GTI DISCONTINUED?

[nathan.larose]

Just looked on the VW website and the GTI is only available stock only? (UK)
Do we think this means no more GTI’s?

[aaddaamm94]

https://citizen.co.za/motoring/motoring ... emissions/


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[nathan.larose]

No way! I’m shocked to be honest. Thanks for informing me. I bet the car has made a loss if it’s being pulled already.

[SRGTD]

Just looked on the VW website and the GTI is only available stock only? (UK)
Do we think this means no more GTI’s?

Already being discussed on the forum - see discussion thread that was started last week at link below;

https://www.uk-polos.net/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=74912

[Ima]

Nope not discontinued. Just reached build allocation for orders. It will be back. See threads lower down board.

[nathan.larose]

Just looked at it, apologies for missing. I saw that but a big picture of Donald trump replied to that post aha

[Dag]

Just been speaking to the local dealer. Apparently the reason that the GTI has been temporarily withdrawn from sale is that VW have ran out of squeaks, rattles for the dashboard, rattling handbrakes, noisy rear brakes, juddery wipers, crap gearboxes and scratchy plastics. In addition due to COVID 19 there's been a shortage of mechanics that can't fix them.

[Ima]

But apart from that everything is on track for a return

I take it from your post your not having the best of experiences with your car?

[SRGTD]

Just been speaking to the local dealer. Apparently the reason that the GTI has been temporarily withdrawn from sale is that VW have ran out of squeaks, rattles for the dashboard, rattling handbrakes, noisy rear brakes, juddery wipers, crap gearboxes and scratchy plastics. In addition due to COVID 19 there's been a shortage of mechanics that can't fix them.

So I take it you were ‘lucky’ enough to not miss out on these features that are currently in short supply?

On a serious note, if your car is affected by all of the above, then that’s really unfortunate. Squeaks and rattles can - and do - affect many manufacturers cars; some costing many ££££££’s more than the Polo. I had an Audi TT as a courtesy car a few years back and it had more creaks and rattles than any car I’ve ever owned. Forum members seem to have found a fix for the rattling handbrake - if you use the forum search facility you should be able to find the appropriate discussion threads. Juddery wipers is a fairly cheap fix. What gearbox issues have you had?

As for scratchy plastics; many cars in the B segment that the Polo ‘sits’ in has similar grade hard, scratchy plastics in parts of the interior (e.g. Fiesta, Corsa; there will be others too), so the Polo isn’t alone in having some hard plastic interior trim. The Polo is better than some, as it does have soft touch plastics on the dashboard. Some ‘premium’ brands also use hard plastics for interior trim as well - e.g. the Audi’s A1 has hard plastic door cards, and so does the Q2. I think that in addition to any cost saving to manufacturers in doing this, it also creates an element of perceived differentiation in quality between their B segment and C segment models. The hard plastic trim isn’t necessarily inferior in terms of durability, but it will be in terms of its tactile feel.

[Dag]

It's gone now, worst car I've ever had. Spent a lot of time at the dealers who tried a number of times to sort the gearbox, which was had jerky gear changes especially changing down 3 to 2 and 2 to 1. At one point I thought they'd sorted it but the problem quickly came back.

They couldn't do anything about the squeaks and rattles as they had to hear them first, there are billiard table roads around the dealership so I couldn't demonstrate them, they couldn't use a video I'd made because VW wouldn't allow it. Everything else was always a characteristic of the car. The last time they said that I asked them to buy the car, which they did.

I'm now using the missus's DS3, far better car than the Polo though the suspension's a bit hard.

Originally it was a toss up between the Golf GTI, Peugeot 308 GTI and the Hyundai I30N, all manual gearboxes. The I30 went due to the cheap interior (seats were good though), the 308 went because the salesman at the dealership wouldn't give me a price to change and appeared to be messing me around, always with a customer, never returning phone calls etc.

That left the Golf, however I saw the Polo in one of the dealerships and then chose it over the Golf GTI, as I couldn't identify where the £10,000 price difference came from. The car I test drove didn't have any problems, not that I noticed.

I wish the Peugeot dealer hadn't of acted like he did. I should have stuck with a manual though, won't happen again!

[monkeyhanger]

We have a very demanding select few here.

I can tell you all that VW has been fitting crap wipers (usually valeo - smear on the drivers side downstroke) for the last 15 years. I've had 2 MK5 Golfs, 2 Sciroccos, 2 MK7 Golfs and an A1 from new before our 2 current Polo GTI+ - they all came with crap wipers.

VW didn't cheap-out on the Polo, they cheaped out on every VW on areas they think they can get away with.

Rattly handbrake button requires a dab of felt tape inside the button hole - a 10p fix!

Scratchy plastics? Move up to a Golf or an A3 and you'll find a smidgeon of rubberised plastic on the top 2" of the door cards and the same hard plastics below. Apart from that and the grab handles being a more angular shape on the Golf and A3, with a bit of flock lining on the inside edges of the door storage cavilty, it's pretty much as plush as a Golf in the interior pladtics department.

They could've put the door cars on a par with the golf for maybe a fiver per car, upping the RRP by £20 to cover it. They chose not to because they have to justify that £10k difference in RRP to the Golf GTI by giving you a little extra. The Polo GTI+ is far better value for money than a Golf. For your £10k you get:-

LSD + slightly bigger brakes (VW used to charge £900 for these on the Golf GTI's "performance pack" before they standardised them.

Dual zone climate £450

Golf GTI is +45ps on same turbo and less sophisticated version of the EA888 engine let's say it's a £400 remap to enhance the Polo.

