Topic: Johnny's 2016 VW Golf R

[Triple Bob]

Well done, an awesome car!

[Flinter]

Very Nice! Looking forward to reading more about the ownership experience.

[whaddaiknow]

Beauty!
Congrats!!!

[KD]

Looking good JM!  Congrats. 

[Angry Chicken]

Late to the party.  Haven't been around here much lately.  Great looking car and congrats!   

[JohnnyMac]

Thanks.  I've been enjoying it.  Still having hit the magic 1,000 km mark so I can really open her up.  So far I've felt very stealthy indeed.  The odd GTI or VW driver gives it the second take but that's about it really.

[OliverD]

Thanks.  I've been enjoying it.  Still having hit the magic 1,000 km mark so I can really open her up.  So far I've felt very stealthy indeed.  The odd GTI or VW driver gives it the second take but that's about it really.

Still haven't seen you around but I did see the blue R the other day, it looked great.

[Julie]

Oh man, I missed this. What an awesome choice! Congrats!! 

[.l..]

Great car...I hope for your sake.  Faster than a RS3 too.  https://youtu.be/-3jWVTKYcP0

Hopefully it's not as problem prone as the long term tester Auto Blog has. http://www.autoblog.com/2015/08/03/long-term-2015-volkswagen-gti-update/ Granted there's is just a GTI.  Always liked Golfs, never had the balls to buy one.

[Scaerio]

Oh man, I missed this. What an awesome choice! Congrats!! 

Me too - sorry - and congrats on a sweet ride and welcome to the FGC/FEC club.

[Blueprint]

Congrats on the new R! 

Since our cars share quite a few bits and pieces, I'd be curious to know what lining you have in the rear fenders. Mine are strangely lined with a felt-like material that doesn't look waterproof at first sight 

Front fenders have proper hard plastic linings.

[HeliDriver]

Congrats on the new R! 

Since our cars share quite a few bits and pieces, I'd be curious to know what lining you have in the rear fenders. Mine are strangely lined with a felt-like material that doesn't look waterproof at first sight 

Front fenders have proper hard plastic linings.

Don't know if it's exactly the same, but my 2010 also has felt-like rear fender liners.

I also thought it a bit odd when I pulled them out to replace the rear shocks. But it's a thick felt and seems to hold up really well. I hosed them down to clean the grit off and they shed the water nicely.

[Blueprint]

Congrats on the new R! 

Since our cars share quite a few bits and pieces, I'd be curious to know what lining you have in the rear fenders. Mine are strangely lined with a felt-like material that doesn't look waterproof at first sight 

Front fenders have proper hard plastic linings.

Don't know if it's exactly the same, but my 2010 also has felt-like rear fender liners.

I also thought it a bit odd when I pulled them out to replace the rear shocks. But it's a thick felt and seems to hold up really well. I hosed them down to clean the grit off and they shed the water nicely.

OK, so everything's normal on mine. The felt makes sense vs soundproofing in a hatchback.

[DriverJeff]

Congrats -- looks awesome!

[JohnnyMac]

Congrats on the new R! 

Since our cars share quite a few bits and pieces, I'd be curious to know what lining you have in the rear fenders. Mine are strangely lined with a felt-like material that doesn't look waterproof at first sight 

Front fenders have proper hard plastic linings.

Yeah mine has the same felt liner as yours.  So they're putting it on the Golfs made in Germany as well.  Feels pretty solid and probably helps with road noise from the hatch area.

Second tank of gas and I just rolled over the 1,000 km on the odometer and feel more comfortable exploring the engine and chassis limits (at least at my novice level that is).  Since last fuel up I've averaged 8L/100 kms at an average speed of 60 kms.  I'd guess it has been a 60/40 split of Highway and city.  Looks like I can expect around 600 kms per tank roughly.

[OliverD]

Kind of crazy that there are already three Rs in little Fredericton: blue, white, and red.

[JohnnyMac]

Kind of crazy that there are already three Rs in little Fredericton: blue, white, and red.

They'll keep coming too as 3 more are pre-sold (I think those all might be tech packs as well), plus the 7th one was order by the dealership for Rob, but he thinks that might be sold before it gets here too. 

I think there's a black, blue, and another red one coming.  The one for Rob will be the nice pearl white color.  I'll be interested to see how all the advanced safety features work with a manual transmission.  I don't think there is any other vehicle sold in NA that offers the Lane Assist, automatic braking (all the way down to a full stop I believe), and radar cruise control, combined with a manual tranny.

[JohnnyMac]

Johnny.  You are a legend.

What has my wife been telling you?  LOL

[JohnnyMac]

It's so nice to finally have a car that I miss driving after 3 days.  I've been stuck in SUV/CUV hell for the past 9 years (wifes preferred mode of transport) and finally having a higher performance manual car is a breath of fresh air.  I'm so glad I chose something I can play with in the winter as well.  Not sure how I would have handled putting a new mustang away for winter (6 months here in NB) and going back to only driving a soulless SUV/CUV.

So last fill up I wanted to see a more realistic fuel mileage, as our driving has returned to normal after a busy summer.  We generally do about 70% city driving but it was more like 40% with summer trips around the province.  So knowing this past tank was going to be more normal driving conditions I decided not to look at the fuel economy numbers the car was showing during this time.  After 550 kms of driving I went to fill up and checked the numbers, car was reading 8.7L/100km for that time period and around the same when measured by hand.  I'm pretty happy with those numbers as I don't tend to drive this car in the most fuel efficient manner.

I got into a bit of an awkward situation with my dealer this past week as well.  The VW dealer here is very big on surveys so they insisted that I fill out one.  I did so honestly and in my normal fashion and I guess I ended up giving them a really bad score (something like 64%).  Which prompted a call from head office to their sales manager.  So I had to explain to him that it wasn't my intention to give them a poor score.  The survey really wasn't set up for my situation as some of the questions weren't really suitable.  The main issue were questions about how knowledgeable the sales staff were with my car, did they explain all the features, and things of those nature.  With my Golf R having a bunch of new features and a new system, the sales staff weren't knowledgeable at all and there weren't any brochures even to list the features. 

I'm not a big fan of surveys in general as they are only as good as the questions asked.  If I had been buying any other vehicle on their lot I'm sure I would have given them a score in the 90% range.  Hope this doesn't affect future service.

[Northernridge]

Glad the car is working out and I'd be happy with the mileage you're getting.

I've been called a few times after completing the customer satisfaction sales survey. I think some manufacturers make a big deal of it with their dealerships.