My cortusy car has arrived

[pgarner]

Well my baby was dropped off at the garage to get her new bumper and wing.
insurance company told me i get another 1.8 manual petrol of similar size. What got dropped off,
2.0 GTTdi Golf ok first impressions are. its slow and sluggish (compared to the bora) in 1st but thats it pulls cleanly through the other gears and the torque is rather nice, i now know how HDi feels losing traction in 3rd without trying.
Nice large interior as well so hopefully itll do to haul all my stuff down to cranwell for next week.

Just had a quick drive but will post up more next week when i go to give it back

[waynne]

It would be interesting to hear your experiences with the car. It is probably the best VAG diesel around at the moment. I wonder if you will be converted to Dieselism!

I bet hdi paid them off to give you that car

[pgarner]

Well was out in it today for a decent run today with it, really to get used to it before tomorrow.
apart from the noise at idle its quite a quiet drive. Bit too quiet maybe im used to hearing the engine sitting at 3-3500 where as this was 2000 at 75mph so found myself getting up to speeds that i didnt want to be caught doing. def thinking i might be converted to the dreadful diesels for the next car especially with the economy averaged 45mpg where as i would have been looking at 32ish.

Next big test is how do i do driving it for 220miles tomorrow then back up next friday.

[HDi fun]

Is it the 140 or 170bhp unit?

[pgarner]

Its badged up as the GT which i thought meant the 170, however on looking in the manual its the 140.

[HDi fun]

They're suprising, aren't they. Now imagine another 100lbft of torque on top of what you have there already and you'll get an idea what my car is like.

[pgarner]

yeah like a said it might just have swung me back to looking at diesels for next time

[prevtec]

diesels are becoming more and more powerful than petrol cars these days

im going of topic here but how is a disel cleaner than petrol where the ozone or green gases are concerned????

i honestley dont know the answer
but evertime i see a deisel. its pouring out black smoke which is normal
if that was a petrol i know it would be #!#!#!#!ed

so how is this black smoke less damaging, than a petrol that dosent show smoke

[HDi fun]

Good question? Diesel cars do go like rockets, no doubt. The sooty exhaust is a by product of this. I'm not convinced thay diesels are cleaner. It's a point worthy of discussion.

[waynne]

Oh great another Diesel worshipper in the offing! Its like a diesease? (Mis spelling intentional OG!)

[pgarner]

diesels are classed as cleaner as they produce less co2 the fact that it kicks out a lot of reek means nothing.

ok after driving over 600 miles in the golf gotto admit its a great place to stay, nice and spacious. only thing i found was that the steering was rather light and not very responsive. pretty much like the power unresponsive below around 1800 rpm and 1st gear was a waste of time pretty much however in the higher gears 3rd plus pulled without a problem, with just a hint of smell.
the only thing thats still puts me off is the noise at idle, VW needs to spends some research on getting rid of the tractor sounding diesel

[HDi fun]

VW diesels are known as being amongst the lesser refined examples, especially the four cylinder units. So VAG needs to address this. Balancer shafts, hydraulic mounts, DMF's and engine encapsulation all help. It'll happen - they'll get there.

The PSA engines - in my car it's the DW12TED4 engine is NOT renowned for it's tunability. That's not to say it can't be tuned - it can - I have living proof. It's just not known for it. Probably largely because this particular engine wa never really fitted to many models. Possibly ahead of its time in early 2001 when we all were ignoring diesels for the most part, Peugeot-Citroen cmae up with a 16 valve diesel with refinement to rival a middling petrol V6.

Current Golfs have ridiculously over assisted steering, Passats have been like this for 10 years or so. They still go where you point them, it's just a bit uninvolving. The 406 can be a bit liek that to. If you want a really good handling large 5 door then hunt down a P11 Primera.

When somebody makes a diesel that is really pedestrian friendly (ie. virtually no exterior sound AT ALL at idle) they'll get very rich, very quickly. So long as this is not at the expense of overall running costs or performance, that is.

Glad that you enjoyed your diesel holiday, at least for the most part.

[xavier]

What was your average MPG over your holiday?

[pgarner]

Trust me xavier wasnt a holiday, think i managed 15 hours sleep tops over the whole course. ( day started at 730 so up around half 5, and finished at around half 4, ten back later to do "homework" and prep for the next day, in the bar around 10ish and will a pint costing a whoping 95p the drinks were stacked up when the shutters went down at 11, got to bed around half 1 check everything was in good order then some sleep.


average mpg was great averaged 51 mpg on the run down and 53 on the way back. just about all on motorways and a roads
think the VAG have been using the DMFs as this has been a problem with the tuning as they struggle with much more than a remap.

[HDi fun]

I have heard that DMFs can be fragile. I wonder though is that just because a small percentage of drivers/users/owners are far too brutal with the clutch? You can't go around side stepping the pedal with 3500rpm loaded up and ready to go. I imagine that with a solid flywheel instead you quite possibly reduce the gearbox to a pile of circlips on the road.

[pgarner]

yeah i think its more, like you said, the small percentage that drive around full whack all the time. yeah i think the vibration would kill something using a solid flywheel

[HDi fun]

It's not really the vibration - that can kill anything mechanical over an extended period.

It's the brutal 300 odd lbft that's suddenly unleashed on the transmission when you drop the clutch from a standstill with the go pedal flat down and the engine bouncing off the rev limiter.

Dial in the heavy-weight construction of a diesel engine and you're loading up bearings and sleeves brutally.

You can only hope that the ensuing wheelspin protects things a bit. Tyres are cheaper than engine rebuilds.

[waynne]

Carbon fibre driveshafts are the answer! They just cost a fortune.

[HDi fun]

Carbon fibre driveshafts won't protect the gearbox!

[waynne]

I think it would help a bit. It softens the inertial pull from the wheels when you drop the power.

We'll be getting Diesels with Dog boxes soon and then we will all need to re learn double clutching!