2021 GTI SE in cornflower blue.

After my wife's Mazda6 (which was pretty much a rebadged Ford Fusion) decided to eat its second water pump before 90k miles, she decided she hated the car and didn't trust it any longer. While I may not agree with her reasoning, I also know I'm not going to change her mind.

Plus, I'm tired of the car, too. berkeley that Ford engine's stupid assed berkeleying ridiculous water pump right in the ear with a ludicrously sized fake dong. 

So, she's been driving my 4Runner for a bit while I fixed the absolutely asinine water pump in the Ford engine and we decided what the future automotive state at Chez Chaos was going to be. While she appreciates the 4Runner for it's general reliability and what it can do (tow, haul Girl Scout stuff, drive on the beach with our gear, etc.), she doesn't like driving something that large and bad on gasoline every day.

So, she gave me a list of requirements and told me to find her a car. The requirements were, in order of importance:
1. Good safety features
2. Fits four adults
3. Heated seats
4. Pretty bright blue or vibrant green in color. Certainly NOT red, black or white. Those were right out. 
5. Cargo space for her stuff
6. Handles well
7. Good acceleration
8. Fairly good gas mileage

I told her she was going to wind up with a GTI or a WRX when I got the list, but she wanted to be very thorough. So we test drove a lot of cars. I'm wondering how many people cross shopped GTIs, WRXs, Chargers, Kia K5s, Jeep Patriots, BMWs, Accords, RAV4s, and MORE lately. She realized that some compromises were going to be in order when we got past item 3, especially since the colors available on cars these days seem to be white, black, silver, gray, red and dark blue, but she really wanted a nice, safe, bright blue car that wasn't a drag to drive.

Plans turned into action when a local dealer got a car she liked, with the only possible compromise at number six, at a reasonable discount off of sticker, and zero percent interest on financing. They were also willing to give us a fair trade in on the Forzda6, and quite frankly, I was DONE with that disaster and didn't feel like I had the energy to bother trying to sell it on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace with how busy my job is keeping me. 

So, as of about 21:00 on April 16th, 2021, we took ownership of a 2021 Volkswagen GTI in cornflower blue with a DSG. It's the second new car we've owned (the first being the Forzda6), and the most expensive car I've ever bought. 

This thread will detail the ownership experience of this car. It will be kept pretty stock for the time being. Pictures will follow. 

That is such a pretty color blue! Excited to follow along. But how does a GTI fail at #6? They handle pretty great, don't they?

dyintorace said:

That is such a pretty color blue! Excited to follow along. But how does a GTI fail at #6? They handle pretty great, don't they?

Stock for stock my 2018 GTI SE as far away the best handling car I've ever owned, including my 2009 WRX by a large margin.  The only knock against its stock is that the factory tires tend to be pretty crappy. I replaced mine with some BFG comp2 AS which made a huge difference in both ride and handling.

I mean I could argue that my Porsche 924S is better handling but that's only because it's way lighter and smaller. 

Reminds me I need to update my ownership thread now that I've passed 30,000 mi on my GTI (op, I will note that mine has been in trouble free for 30,000 mi, I definitely drive it hard.

Daylight Photo incoming?

Oh that's a great color. 

I love that color and was really unhappy to find out that it wasn't offered on the Golf R.

Excellent color!

docwyte said:

I love that color and was really unhappy to find out that it wasn't offered on the Golf R.

The R came in 40 different colors through Spektrum!!

dyintorace said:

That is such a pretty color blue! Excited to follow along. But how does a GTI fail at #6? They handle pretty great, don't they?

Oh, the GTI is great at handling. What I meant is finding a car with all of the requirements *after* item three was non-trivial. eg. something that handles and accelerates well and gets good gas mileage probably won't have an abundance of cargo room. The GTI probably has the minimal cargo room she can tolerate when four people are in the car with her. It's certainly less space than she'd like.  The RAV4 had all of the cargo space she'd need, but it didn't handle well and the engine is a dog, and so on and so on for every car we looked at. 

Slippery said:

docwyte said:

I love that color and was really unhappy to find out that it wasn't offered on the Golf R.

The R came in 40 different colors through Spektrum!!

A Green Golf R was briefly on the list, but it was in Florida, was more expensive and was still pre-owned, and it didn't offer anything that interested my wife that the GTI didn't, other than being green.

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Your running review of your GTI played a large part in looking at them in the first place. It seemed to be a really good all-arounder.

The photos.

My wife has found herself doing 55 in a 45 twice because the car is so quiet. 

That's a nice car. Congrats. 

F that is a beautiful color. Adding to the list for my 62 MG Midget project. 

Brett_Murphy said:

dyintorace said:

That is such a pretty color blue! Excited to follow along. But how does a GTI fail at #6? They handle pretty great, don't they?

Oh, the GTI is great at handling. What I meant is finding a car with all of the requirements *after* item three was non-trivial. eg. something that handles and accelerates well and gets good gas mileage probably won't have an abundance of cargo room. The GTI probably has the minimal cargo room she can tolerate when four people are in the car with her. It's certainly less space than she'd like.  The RAV4 had all of the cargo space she'd need, but it didn't handle well and the engine is a dog, and so on and so on for every car we looked at. 

Oh- forgot to add- when we PCS'd from DC to Sacramento, we did it in the GTI. Two adults, a 12 year old, an 8 year old, and a cat. 7 days. It was awesome. Roof rack and Rocketbox 16. We camped a significant amount with it and the roof box before I got the truck and the Airstream, and it was fine, if a little "tetris'y" getting all the crap in.

Congratulations, great choice and an even better color!

In reply to Brett_Murphy :

Beautiful color and beautiful car. I'm blown away by how quiet these cars are stock even with the "sound aktor"

Damn that's a great looking car. Congratulations! How do you like the DSG?

I still miss my MK4

WillG80 said:

Damn that's a great looking car. Congratulations! How do you like the DSG?

I still miss my MK4

The DSG is pretty dang good so far, but I haven't flogged it yet (still under 200 miles). It will hold a gear at redline and not shift in Sport mode, but that's about all I did so far. This car has engine stop/start on it*, and there is a noticeable delay from when the car turns back on and it actually starts moving, but that's apparently a "me" problem because my wife doesn't notice it and think that it's the bees knees.

For the type of driving she does (City, lots of stop and start) the DSG and the engine stop and start features are probably ideal. 

* Can be turned off. 

That's an amazing color. Is it metallic? 

Gorgeous! Especially with the black wheels and red calipers!

Brett_Murphy said:

The photos.

 

 

 

My wife has found herself doing 55 in a 45 twice because the car is so quiet. 

I sometimes look down when I'm going like 70 on the highway and find that I'm in third or fourth gear because the car is so quiet that I don't even realize that it's revving higher, lol.

There's a GTI that I see on my commute that is that color. I originally figured it was a golf r until I saw the badge. 

In reply to Slippery :

Yeah but you couldn't get one.  VW made 250 Spektrum colored cars and not every dealer got an allotment.  Many of the dealers that did kept the allotment for themselves and didn't give it to a customer to use.  Finding one for sale was extremely difficult when I was looking in late June of 2019, they basically didn't exist.

It was total BS, I would've loved to have bought one but VW did it for marketing, not to actually let the customers take advantage of the program.

bgkast said:

That's an amazing color. Is it metallic? 

Not metallic, more of a pearl, but not quite. 

Some 17" wheels fit the bigger brakes, but not all. I may have to test fit any wheel I plan to buy.