing you have optionally installed. Like brushed aluminum shift paddles, I think they look great, they match the whole silver color of the steering wheel. If you have a gdi make sure you get these aftermarket shift pedals because yes they look great now as far as the issues we know about. Some reports where the locking mechanisms on the doors seem to create a mind of their own and simply lock and unlock sporadically and completely at random.

This car hasn't suffered from that, but yes, there are some reports of that happening, we know that too. it reports where the gauges turn on or lights out or the entire gauge cluster just fails completely again. This car hasn't suffered from that, but yes, it's something to keep in mind. Well, the look of the back seat if you've seen any of our videos. before you know I'm six foot two, this is in my driving position and the room is okay, my knees are kind of brushing the seat here, but it's pretty roomy up there, like the glass house is quite nice, it's a

hatch

back, there's a good amount of room as far as wear goes, the owner of this car has kids and you'd never say it again, the leather is in excellent condition, all the interior trim here is fantastic , there are no major squeaks in the door.

It handles very well, how is the technology? When it works it is fine again, this car has not suffered from this problem but we are aware of many reports where the entire infotainment system can fail when everything works you get a decent amount of phone connectivity. Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay. It has satellite navigation, but it is not the most intuitive to use. There are plenty of driver aids listed in our cheat sheets and there are five driving modes, but we'll get to those later. Using the infotainment system, this car is from 2015, so it's starting to feel a little old and cumbersome, and the screen resolution isn't that amazing, but with every gt oil generation, every gdi update, this system got better every time. time so depending on the gto you get just check the infotainment system this one is ok is it practical?

The best thing about buying a hot

hatch

is that you get a high-performance car with all the practicality of a standard hatchback and the GTI. with its 380 liters of boot space, it's nice, it's quite comfortable back here, plus you have a 12 volt outlet and these seats fold flat, the practicality in the back is quite good, you have some matte pockets here, you have a door of excellent size. bins with mat to keep the drummer's hands nice and warm, there's an armrest here with cup holders that are actually adjustable so it almost sounds like you're playing with legos in the back, but that's pretty useful and you can also access the trunk. from here to make sure whoever you've kidnapped is nice, safe, cozy and practical, loads of stuff here we go, there's storage up here for your sunglasses or sunglasses, if you're not from Australia damn it, there is storage here. which is the perfect size for a phone, it hides very very well, there is storage here where the phone fits very comfortably on top of the cup holders and unlike the audi sq5 which link is here it is very easy to lift the phone too when you have the cup holders are visible the phone also sits comfortably like this and again it is very easy to get to it if you are determined to live in the mid 19th century there is a perfect sized place for a matchbox under the seats, you have small drawers for children.

Here you have a very good size glove compartment. You have a place down here for your purse. Excellent sized door bins that are carpeted so when you grab the water it's nice and cozy on the back of your hands and in the center console storage space. here and also more storage space down there, lots of great storage space, so the gti is in good mechanical condition, it's the german engineering all that was good. I'm not a mechanic, so I'm not qualified to answer those questions, but Jim is a mechanic, here he is. Jim, do you know what this is?

This is a water pump from a golf gti, if you're lucky it will last you around 60,000k. I have seen them fail with only 40,000k and here is a curious fact. a non-genuine one, we have found that in some cases the non-genuine ones seem to last longer than the genuine ones, so keep that in mind if you have one and need to replace another one, what else goes wrong with a golf? gti there are many, later models have less problems with their dsgs, but they still have problems, they still have turbo problems, they have intake track problems, they have injector problems, they still have weak plastics in the engine bay. that just don't last, the electronics and computing are better than they used to be, but they still have problems and then you have labor costs because there's a lot of stuff in the engine bay and it's crammed in there and things break, it's complicated and expensive to repair and if you are looking at one, of course, make sure it has a good service history.

