Is it possible to do it all with one car? We think the answer is yes, and we think the best option in the current used car market is a Mk7 Golf GTI like ours.
As we’ve covered in previous updates, it’s our hypothesis that these cars are relatively affordable, reliable, fun, fast, safe tools that can handle both the daily commute and weekend track days without burning all your free time working on them.
[Announcing our latest project car: 2017 Volkswagen Golf GTI]
We already know our GTI is a great daily, so it was time to see how it performed on track. So we signed up for an open track day at our official test track, the Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park.
Our goal? Run all day, have fun, and set a baseline time to improve from.
And, after a pre-track inspection, we did just that. No trailer, no toolbox, just a stress-free track day: Drive to the track, drive on track, and drive home.
We’ll admit that after years of dedicated track cars this experience was a breath of fresh air as there was no midnight trailer loading, no truck, and no working in the paddock. We just showed up and had fun.
And we learned some things about our GTI.

Photography Credit: Tom Suddard
First, this car is fairly fast–even on the stock 500-treadwear, all-season tires, we managed a best lap of 1:28.8 seconds. Checking our leaderboard, that puts the GTI in fair company: It lands right next to a 2020 Toyota 86 Hakone Edition, which isn’t half bad for a four-door hatchback that can easily carry a bicycle.
But while that time was respectable, we couldn’t help but focus on what was holding us back: Both the butt dyno and our Garmin Catalyst showed the car severely limiting power on corner exit, and we assumed the culprit was stability control.
See, Mk7 GTIs have a button to disable traction and stability control, but the least aggressive setting available is just called “Sport.” And while driving the car, we could tell that meant limiting slip angle, and limiting power on corner exit.
When a car refuses to rotate despite aggressive trail-braking, and when the data trace shows a jagged acceleration curve on corner exit, you know stability control is ruining your fun. That, and it was absolutely cooking the rear brakes trying to influence the car’s attitude.
Is this a problem? For the stated goal of this project–a low-effort build that’s a perfect commuter and weekend track toy–probably not. In fact, those computer nannies are probably perfect insurance to make sure the average GTI owner can get to work on Monday. But we couldn’t let that injustice stand, as the computers were clearly stealing time from us.
We had a trick up our sleeve: OBDeleven, a $99 OBDII dongle and companion smartphone app designed to tweak the settings on cars like our GTI.
We plugged it in, toggled a few settings, and almost instantly our stability control button cycled through three options: The familiar “Normal” and “Sport” were present, as was a new option: “ESC OFF.”


Photography Credits: Tom Suddard
With this single change, our times dropped more than a full second to a new best of 1:27.60. And that’s despite a warming track and less turbo-friendly weather. As you can see in the data from our Garmin Catalyst, that improvement comes primarily from more consistent acceleration on corner exit:

That puts the GTI on par with a new Mazda MX-5. Is that impressive? Not for a sports car, but again, this is a car with four real seats and a giant trunk that averaged 35 mpg on the drive to the track.
We’ll talk more about OBDeleven in a future update, but there are all sorts of fun settings to play with. Limited-slip action? Brake pedal pressure? Modern cars have a shocking number of software-defined behaviors, and tweaking them can change their character significantly.
So we’ve talked about lap times, but how does the GTI actually drive? Is it fun? Well, that’s where the bad news comes into play: No, it’s not our favorite track car. Sure, we have the same complaints we have of every stock car: The alignment isn’t aggressive enough, the tires are slippery, and the springs are too soft.
But this car also has some real issues we need to address before our next track day. The transmission fires off lightning-fast shifts, but still tries to downshift at the worst possible time, even in manual mode.
And the car is fast in a straight line but has tons of trouble putting that power down, meaning finding fast laps is an exercise in patience. While a Miata joins you on track like a willing companion eager to conquer the world, this GTI has to be pushed, pulled and prodded through every lap, seemingly fighting you the whole time.
On the bright side, the car’s brakes–the larger Performance Package units–held up to a full day of lapping without issue, and laps in an unwilling car are far better than no laps at all.
As we drove home in air-conditioned comfort, CarPlay playing through the stereo, we started scheming. Can we make this car faster and more fun on track without ruining its street manners? Let’s find out.