Golf Mk V GT TDI (140bhp)

[ScoobyChris]

Well, I've had one of these since Friday and have just completed 500 miles so I thought I'd post up a few thoughts on it.

Likes
- Auto lights and rain sensitive wipers. Once I'd worked out the right sensitivity they seemed to work well on the whole, although there were some cases where I had to shift some of the water up the screen to the rain sensor before it would wipe.
- Blue dials. Lovely to look at and the red trip computer display is nice and clear. I would have liked to see a "lights on" light on the dash but apart from that all good.
- Wheels. Very nice smart looking chunky wheels that sit perfectly in the arches.
- Induction roar. You'd never guess it was a diesel under WOT!
- ESP. I had a play to see what it would take to trigger the ESP and while not invisible in sorting the car out, it's a lot more invisible and predictable than the ASR on the old Fabia.
- Glove box. Nicely damped lid on the glovebox, although it's not very big.

Dislikes
- Seats. I like to sit with the seat nice and low to the floor but as you lower the seat, it tips the front up, which makes driving nigh on impossible. The seats are also a bit lacking in lower leg support.
- Handbrake. I suspect this is down to the car being designed in LHD countries, but the handbrake is right next to the passenger seat of the centre console. An inconvenience for the most part, but a real pain if you want to use the cup holders which are on the driver's side of the console!
- CD player. Very cheap feeling/looking and the sound is a bit tinny. Tried to fiddle with some of the settings but couldn't really improve on it. It also developed a fault where it would randomly bang the volume up 6 notches or bang the volume up 6 notches and switch to Radio 1. Hasn't done that since Friday though so maybe it cured itself.
- Engine. Dissappointingly slow and just produces lots of noise further up the rev range instead of any serious go. I imagine a remap would liven it up a lot more, but from all the reports I was expecting it to be quicker than the Mondeo. It also has an annoying stutter at constant throttle at 2.5k rpm
- Road noise. Could be down to the Pirelli Rosso's fitted but at anything above 60mph road noise is very intrusive
- Climate (or lack of it!). Can't believe the car doesn't have proper climate control. The fan speeds are also a bit lame, even on 4, and the air con didn't produce ice cold air as I would have expected.
- Interior plastics. Cheap and nasty would be the best I could say about them! I thought VW were the king of quality looking/feeling plastics?
- Flip key. Looks and feels very cheap compared to what I remember the Skoda one to be.
- Ride/handling. On the positive side, the steering does weight up nicely as it loads up, but apart from that it's a bit dead and lifeless and lacking in communication. Nice and smooth over flowing motorways/A roads, but when the surface becomes less than perfect or a bit twisty, it really shows the car up.
- Brakes. The brakes on this car are very effective at scrubbing off speed, but my main gripe is that they are on or off brakes (seems to be a trait of VAG cars) and feel over-servoed with very little feel or pedal travel.
- Fuel economy. Was expecting it to easily hit 50mpg, but over the same roads/speeds it returned 37.1mpg
- Rear screen. The rear window seems to catch a lot of spray, especially when travelling at motorway speeds. I'm guessing some mud flaps might limit this, but a rear wiper with a "less" intermittent setting would really help. Or even a rainsensing rear wiper!
- Tailgate. The tailgate is very strongly sprung which means it nearly takes your head off when you open it and requires a fair bit of force (and putting your hands on the filthy tailgate) to shut!



I had a look on Parkers and found that list for one of these is £18.5k. It seems to me that you're getting a pretty poverty spec car for all that dosh and I think when I picked it up, I was expecting a lot more - I guess the badge and "prestige" comes at a price.

Chris

[BeezerDiesel]

I sold mine last month after 12 months of ownership.
Mine was one of the early ones so had dual zone climate and lots of bits and bobs the newer ones don't come with which made it feel a more upmarket car. I actually thought the radio quality was quite good so perhaps the cost cutting dept has been there too!

Remapped it is a fast car but not a quick/nippy one. One of the reasons I went back to the Fabia size chassis which I prefer.
The 140 unit doesn't have the grunty shove of the 130PD despite having the same torque figure at lower RPMs!
However the handling of the Golf V is excellent as standard. The only car I've ever had which I really wouldn't consider uprating the chassis from standard. Brakes too are good on the Golf, having had a mk4 Ibiza, Fabia vRS and now a Polo GTI which all share the same chassis and same size brakes, it has to be said in my experience the Golf's have a much better feel despite being the same size!

I thought the plasics okay actually. Not as nice as the mk4 Golf but they wear better.
Plus I preferred the seat in the Golf too. Mind you being a shortarse I have the seat cranked up a wee bit.

And I agree on the fuel economy front - it's not a frugal engine!

[ScoobyChris]

Have to disagree with you on the handling, especially on B roads and twisty A roads where the car just doesn't feel very sure footed/planted at all. Might just be me being a driving numpty though.

I think I've heard some of the Octavia II owners complaining of similar on the vRS and that was sorted with some FSD dampers.

Chris

[BeezerDiesel]

Well I'll have to accept your verdict on the handling as you're comparing it back to back with a hightly rated Mondeo, where I merely have owned other VAG cars (mostly).

Certainly very expensive though, give me a mk2 Leon any day if it was my own money to spend.

[pixi]

I would've entertained buying one of these before I discovered what the vrs had to offer. I know it's a VW, I know it has 10bhp more and more importantly I know how much you dislike the Fabia Chris BUT, from your 500 miles of driving it would you say it was worth 6.5k more than the Fabia?