Dynamic (swivelling) LED headlights - about a £200 enhancement for Audis between normal and dynamic LED headlights.

Sat Nav £650

18" wheels as standard £350 upgrade on the Polo.

Mulrilink rear suspension - how much extra can that be? £1000? £1500? I'm probably being massively generous there in assigning such a sum to multilink rear suspension rather than the torsion bar we get.

The Polo has 2 stage adjustable suspension as standard that the Golf doesn't have (-£250).
Other than that the GTI+ is comparable in equipment the seats are as good and the Polo is marginally smaller.

So you can justify £3700/4200 of that extra £10k seem in the finished Golf. Based on GFV, the outgoing Golf GTI 7.5 has woeful residuals too (for a performance VW).

Would I buy a Golf GTI over a Polo GTI+ if the difference was £4k? Probably. £6k? Doubtful. £10k? Absolutely no way..

My MK7 Golf GTD and R creaked like Spanish Galleons. The thinning of the "hot formed stiff" bodywork VW has employed to shave 30kg off a Golf feels far worse on the Golf than the Polo because the span on doors is bigger on the Golf and there are shallower creases on the Golf. First time I waxed the MK7 GTD, I was paranoid I was going to crease the bodyeork it was flexing so much just rubbing the wax residue off.

The MK7 Golf feels very cheap/flimsy to me vs previous generations I've owned.

I sympathise with the DSG box - you've got a dodgy one and they should've replaced it as a whole unit after they first tried to fix it in vain. But they put those boxes into other VWs and before the MK7.5 facelift, the Golf performance models used it extensively. My Dad loves DSG and generally keeps his cars 6 years/150k miles. His MK4, 5 and 7 Golf performance diesels have never missed a beat. Long term reliabity is generally good.

If the Polo GTI+ came with a manual option I'd not be in a DSG now.

[Dark_cze]

wow that is long post. Most things you won't find at polo is simply because they have to put thick line between polo and golf. They want us to go and get golf where they ask around 20% more. Plus they used a lot of cheap parts to cut cost even more. That is exactly why there is no RHD GTI with manual and why LHD version ended production almost year ago. They maybe did it becaus they promised us manual version or they simply didn't see high enough profits if they move production to SA. And it is really good car. I would really want to be there when some engineer had that crazy idea putting ea888 with manual to second smallest car they offer. I believe that had to be hillarious meeting. It feels like someone have passion for such cars but some accountant would say f*ck no we will not continue we haven't sold enough of them. BTW conversion to manual should be possible for RHD too. I believe almost everything needed was designed to fit LHD and RHD at the same time.

[Ima]

A manual car would likely be at least £1500 cheaper than the DSG and that would be such a large gap to the Golf GTi it would definitely affect sales and no way accountants will let that happen.

[SRGTD]

@Dark_cze; I dare say pretty much all decisions made by VW on what variants of car they produce will be heavily influenced (or made) by their team of accountants or financial ‘experts’. That’ll continue to be the case throughout the lifecycle of a particular vehicle, as various (usually small) cost cutting measures are made. It happened with the mk7/mk7.5 Golf;

- deletion of storage drawers under front seats
- deletion of soft lidded battery box
- deletion of plastic covers that were used to hide the fixing bolts on the door mirrors
- removal of the plastic covers over the isofix fixing points for child seats

There may be others cost cutting measures too. On some aspects of the mk8 Golf, it looks as if VW continued with the cost cutting compared to the previous generation car - no under bonnet gas strut, deletion of the felt lining from the glove box, no small storage compartment in the lower dashboard on the driver’s side, no sliding cover over the cup holders in the centre console, deletion of user-friendly physical switches and buttons and replacing with harder to use, cheaper to produce touch pads. They’re mostly only small items that many people won’t miss or even notice and the cost savings per car will be small, but when total Golf production is considered, the overall savings to VW will be a fairly sizeable amount.

With the Polo GTI, I think there’s a cheaper version of the plastic engine cover now used without the VW logo - not sure if there’s been any other cost cutting to the current Polo range yet; that’ll probably happen at facelift time.

I wouldn’t be surprised if VW also puts pressure on their suppliers to reduce the cost of parts used to build the car - hopefully not at the expense of quality and reliability when it comes to mechanical parts and components.

[nathan.larose]

It's gone now, worst car I've ever had. Spent a lot of time at the dealers who tried a number of times to sort the gearbox, which was had jerky gear changes especially changing down 3 to 2 and 2 to 1. At one point I thought they'd sorted it but the problem quickly came back.

They couldn't do anything about the squeaks and rattles as they had to hear them first, there are billiard table roads around the dealership so I couldn't demonstrate them, they couldn't use a video I'd made because VW wouldn't allow it. Everything else was always a characteristic of the car. The last time they said that I asked them to buy the car, which they did.

I'm now using the missus's DS3, far better car than the Polo though the suspension's a bit hard.

Originally it was a toss up between the Golf GTI, Peugeot 308 GTI and the Hyundai I30N, all manual gearboxes. The I30 went due to the cheap interior (seats were good though), the 308 went because the salesman at the dealership wouldn't give me a price to change and appeared to be messing me around, always with a customer, never returning phone calls etc.

That left the Golf, however I saw the Polo in one of the dealerships and then chose it over the Golf GTI, as I couldn't identify where the £10,000 price difference came from. The car I test drove didn't have any problems, not that I noticed.

I wish the Peugeot dealer hadn't of acted like he did. I should have stuck with a manual though, won't happen again!

Did you reject the car? I’m going through that process for the exact same reasons. I would pt ex it but the highest valuation I’ve had is 17k meaning id loose 5k with equity losses etc