Posted By: Trappy
VW Golf R Estate - 05/04/2018 13:57
I’ve been meaning to put a review of the Golf R up on here for a while but, somehow, haven’t felt I know it well enough yet. Having been pushing on in it a bit more over the last few weeks, I think I’ve realised why that is… So, here goes!
Dr Jekyll and Mr… Hide
Looks / image
It’s a Golf and an estate version at that. You’ve all seen a Golf - it’s like one of those with a few rather subtle exterior tweaks… and four exhausts. Despite this supposedly dull exterior, it does seem to stand out. Drivers of other performance car spot it a mile off and tend to let you through / start behaving which is not something I used to see in the coop (which often led to great hilarity…). It certainly isn’t a sleeper in that respect. Golf R’s aren’t that rare of course, but the estate version seems to be – I quite like that. It also seems to pull off the four exhaust thing better too to my eyes. I don’t think it has the cheap lease hot hatch image either. I like to think of it as a modern day Audi RS2.
Interior / toys
Again, it’s a Golf so this is all very good. Build quality is ‘nice’. Every surface you touch / feel as the driver feels ‘right’ if not expensive. Cloth seats are a bit naff for a £35k car though but they’re incredibly comfortable / supportive and probably more grippy than leather would be anyway. The steering wheel feels great too even if the flat bottom that seems to be a current trend seems a bit pointless. The infotainment is very good, though I have nothing to compare it to in fairness. It doesn’t feel like a gimmick and has lots of useful features to play about with so it does all I could want it to really. The virtual dash is probably worth a mention. At first it seems like a great piece of kit, offering the choice of a wide range of views and options to show all sorts of information. You quickly realise that the upshot of this is that you can’t see all of it at once… which is annoying. More functionality / customisation would be better and I expect later versions to offer this.
Adaptive Cruise Control is my favourite of the modern car toys. This beauty will match the speed of the car in front (up to a limit you set like normal cruise control) braking right down to a stop if required. It will pull away on its own for a second or two after that but if it takes longer to move, you need to give the throttle a jab to get it moving again. It makes traffic a doddle. There are even five different distance settings and each of these increases the gap as the speed rises. It’s a little jerky around walking speed but no more so than when you’re a passenger in another car. I suspect it’s that whole ‘bracing yourself subconsciously’ as the driver thing going on?
Performance / engine
There is another thing that’s new to me - the combination of AWD, DSG and a launch control programme  It’s important to state that these car review sites that make a meal of the various buttons to be pressed are mostly exaggerating. You’ll likely be in Race mode already anyway and the DSG box will be in Sport if you’re out doing some spirited driving. Then it’s just a matter of switching off the ESC, nailing the brake pedal, flooring the throttle and then side-stepping the brake. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, lots of cars will be faster, but this is the only time I get that same giddy feeling the coop gave me (when it was rolling). This thing really does go! I’ll get the VBOX Performance box on it soon for some numbers but it’s well under the 4.9s quoted and would murder the coop on any surface. It’s basically E46 M3 performance when rolling from 30-120mph for reference, after that the bimmer would have the legs. In 20vT money, that’s a 290-300bhp hybrid.
The tractability of the engine is also worthy of note. 295lbs/ft from under 3,000rpm up to 6,200rpm feels amazing. The boost threshold then is much lower than a coop with ~300bhp would be and yet it still pulls well to 6,500rpm where a lot of modern 2.0l turbos have long since given up. Only after that does it become a little breathless but it’s a very linear delivery with no perceivable torque spikes. There are some pops and farts if you play with the throttle / gears and the DSG ‘farts’ on up-shifts at full chat add some much needed drama to the drive.
Fuel economy
The trip says 27mpg overall after 2,500 miles so far and I see no reason why VW would lie about such a thing I’ve seen as high as 35mpg on the drive to work where the coop would get 26mpg. Considering it’s a lot heavier, that’s pretty impressive. On a decent cruise at 55-60mph, it’ll do 45mpg, helped no doubt by the absurdly long 7th gear doing 34mph/1,000rpms – it’d do 232mph if it had the power!
