Friday, August 26, 2011
Never the fastest or most outlandish-looking car in its class, the Volkswagen GTI has long been the civilized sport compact like a grunge guitarist with a haircut and a Men's Wearhouse suit.
Redesigned for 2010, this still holds true. The GTI looks rakish but not rowdy; it prefers balance to sheer power. The kids will prefer a Mazdaspeed3 or Subaru WRX, but the GTI will keep its fans — and were it not for Volkswagen's dual-clutch gearbox, which our test car had, I'd be among them.
A performance-oriented compact that's related to the Golf — formerly the Rabbit — the 2010 GTI comes in two- and four-door versions, which you can compare with the Golf, Rabbit and 2009 GTI here. Last year's drivetrains remain: a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder with a six-speed manual or six-speed dual-clutch automatic. I tested an automatic, four-door GTI.
New Face
Slightly wider but identical in length and wheelbase to its predecessor, the sixth-generation GTI has Volkswagen's most sinister face this side of the resurrected Scirocco hatch — which, sadly, we won't see here. Red pinstripes run horizontally across the grille, splitting it cleanly from the lower air dam. Taken together with the nose-jobbed 2010 Jetta wagon, this could signal an end to Volkswagen's half-decade experiment of grafting grilles and air dams into the same visual unit. I don't mind the new look, but it bears mentioning that the grille-meets-bumper theme was distinctive. You could spot a Volkswagen sporting that design a block or two away, and that may not be the case anymore. The new GTI is sharp, but conventionally so.
Contrast that with the well-done rear. Volkswagen scaled back the outgoing GTI's dominant black cladding a great deal; it now sits at the bumper's bottom lip, with an exhaust pipe at each side. See, thisis the sort of hunkered-down look we always wanted.
Standard equipment includes fog lights, a rear hatch spoiler and 17-inch alloy wheels. Eighteen-inch rims and xenon headlights are optional.
Similar Power
With the dual-clutch transmission, the GTI leaves stoplights quickly, but it doesn't blast away like a WRX or Mazdaspeed3 can. Stay hard on the gas, and Volkswagen's 200-horsepower turbo four-cylinder delivers lively acceleration at higher revs, with little of the Mazdaspeed3's torque steer. There's usable power with little hint of turbo lag in almost any situation; peak torque comes at just 1,800 rpm, so you can pass cars on the highway even in 6th gear.
That's fortunate, because the dual-clutch automatic hates downshifting like Conan hates NBC. It upshifts as soon as possible, with virtually no power interruption, but coaxing a downshift out of the thing takes patience — or a swift kick on the gas. Squeeze the pedal entering a bend in the road, and the transmission often stubbornly refuses to kick down to a lower gear until long after you needed it to. The same goes for highway passing. Get used to 6th gear; 5th and 4th are on lunch break.
The GTI's Sport mode mitigates some of this — it holds lower gears longer and kicks down faster — as do the standard steering-wheel paddle shifters. In my book, though, that's not a solution. Call me old-fashioned, but I want a responsive gearbox when I put it inDrive, not Sport mode or with me using paddles to shift.
At low speeds, some dual-clutch automatics — including the seven-speed unit in the S5 convertible from VW's sister brand Audi — work nearly as smoothly as conventional torque-converter automatics. The GTI's does not. It clunks around hesitatingly in parking lots, and it takes a moment too long to settle into Drive or Reverse during multipoint turns. Learn More...
Source : http://www.cars.com
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