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Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick M3 (Post 325856)

It's your long distance daily cruiser. Leave the front plate on.

ya, you're right. it's just so ugly. It'll be nice when I'm through the break-in period. Although, that just means I don't do long highway drones. I'm going to have 8+ hours in the car Tuesday, we'll see how I feel about the Golf then.

not to curse you but keep ear open for rattles. seems to be the number one complaint on vwvortex, here is a example thread

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...-review./page1

Quote:

Originally Posted by Optimus Prime (Post 325868)

so how is your TDI treating you?:)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff_DML (Post 328772)

so how is your TDI treating you?:)

Great; been meaning to do a write up , but I've been swamped. 3300 miles so far. Not fast off the line, but plenty of power once you're above 5 mph for my needs. I also think it has plenty of room on the inside for just about anything I need. The ride is good, steering wheel is nice, seats are good, stereo is good. Really nothing to complain about, its exactly what I was looking for.

My driving is 50-100 miles in the city, then a couple hundred miles on the highway. I generally drive fast and took it on a back roads blast early on. 200 miles regularly over 100 mph, with lots of 20 mph corners thrown in. Returned 37 mpg; I wouldn't have gotten 17 mpg in our e90 on the same drive.

My only complaint has been the shifter; I hang 3rd from time to time and it's not as smooth as it could be. There's a short shift kit that is cheap and I'll probably install.

Another thing that has taken me a bit to get used to is the "Regen" cycle which is some pretty neat engineering, but involves burning diesel in the exhaust. When this is going on, the car runs rough at idle, and if you're in the middle of a regen cycle when you shut the car down the fans will run and it'll feel like there's a small fire under the car.

I'm still convinced you can't find a better daily driver at that price point.

Sounds good, thanks for the writeup

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff_DML (Post 324645)

so I ended up driving both cars today.

VW TDI 6MT:

-Very surprised by the engine, had a lot more usable revs then I expected a diesel to have. Winding it out was actually kind of fun with it.
-MT seem ok to me, throws are long but abnormally long. Didn't mind it unlike the GTI 6MT I test drove before. After driving it I went and sat in a GTI and rowed the gears and it felt similar so not sure why I hated so much before, maybe because I had higher expectations since it is marketed as a more performance car.
-Didn't test the handling that much on my test drive, seemed ok, steering was overboosted but my M3 was too. Overall it seemed fine, not going to be doing track events or auto-x so seemed fine for daily driving.
-Interior is nice, like how it has the touchscreen radio and ipod standard. Nice black cloth seats too.

Mazda 3 Skyactiv 6MT:

-I drove this after the VW so first impression were not good with the lower rent interior and that nasty mismatched LCD screens that OP mentioned.
-6MT was miata like(as far as I remeber miata) but not as short and snickety. 2nd to 3rd was very short for a stock transmission. Light action going into gears but it had a odd tapioca like fluid feel when moving it around in neutral. So better then the Golf but for me not mind blowing better.
-Engine power was adequate but it seems like you kind of have to drive it like you stole it get it moving. Guesing real world MPG would be bad because of this and the TDI would get a lot better MPG. Engine was noisy too when you rev it.
-Suspension was firmer then the golf. Assume it would pay of on curvy roads but freeway might be annoying.

Summary:
Mazda 3 might be the better choice for the curvy road but overall the TDI is a lot nicer daily driver. Basically I seem kind of old for the 3, good 20 something car. They sold the 2011 3 door while I was there and I test drove the car I would want, 2012 base model 5 door in United Gray. Sale guy asked me what would get me to buy the car and I said 5k off sticker and he acted like he might be able to get it. He started having me fill out the deal paper work and I decided to walk.

interesting reading my comment since I ended up buying the mazda 3. :)

I've got 11000+ miles on the Golf now and it's not disappointing. It's a perfect mile muncher and a really good city car. Stereo is nice, multiple media types, very good controls, etc. Seats are the best seats I've had in a car (never owned BMW sport seats, FYI)

Just got the second Blackstone labs report and the break-in is going well. I regularly get 40+ mpg tankfuls with 50/50 highway/town*. My worst was 36 mpg all in-town driving. Best was 45 mpg with 75/25 highway/town driving. I regularly see 50+ mpg stretches on the highway. Today I had an hour where the instant analysis was consistently in the 54-55 range.

There onboard computer has indicated a tank range of 700+ miles for the 14 gallon tank more than a few times. I usually fill it at 3/8 of a tank with 400+ miles on it.

The one negative is still the slightly odd clutch. 90% of the time it feels great but out of nowhere it will either stall really easy or you'll slip the hell out of it. I think it has to do with the filter regen, when that is happening the engine runs very loppy, and I think it's easy to catch it in an off peak and stall it.