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Sadly after speaking with VW UK about the 2.0 Manual engine for the GTI/GTI+ it looks like it may only be available for now in the standard GTI (this may change but its the information available as of now).
Its disappointing because the GTI+ is reasonably good value for money with all the extras it comes with as standard.
I’ve always had cars with manual gearboxes, but have been seriously considering a DSG equipped car when when the time comes to change my current (previous model) manual Polo GTI. Ideally, I’d want to have an extended test drive to see if a DSG is for me. I won’t be changing for around a couple of years though - current car is only just over 2 years old, and has only covered just over 13.5k miles. Hopefully getting access to a GTI+ for an extended test drive in a couple of years time won’t be a problem.
As you’ve said, the GTI+ represents good value. There isn’t really too much I’d want to add to the standard spec.
^ It's more like £1450 between 6 speed wet DSG and manual (see Golf pricing), so effectively about £1300 if you're getting broker-sized discounts.
That's pretty noticeable , although a DSG equipped VW will generally be worth around £500 more than a manual at trade-in time, so £800 lost over 3 years in reality.
I've never been keen on DSG, I enjoy changing gears myself and having the car do exactly what I want it to, when I want it to (the DSG will do what you expect it to 95% of the time, but those other 5% definitely used to annoy when I ever had a lend of my Dad's DSG Golfs.
This time around though, I felt that I had no choice. I have a manual Golf R that we're keeping, and the gearbox is the roughest one I've had in 8 VAGs bought from new. I keep getting told that it's characteristic of the R, a rough and ready one to handle the extra power, and having driven a colleague's one that felt exactly the same as mine, that's probably correct. It's not awful, but it's a bit poor compared to other VWs I have owned, and most of them have been diesels, all with a far smoother box. I also seem to have a plastic clutch. At 22k miles in sub-zero temps, I experienced brief, mild clutch slip in 4th gear.
Needing to have our second car as a 5 door, so the trusty, frugal and reliable 3 door A1 1.6TDI has to go. I'm prepared to go DSG on a GTI+ despite my previous reservations with DSG, i'm not 100% convinced that we'll see a manual Polo GTI. If there is a manual GTI but not a GTI+ then i'll not regret it, and I don't fancy waiting into at least March 19 to get one.
I wonder what the ratio of GTIs to GTI+ ordered? £2800 of equipment for £1600ish extra over the standard GTI, and you'll see half of that spend back at trade-in, compared to perhaps seeing 20% back of individually specced options. Seems to be the closest thing to a no-brainer I can think of when splashing money on a car.