Remember it's a high performance car and people's daily drivers, so things are going to go wrong. It is safe? Yes very sure. The GTI received an award. five-star safety rating on the end cap and is packed with safety tech like driver fatigue detection, multi-collision braking systems and all the familiar features like abs stability control and multiple airbags again, all the details are there on our cheat sheets, so what's it like to drive? Well, do you want the good news or the bad news first? Oh, the good news, I can't pick the kind of person who prefers bad news. um it's great in the city, the tips are very easy to judge, it's a golf hatchback so it's super simple in the city. it's easy to park it's easy to maneuver in and out of traffic great in the city too if you want to have fun planning that right foot just unleashes a completely different character of the card this thing is appropriately fast the brakes feel more secure than the standard gti there is more progression in the feel of them and just yeah, I just have a little bit more confidence in thecenter pedal or in this case left pedal power is nothing without traction and this front diff makes all the difference you can just jump on power early it rips you around the corner with most powerful hatchbacks with traction front that don't have a differential, you have to wait until you apply the power, otherwise it just opens and the wheels spin everywhere except this.

The thing just grabs and pulls you off brilliantly now to the driving modes you have eco comfort sport normal and individual personally the sport does it for me individual obviously you can customize whatever you want eco and comfort as if this were a performance car, they're just that's the point of it keep it in sport you'll love it in sport this in sport is the way to go the only thing I'll give to the comfort is that the comfortable suspension soaks up our horrible Australian roads much better than sporty but I still think that sport is more fun.

Also, this car has been lowered a bit, but it doesn't feel that different in, say, spring rate at normal height. The gti performance feels great as far as sounds go, the exhaust note is really nice, not too much. drony here I love all the hisses and pops that the turbo system and the wastegate and all that makes it a bit artificial but still a bit fun okay any rattles or squeaks like how's the wear? Nothing, we've been on bad roads and this just feels tight, no creeks, no rattles, no squeaks. Great now to the bad news, ok the gearbox looks when you rent it and have fun, the dsg gearbox is fantastic but Just when you are around town like when reversing or pulling off a road Right off the bat, it's a bit clumsy and twitchy and there's a bit of hesitation between gear changes and getting going - it's not the end of the world, I know.

I'm being very critical but it's not smooth looking, the standard gti from a driving point of view has never done it for me and even compared to this a civic type r or a renault mcgann rs have sharper tools in the as far as driver involvement goes, but This with the diff and all the extras is such a good package here in Australia. $20k will get you a standard gti with a lot of miles and probably a lot of problems, and the price maxes out at almost $60k for, say, a tcr as of 2020. gti performance like this will range from the low 20s to even the low 20s. 30, which means it has actually held its value very, very well, especially for a well-made European car.

Volkswagen's claimed fuel economy is 6.6 liters per 100 kilometres, but that's being very optimistic because even before we did the enthusiastic driving, we were seeing figures close to 10. Volkswagen switched from a three-year kilometer warranty unlimited to a five-year unlimited kilometer warranty on October 1, 2018 and that's good news because it means that many of these GTOs still have some factory support left and, unfortunately, there's a good chance you'll need that recommended service every 12 months or 15,000k and as Jim alluded to parts and labor, they can also get quite expensive quite quickly. We recommend installing some high performance tires because these things come to life and have some sticky boots, so if you buy one, take a good look.

I'm going to be honest about something: the standard GTI just frustrates me, it's incredibly good at Everything that really bores me is a bit lackluster, but this performance variant turns up the fuse enough to give it some real personality and if it were so Simple as that, of course, we'd recommend purchasing one, but we've really lost count. How many horror stories have we heard about Mark 7 Golf GTI interiors, leaking engines that implode, catastrophic and hugely expensive failures are becoming almost common. Look at it this way, it's almost like dating a rich professional model who does charity work on the weekends, but occasionally.

They stab you in the neck and steal all your money and just throw it in the ocean if you're okay with that level of stress and impending doom and you can find one of these with low miles, a full service history in excellent condition, yeah, Alright. Yes, so yes, you should get one, but if you want a completely dependable and dependable hot hatch that will give you years and years of trouble-free performance and practical driving even when it's out of warranty, no, you shouldn't buy one of these, sorry . I love it but no thanks so much for looking and hey what do you think of the gti?

Let us know in the comments section below. Did we miss something? Let us know and while you're at it, be sure to hit like, subscribe. and bell icon buttons and hey, why not follow us on all social media and see you next time.