VW Golf R 2021 review. Touchscreen madness & how does it compare to my GR Yaris?

[Music] well welcome to a new harry's garage video and today's car is the new volkswagen golf r you see here 2021 introduces the mark 8 version of the golf and this one packs 320 horsepower and for me is a sort of definitive card of three definitive cars i think across the whole car park is the golf the range rover and the porsche 911 that's why i wanted to get this golf r in i also just put it next to the yaris the gr yaris because i can't help but compare both have this four wheel drive this chassis dynamics and a very potent turbocharged engines the golf r i'm amazed that vw say it they expect this one to account for 10 percent of sales and it was always a very popular model and basically because of lease deals you get mega lease deals 300 pounds a month or something got you a golf but it disguised how much the price of a golf r had gone up and this one now basically on the road price 39 295 pounds and that includes first year road tax which is 895 pounds on this car now but with a few extras it soon goes the wrong side of 41 000. a friend has specked one of these up quite remarkably with a performance pack etcetera to 53 000 pounds and he's about to take delivery on it so yeah golf r sort of sits in a different class of car for me now at that sort of price anyway let's go and have a closer look it's great having both cars here i didn't realize quite how bluff the front of the gr harris is when you compare it to the golf this is much more streamlined and actually is much lower bonnet line when you turn everything on there's a sort of daylight led that sort of rings the lights and then there's a bar light bar that goes across here as well but a really quite a clean design the radar sits in here there's a lot of tech on this car as we get to see when we go out in it but yeah that's where the radar sits you hardly guess this is the performance model but they do put this flash of blue on it and of course this very stylized r come round the corner and you've got 18 inch wheels on this example but monster great brakes now 357 mil brake disc and then an aluminium caliper as well and i've been massively impressed with the brakes on this you can get 19-inch wheels on for the golf r as well as an option but 18 seems to be everybody's favorite again the stylized are the flash of aluminium on the mirror here is another one that's very signature of golf r and four doors only no three-door golfs anymore come round the back and you get quad exhaust they do seem to like the quad exhaust but they are real exhaust look they shake and they're actually attached to an exhaust pipe it goes direct to the engine which is good again just the r on the back nowhere does it say golf and this is how you open the boot no cameras on this car big boot as you imagine no spare tire or space saver or anything on this car i can't even find the goo oh there it is the goo sign in there anyway it's a big black hole the thing about the golf is it's just incredibly practical car that's what we like about golf really they answer everybody's sort of family needs inside i have to say i really like the blue trim you don't get the tartan trim that you see in a golf gti but this is really quite a nice trim a very trick electronic dash heptatic controls on the wheels we'll look at all this when we're outside but a very different look inside with the mark viii and quite a discussion point to say the least now unlike the gr yaris this is very obviously a steel bonnet there are no struts to bring it up or help help you do that a big squidgy cover which i presume is for sound deadening or something it quickly pops off it's just quite nice to see a modern engine this is the inlet manifold and it's now in plastic used to be aluminium those sort of things each plug has its own little module and sort of coil sitting on top an injection etc and then the turbo sits at the back right against the bulkhead there massively powerful this as i say 320 horsepower from a two liter engine i think yeah it's not quite surpassed i had that ghibli cup maserati ghibli cup in the mid 90s and that one could do 330 horsepower from its v6 two liter engine but you're getting mighty close in a golf right we're going to do now take it outside take it for a drive yeah you get in and you're met by a lot of screens it's almost like the screen here stretches all the way right across the door this thing a lot of screens to light up strange little stubby gear lever as well selector no manual gearbox now on a goal file that disappeared some time ago and a stop start rather than having a button on the dash i've got this engine stop start down there now bing all it comes up very shapely wheel quite nice the actual gear change paddles underneath whether you're actually going to use those or not i don't know um very obvious electric power steering which we'll come to in a moment and completely lack you know i want to turn the fan down because i've just got in oh how do i do that i can see temperature on here yeah so 20 degrees there 20 degrees there um how do i do that so this is what happens when you first get in to golf climate i go to climate there we go i've got fan there i don't want auto fan i'll put it on low right everything is through this screen i want to check what setup i've got on the car so there we are exterior no not about that brakes now brakes is an odd one you wouldn't think why am i going to brakes but actually the esc system is hiding in there if i want esc sport i have to do it like that via the the brakes welcome to golf mark 8 this is what it's like what else am i going to show you i'm going to go forward i can go straight to drive like that if i'm going to reverse i have a 41 000 pound car no cameras 300 pound option if you want cameras i've got radar and things but just strange and heptatic controls i've got a big r on the wheel there then suddenly i've got comfort sport race individual apparently if i pressed it hard like i did then i go straight to race i have to press it gently set this individual is what i wanted so much stuff that goes on now via this screen you really have to get to know it before you can sort of drive off and just do things gently i've got two gauges in front of me but that all changes depending on what setup i'm in i'm in sport drivetrain for some reason right back into drive just on the auto gearbox right get my head all around that lot head out and you'll join me on a different bit of road and we'll just see what more we can learn about this golf r i've still got everything set in as i set off so this is sport slips through the gears very easily this dual clutch transmission