Ride / Handling
Ride quality is the best I’ve experienced save for a local E class Merc cab I jump in sometimes. For the level of performance on offer, I have no complaints. Over bumps that made me wonder if I’d written off the Coop there’s little more than a thud.
On to the handling then. This is kind of where I got stuck for a verdict. This car makes me question what handling is. There’s little body roll, it always feels sure-footed and composed and it grips in ways you wouldn’t expect an estate car to. It even has great poise on the road and is very chuckable. There is something missing though. I found myself pushing the car occasionally, trying to find its limits, pushing a little further each time to see if I could find them, exploring the grunt out of tight corners and generally trying to get it ‘out of shape’. Each time, I’d park up and tell myself I’ll have a real mad drive on some country lanes soon. Last night, in the pouring rain, I switched the traction control off completely and gave it some beans on a variety of corners, over odd cambers and through puddles, accelerating too early in the corner, applying too much lock too quickly etc. Anything to find out how it handles. I came away wondering what the traction control does. It made no difference. Where, with the system turned on, the light would flash and slow the car, with it off, it just went a bit faster. There is no oversteer / understeer balance that I can feel. You just choose a line, floor it and let it get on with it. It will understeer if you go silly but, if you want to make decent progress, you can’t really get it wrong. That’s the problem with the car (if it is a problem) - that final piece of the driving experience seems to be hidden from the driver!
The fundamental question then: Is it fun?
I would say you absolutely can have fun driving it but, as a complete driving experience, it isn’t fun per se. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing though. It has a niche in the market that few other cars can compete in and I genuinely love driving it. Whether driving for the sake of it, nipping to the shops or even sitting in traffic, I’m perfectly happy at the wheel. In fact, I’d go as far to say that it’s rekindled my interest in motoring. The coop is going SORN now and will be covered up for a while (we’re basically having a trial separation). Knowing that things aren’t going to keep going wrong with it while it’s having a break has already made me like the old girl again. I’ll eventually get it back on the road and I’m convinced I’ll love it all the more when I do!
Dr Jekyll and Mr… Hide
Looks / image
It’s a Golf and an estate version at that. You’ve all seen a Golf - it’s like one of those with a few rather subtle exterior tweaks… and four exhausts. Despite this supposedly dull exterior, it does seem to stand out. Drivers of other performance car spot it a mile off and tend to let you through / start behaving which is not something I used to see in the coop (which often led to great hilarity…). It certainly isn’t a sleeper in that respect. Golf R’s aren’t that rare of course, but the estate version seems to be – I quite like that. It also seems to pull off the four exhaust thing better too to my eyes. I don’t think it has the cheap lease hot hatch image either. I like to think of it as a modern day Audi RS2.
Interior / toys
Again, it’s a Golf so this is all very good. Build quality is ‘nice’. Every surface you touch / feel as the driver feels ‘right’ if not expensive. Cloth seats are a bit naff for a £35k car though but they’re incredibly comfortable / supportive and probably more grippy than leather would be anyway. The steering wheel feels great too even if the flat bottom that seems to be a current trend seems a bit pointless. The infotainment is very good, though I have nothing to compare it to in fairness. It doesn’t feel like a gimmick and has lots of useful features to play about with so it does all I could want it to really. The virtual dash is probably worth a mention. At first it seems like a great piece of kit, offering the choice of a wide range of views and options to show all sorts of information. You quickly realise that the upshot of this is that you can’t see all of it at once… which is annoying. More functionality / customisation would be better and I expect later versions to offer this.
Adaptive Cruise Control is my favourite of the modern car toys. This beauty will match the speed of the car in front (up to a limit you set like normal cruise control) braking right down to a stop if required. It will pull away on its own for a second or two after that but if it takes longer to move, you need to give the throttle a jab to get it moving again. It makes traffic a doddle. There are even five different distance settings and each of these increases the gap as the speed rises. It’s a little jerky around walking speed but no more so than when you’re a passenger in another car. I suspect it’s that whole ‘bracing yourself subconsciously’ as the driver thing going on?