[ScoobyChris]

I think it depends where you place value. The Golf has more toys (just), it's a bigger car (just), has better seats, doesn't rattle or leak and it handles significantly better, but I think you'd struggle to justify 6.5k difference. It's not really a family car either and for that money you could get a much larger and better specced Mondeo/Vectra, but I'm sure that the Golf will retain a lot more of that 6.5k come resale time as people will always pay a premium for the badge.

The big problem with the Golf is it just doesn't have the grin factor and is a bit dull and uninspiring to drive. The chap at the hire place said it would blow me away and I'd be spinning the world backwards with all that torque. I guess he's never driven a slow old diesel Mondeo which has 60Nm more torque as standard

Would be interested to know what other people think of the Golf. I have a feeling that I have a high excitement threshold

Chris

[Aspman]

I test drove one a while back. I though it was expensive for what it was and boring. 'GT' seemed to mean a set of alloys and not much else.

Nice enough to drive, I thought the engine was ok but overall just not worth the asking price.

[mrvRS]

Ive just come back to vag after owning quite a few different other marques. I have a new focus ST225 but its going very soon so Ive just bought a second hand 05my golf gt tdi140 all the toys including navi and leather(nappa) its a very nice car more so than my focus, I will agree with Chris though over bumpy b roads it is very choppy and the back end is skittish! but the plus points greatly out weigh the negatives...on motorways its very smooth(im on 17" gti golf wheels with dunlop sports) and its great. I leave the climate on auto so it changes all the time and dont notice how cold it gets, any way after owning the Fabia vrs I think the pd130 is abit more gutsy than the golf but then again it most be quite abit heavier?

Cheers

Darren

By the way I paid £8k for a march 05 black gt tdi with 45k miles nappa leather,sat nav, dual zone climate, auto lights and wipers, auto dimming mirror, 17" alloys

[BeezerDiesel]

That sounds like a very good price Darren. What sort of mileage is it carrying?
It's a great engine to re-map, but I still felt it lacked the response of the PD130. However you can now buy a little device that plugs into the accelerator pedal loom which sharpens up the 'throttle' response which I think would be just the ticket for the 140 engine. Mine had over 40k on it when I sold it and still seemed pretty tight.

[lozgti]

Originally Posted by mrvRS

By the way I paid £8k for a march 05 black gt tdi with 45k miles nappa leather,sat nav, dual zone climate, auto lights and wipers, auto dimming mirror, 17" alloys

Blimey! I'm tempted to ditch my car reading that.

Bargain (goes to Autotrader site)

[Jon TDI]

Originally Posted by BeezerDiesel

That sounds like a very good price Darren. What sort of mileage is it carrying?
It's a great engine to re-map, but I still felt it lacked the response of the PD130. However you can now buy a little device that plugs into the accelerator pedal loom which sharpens up the 'throttle' response which I think would be just the ticket for the 140 engine. Mine had over 40k on it when I sold it and still seemed pretty tight.

I agree with the 140 being less responsive than a PD130. There's a distinct difference in the mid range, but it is a 16V & has more guts after 3Krpm (similar to the Mk2 Golf GTI 8V vs the GTI 16V).

I set a few bench marks in the vRS (remapped) & my Leon is only marginally slower. I'm planning on remapping the Leon at some point, so we'll see how that turns out.
Economy is less than the Fabia too. I calculated that I'm getting 44MPG from the Leon compared with 48MPG in the Fabia. Maybe it's down to the weight of the car or my driving style, but i was expecting a bit more than 44MPG.
The handling, on the other hand, is a different story. The Leon is much more stable than the Fabia. It is a bit more stiffer but still comfortable.



What's this plug device for the accelerator loom then?

[devonutopia]

Dad had one for a couple of years. Nice enough - economical and reliable. But I am glad he's gone for the GTI now.

[BeezerDiesel]

Originally Posted by Jon TDI

I agree with the 140 being less responsive than a PD130. There's a distinct difference in the mid range, but it is a 16V & has more guts after 3Krpm (similar to the Mk2 Golf GTI 8V vs the GTI 16V).

I set a few bench marks in the vRS (remapped) & my Leon is only marginally slower. I'm planning on remapping the Leon at some point, so we'll see how that turns out.
Economy is less than the Fabia too. I calculated that I'm getting 44MPG from the Leon compared with 48MPG in the Fabia. Maybe it's down to the weight of the car or my driving style, but i was expecting a bit more than 44MPG.
The handling, on the other hand, is a different story. The Leon is much more stable than the Fabia. It is a bit more stiffer but still comfortable.



What's this plug device for the accelerator loom then?

My fuel economy on the PD140 was around 38-40mpg average.
Remapped but not driven that hard, mostly quick A roads and motorways as I have my old Polo for commuting and shopping.

The little device is called a 'Sprint Booster' Jon, there's a few threads over on cupranet about it in the mk1 Leon section IIRC. I think this would wake the engine up a bit.

[mrvRS]

Beezer my Golf has 46k on at the moment with full vw history, only down side is its a cat c but the damage has been repaired to perfection, new boot floor and qtr panel, even my local vw dealer couldnt tell it had been done...im not bothered about re-sale cos this will be a long termer.

Cheers

Darren

[BeezerDiesel]

Ah, I thought it was a bit cheap.
Still as you say, long termer so still excellent value. At the end of the day if you buy it cheap enough you can sell it cheap enough so you will still get good value out of it even if you don't keep it for ever.
Really nice spec too. All that would have come up to the price of a basic spec R32 when new!!!