I’ve test-driven a great deal of automobiles, however I’m unsure I’ve ever been as annoyed by one as I used to be by the 2024 Volkswagen Golf GTI.
I’m not saying it’s unhealthy. You may’t work up the power to get annoyed with a nasty automotive. The 2024 Golf GTI is irritating exactly as a result of it’s excellent at some issues and so unhealthy at others that you may’t adore it such as you need to.
To Volkswagen’s credit score, it has already taken steps to right a lot of what I’ll complain about. To buyers’ loss, these steps received’t are available in time to enhance the automobiles on seller heaps right this moment.
My check mannequin was a top-of-the-line 2024 Volkswagen Golf GTI Autobahn with a 7-speed DSG computerized transmission with VW’s triptronic paddle controls. It retails for $41,730, together with the obligatory $1,225 supply charge.
The Good – The whole lot Not Digital
The Volkswagen Golf is an establishment. It has been in near-continuous manufacturing for 50 years, although it wore the Rabbit title in America for a part of that run. There’s been a sporty GTI model virtually all alongside.
For many of that span, it’s adopted the identical formulation — a sensible hatchback kind, an engine just a bit extra highly effective than you’d anticipate for its weight, and suspension on the sporty facet of regular.
That consistency has made it beloved. Generations of automotive lovers have revered the Golf as the selection of a sensible shopper nonetheless too in love with driving to accept a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic.
Along with your foot on the pedals and the steering wheel in your arms, the 2024 GTI appears to have perfected that formulation.
It’s simple to dwell with as a household automotive. The hatchback kind provides it loads of cargo area, and 27 mpg in mixed driving is sufficient to make driving inexpensive for many.
The 2024 mannequin boasts a Goldilocks suspension — agency sufficient to be sporty when the highway invitations it however supple sufficient to not annoy you on a badly pitted highway.
The steering is sharp and responsive. The surfaces you contact most incessantly form your expertise of a automotive, and the Golf GTI’s steering wheel is an ergonomic masterpiece.
The two.0-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder engine, rated for 241 horsepower and 273 lb-ft of torque, is tuned to provide loads of energy at neighborhood speeds. The twin-clutch computerized transmission picks its timing so properly that you could be by no means contact the paddle shifters.
The Dangerous – The whole lot Digital
Earlier than I focus on the Golf’s inside, let me reassure you that VW is aware of what’s flawed.
The corporate has radically reconfigured the way it writes software program. It has promised to convey again buttons on future fashions. It has even made a $5 billion funding in startup Rivian, partly in hopes of gaining access to higher in-car software program.
Quickly, the 2025 Golf will probably be on seller heaps. It is going to get an inside makeover.
However, for now, 2024 fashions sit on seller heaps with this inside. It has some points.
The steering wheel is stuffed with touch-capacitive buttons that detect my contact inconsistently. A number of instances, I pressed the button to show up the radio and noticed the cruise management activate and off (however the quantity didn’t change).
Sure, I checked to make sure that I hadn’t fat-fingered the controls. They have been merely detecting my contact within the flawed spots.
Even once they labored as designed, they weren’t all the time designed properly.
The central touchscreen is recessed, making a small shelf beneath it on which to relaxation your hand whilst you work together with it. That’s good design. However the shelf seems to deal with touch-capacitive sliders for local weather management. Putting your hand in probably the most pure place to relaxation adjustments the temperature. That’s unhealthy design.
The local weather management display provides two interfaces – “traditional local weather” with the controls you anticipate, and “good local weather” with capabilities like “heat arms” and the mysteriously named “air care.” I’m unsure why that’s crucial. Change is just not all the time an enchancment.
Other than the buttons, the Golf’s inside is okay. The seats are snug, and there may be ample room in each route. The supplies are principally delicate to the contact and constructed to final.
Nonetheless May Belong On Your Listing
The frustrations of the 2024 VW Golf GTI’s electronics are all issues an proprietor would get used to, I think. When you love the whole lot else concerning the automotive, there is no such thing as a cause to keep away from it.
However they’re unhealthy sufficient that Volkswagen has already made vital adjustments to the automotive.
If I have been out there for a sporty hatchback at an affordable value, I’d think about the Volkswagen Golf GTI. It’s snug and genuinely enjoyable to drive, and it has the planted, agency driving really feel longtime GTI followers search for.
However I’d watch for the 2025 Golf or attempt to negotiate the value down on the 2024 mannequin. Its usability flaws are vital sufficient that the corporate has already taken motion to repair them subsequent yr. In any other case, it’s a pleasant automotive, which ought to make it simple to suggest.
Cox Automotive, the dad or mum firm of Kelley Blue E book and Autotrader, is a minority investor in Rivian.
