John57

Anyone out there tried the 'new' Golf GTi with the DSG gearbox ? (The 197bhp one that is)

What was it like ? How did it handle ? What was the DSG box like ?

Infact any views on it would be appreciated .... positive or negative

Bassoctopus

A friend has got one and I've driven it for about 20 miles. First impressions were very promising and that DSG is very slick and very very fast. Makes the car feel faster than it really is.

Handling is excellent for such a heavy FWD car, and i drove it with 3 passengers.

Ride is pretty firm.

Don't know if I'd have a DSG over a manual.

Good car but not worth

Boab01

Before lower comes on and slams the DSG because the passat he drove was broken I'd just like to add that DSG is great if you want an auto it also shifts very quickly and you could get up the gears considerably faster than most humans could but you can't move back down the box with the same speed.

The problem is that it's restrictive and doesn't let you shift when you want to. Also a remap wont get much more power out of it because it doesn't like lots of torque. I've been in one and it's okay but for the money you'd be better of with an ST or even better an FD2 with some nice suspension that makes it less bumpy.

DSG is brilliant for a cruiser that you want to drive with a bit of pace it's a decent enough car but there's better available
It's not as good as the manual and it's definitely not as good as the FD2 at real pace

Slickline

I have no experience of DSG but own a manual mkV GTi and find it a pretty nice place to be. Handling is very good with quite firm suspension and can be chucked around very well for a pretty heavy car.

The manual gearchange is good but not as good as the S. The engine has got bags of midrange grunt with almost no turbo lag detectable but it does feel a bit flat at the top end, especially so after driving the S. Although completely standard at the moment i do think it would benefit from a bit of chip tuning from Revo or such like. This should net about 250 bhp which will spice things up a bit for about

Nick Graves

Mk 6 due out in a year.

Basically a de-contented MK5

Road_runner

I have DSG in my 2.0T A3 (same engine as the GTI)

Personally I would say you will either love or hate DSG. What is definitely needed before you purchase it is a long test drive - a weekend for example.

DSG does take some getting used to and I have read about a lot of people not being able to get on with it on other forums.

Personally I love it because it suits my needs. I cover 30k a year in the A3 and the box suits cruising along the motorways. It is also great driving on backroads with the paddles, the DSG blips the throttle brilliantly on down changes and makes a cool farting sound on up changes when pushing on. The speed at which it changes gear is also immense, I think it takes something like 0.008 seconds which means that power delivery is continuous and changing between gears is seamless.

However the novelty does start fade after a little while and you do not get the same satisfaction as you would do with a manual - especially the S. There are some other limitations as well - Even in manual mode the box will still "kick down" if you plant the throttle and hit the kickdown switch. If you hit the rev limiter in manual mode the box will upshift.

So as I said before the best thing you can do is book yourself a long test drive to see if you get on with it or not.

Mole

I have driven both the r32 and the edition 30 with dsg and they it is a really good peice of kit, however it masks the acceleration feel as the power becomes very linea. A manual feels faster although its not. Everday driving given the choice I would prefer dsg but it does feel kind a playstion ish.

Kiteland

I drove the R32 with DSG yesterday. It ran out of petrol on the test drive. Not the cars fault but the sales bod sat next to me didn't have a mobile and then took ages to convince a colleague to go and get some petrol for us. Meanwhile the car sat on a dual carriage way (no hard shoulder) while I stood the entrance to a farmers field.

Anyway..... Car was very good but felt heavy and to my mind not worth the money over a standard GTI. I also test drove a new Civic Type R and had much more fun in that.

Initial impressions of DSG were wow..... but after a while it started to annoy me. It changed down when I didn

Boab01

I felt exactly the same about the R32, quick-ish and comfy but not much fun DSG good but not in enough control whilst going quick

John57

Thanks for the comments people .... all very useful