I am looking at a Polo GTI+
Seems the best of the small VAG bunch at the moment.
Last May we had a need for both household cars to be 5 door, so the wife's 65 plate 3 door 1.6TDI Sport A1 had to go.
We looked at Mini Cooper S in all body variants - found all but the standard 3 door shell to be hideously proportioned with an awful pedal offset that would have crippled my left knee with clutch use, a ridiculous level of depreciation (we had looked at new, expecting a bit of discount, not expecting a 14 month old Cooper S to be retailing for just over half brand new RRP), and very poor rear legroom, even for the kids.
Wondered what the new A1 would be like, but it was too far off for our needs, for us to wait until it was launched.
Looked at Seat Ibiza 1.5 Evo in FR trim, but with WLTP coming in, it seemed the Seat dealer could not get a hold of anything.
Don't like Fords as an ownership proposition, so looked at the new Polo.
I have had 2 Polos, 2 Sciroccos and 4 Golfs from new previously, so knew what to expect from performance models. Could not get a look at anything but a 1.0 variant, but between that and the brochure, I knew I wanted a GTI+ with it's high level of standard equipment and performance.
I had a short wait due to picking up a cancelled order about yo be built and it came for Aug 1st delivery. I wanted to wait for the new plate, but VW forced pre Sept registration due to WLTP compliance for 69 plate cars, and the GTI+ was not WLTP compliant before they started fitting GPFs.
It is an excellent car, available with 12% discount if you try hard enough, only gripe is the very narrow range of paint options for the GTI. I chose Flash Red. We also had a Golf R, which is fast but a bit dull as it handles the power with zero drama.
It's quite plush inside - the GTI cloth and embellishments, the nice rubbery upper dash (unlike the poor T-Roc), the dash and front door opener coloured pads and the infotainment/virtual cockpit screens are very responsive and vibrant - make my 2015 Golf R dash look prehistoric.
There are a few areas they cheaped out on vs the Golf. The top 2" of door card could've been the same rubbery finish as the dash. The interior triangular end of the rear door window frames are begging to be covered in a bit of felt trim rather than the exterior paint colour, and the rear openers could have had the same coloured pads to match the dash pads in front. Would've really brightened the rear interior. They could've made it feel truly high end for an extra £30 per car spent and add £100 to RRP. Interior wise, the Polo has 10mm less rear legroom like for like with the Golf as I would set up the drivers seat for me in either car, it's about 2" less wide overall inside.
I was so impressed, my wife got my Golf R and I kept driving the Polo GTI+.
In Oct, I decided to plan getting shot of the Golf R as residuals were looking strong. We looked at the new A1 - with GTI equivalent engine ("40" trim S-line) - wow those A1 prices have shot up, very little discount available too. Slightly nicer front seats in the A1, but ultimately you're paying £4500 more to gain leatherette. Not a fan of the side profile of the A1's rear either (around the C-Pillar).
So we ordered another Polo GTI+, this time in White - we're expecting it 25th May, it has arrived in the UK. The Golf R has lost me £10700 over 46 months in depreciation - impressive!
For many, lead times are horrific on the South Africa built RHD Polo - some gave waited 13 months for their GTIs.
I came over to this forum again to see if there were any VCDS/OBD11 hacks for the MQB A0 platform - seems they're thin on the ground for A1/Polo/Arona/Ibiza.
VW aftersales is poor vs Audi. My local Lookers VW charges an admin fee that amounts to a hire rate of £17 a day for a courtesy car when your car is in for warranty work. The local Lookers Audi garage does not. There seems a high onus on the customer to prove a fault and avoid a £60 diagnostic fee if the fault has not logged on the car's systems at that VW branch too.
As for the 1.0TSI units, they are horrendous - low power mated to crazy high gearbox ratios (since WLTP came in). You have to rev the car a lot to get it to do anything. Plenty of 1.0TSI 95ps 5 speed manual Polo owners getting barely more mpg than my GTI+ as the car is being worked hard all the time.
VAG seem to be really cutting back on everything at the moment.