Performance / engine
There is another thing that’s new to me - the combination of AWD, DSG and a launch control programme  It’s important to state that these car review sites that make a meal of the various buttons to be pressed are mostly exaggerating. You’ll likely be in Race mode already anyway and the DSG box will be in Sport if you’re out doing some spirited driving. Then it’s just a matter of switching off the ESC, nailing the brake pedal, flooring the throttle and then side-stepping the brake. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, lots of cars will be faster, but this is the only time I get that same giddy feeling the coop gave me (when it was rolling). This thing really does go! I’ll get the VBOX Performance box on it soon for some numbers but it’s well under the 4.9s quoted and would murder the coop on any surface. It’s basically E46 M3 performance when rolling from 30-120mph for reference, after that the bimmer would have the legs. In 20vT money, that’s a 290-300bhp hybrid.
The tractability of the engine is also worthy of note. 295lbs/ft from under 3,000rpm up to 6,200rpm feels amazing. The boost threshold then is much lower than a coop with ~300bhp would be and yet it still pulls well to 6,500rpm where a lot of modern 2.0l turbos have long since given up. Only after that does it become a little breathless but it’s a very linear delivery with no perceivable torque spikes. There are some pops and farts if you play with the throttle / gears and the DSG ‘farts’ on up-shifts at full chat add some much needed drama to the drive.
Fuel economy
The trip says 27mpg overall after 2,500 miles so far and I see no reason why VW would lie about such a thing I’ve seen as high as 35mpg on the drive to work where the coop would get 26mpg. Considering it’s a lot heavier, that’s pretty impressive. On a decent cruise at 55-60mph, it’ll do 45mpg, helped no doubt by the absurdly long 7th gear doing 34mph/1,000rpms – it’d do 232mph if it had the power!
Ride / Handling
Ride quality is the best I’ve experienced save for a local E class Merc cab I jump in sometimes. For the level of performance on offer, I have no complaints. Over bumps that made me wonder if I’d written off the Coop there’s little more than a thud.
On to the handling then. This is kind of where I got stuck for a verdict. This car makes me question what handling is. There’s little body roll, it always feels sure-footed and composed and it grips in ways you wouldn’t expect an estate car to. It even has great poise on the road and is very chuckable. There is something missing though. I found myself pushing the car occasionally, trying to find its limits, pushing a little further each time to see if I could find them, exploring the grunt out of tight corners and generally trying to get it ‘out of shape’. Each time, I’d park up and tell myself I’ll have a real mad drive on some country lanes soon. Last night, in the pouring rain, I switched the traction control off completely and gave it some beans on a variety of corners, over odd cambers and through puddles, accelerating too early in the corner, applying too much lock too quickly etc. Anything to find out how it handles. I came away wondering what the traction control does. It made no difference. Where, with the system turned on, the light would flash and slow the car, with it off, it just went a bit faster. There is no oversteer / understeer balance that I can feel. You just choose a line, floor it and let it get on with it. It will understeer if you go silly but, if you want to make decent progress, you can’t really get it wrong. That’s the problem with the car (if it is a problem) - that final piece of the driving experience seems to be hidden from the driver!
The fundamental question then: Is it fun?
I would say you absolutely can have fun driving it but, as a complete driving experience, it isn’t fun per se. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing though. It has a niche in the market that few other cars can compete in and I genuinely love driving it. Whether driving for the sake of it, nipping to the shops or even sitting in traffic, I’m perfectly happy at the wheel. In fact, I’d go as far to say that it’s rekindled my interest in motoring. The coop is going SORN now and will be covered up for a while (we’re basically having a trial separation). Knowing that things aren’t going to keep going wrong with it while it’s having a break has already made me like the old girl again. I’ll eventually get it back on the road and I’m convinced I’ll love it all the more when I do!