seven speed dual clutch is a classy bitter kit and as i've i'm on my noisy bit of road i've just measured it and it's at 72 decibels or thereabouts remarkably refined this golf r when you consider the sort of performance that's on offer very different to the gr yaris with its solid mounted subframes and things that's proper noisy along there 911 noisy but not so in the golf fat just doing this there's very little to tell you the potency there is under the bonnet with that room highly tuned 2 liter engine that's 320 horsepower 320. it's mad a whole load of talks as well before 440 i want to say i think talk have this strange noise every every time you do something to this it's i just find these incredibly distracting having this touchscreen screen and having had those bmws in recently i just want that controller just a natural way of navigating this i'd hate the way i have to go into things why have this car coming at me stop start i'm going to turn stop start off deactivated why can't i just do it on a button auto hold on here which is quite nice now what else no it's not going to move you see oh my god if i actually go to the modes that's why we're going through here sitting in traffic i look at individual the dcc i can go from comfort sport to race i'm just above race at the moment i've got steering race i mean you'd never know drive strain race engine sound pure i presume it's pipe music into the cockpit that's why they have to you have to choose your how you want the engine sounds no valves in the exhaust or anything isn't just what's coming through to the speakers and why have i got a different settings for the cruise control automatic cruise control oh it's just too much stuff right coming out of perfect just give a little squirt up the hill i'm doing 34 right here we go [Music] it's quite a push i mean it's muted isn't it you don't get a lot of exhaust out as i say there is the crap of it exhaust if you want i saw more sound coming through but it's a three thousand one hundred pound option that exhaust so yeah tick with care i mean it is titanium and you know very slick and yeah they're they're excellent bits of kit but that's quite expensive but it's almost 10 to the cost of the car just for the exhaust first impressions of this are just refinement that's what hits you and also let's see special mention to the seats cloth covered this is the standard trim there's only uh this is the only trim available unless you tick the box for lever 2 600 pounds but they are supremely comfortable i've been living with this carb no aches or pains and they're quite heavily bolstered you wouldn't guess when you look at them but yeah when things get you know a bit larry the seats are there with you they're very very good i saw auto card figure this card got four and a half i think to 60 and 10.3 to 100 miles an hour it wasn't long ago the 10 seconds to 100 miles an hour was porsche 996 territory but uh remarkable is now available in a golf now i'm going to go to my settings again and i'm going to put comfort in that has eased off the ride and this yeah it's been a road there 800 pound option to have the adaptive dampers this car has to have them but i suspected there was a way of controlling them and i've looked through the menus and i can't find it it must just be on the when you go for your driver modes is how you've adjusted but excellent if you think this is quite an extreme chassis we're seeing a moment see if i can just touch that and go back to individual i did it first time i've got this to work you can do all sorts of things on the dash i can change i've got the fuel gauge in the middle of the rev counter at the moment that's optional so much um stuff you can lose yourself then still has a 268 page manual also a massive thick manual comes with this car and i'm not surprised you need a proper good read of it here's my compression see how it deals with this yeah i mean yeah but it's reactive to the throttle though and around here my goodness yeah we're gr yaris territory coming around there there's there's not much between them i'd say through there the grip this car finds fines just extraordinary where does it do it it's the way you you don't expect it from this exterior so a very conservative sort of look and then it has this incredible dynamism crack team do the chassis dynamics on a golf r it's still quite eye-poppingly good backhand manual go through these bends brakes need a special mention as well i have been using them seriously hard they don't wilt god it's quick round there and then power out so early i mean it did a gear change just after we came through the apex there what gets me on this manual setting is it will still change gear i think i've even had it in race manual no it will still change up when it hits the red line i think it should actually mean manual means manual right time for some conclusions on this car likes and dislikes well just lights first yeah just the artificial feel of the steering electric steering it's hard to master but this is pretty damn inert the only thing it does is load up when you're cornering you do feel load up but there's no other information coming from the wheel the gi yaris does it way better and shows you can have electric steering that's good another thing well i don't know how to put it quite because it's a 40 000 pack up but it does spend a lot of time being a bit dull this car you the opportunities to actually use what's the magic that is on the chassis are few and far between and the rest of time it's just a golf and it's quite a quiet golf it doesn't make much noise and you'd be fooled into thinking it was just a normal goal for a lot of the time unless you live on a dynamic route like this tactic controls i don't know i can't get on with them maybe it's just me maybe i'm the wrong generation for them but i do like a switch that i know i've touched and it's gone on and off i don't like to have to do it by feel and sound i don't know why and i find it a distraction the whole dash setup and the way you're constantly going through the menus drives you nuts i want to just discuss options and that price it's an expensive golf so you think right i'm going to make it really special i'll go on the options three choice of colors that's all you get white is standard black well 700 pounds if you insist sir this blue 800 pounds that's all the color options you get no options on the interior color just leather that's it 2600 how you know i want to individualize my golf what happened to those oak green golf 16 valves we lust after now you just can't do it with golf r it's part of the reason they do those lease deals they just build 10 000 white ones and then put them out on lease get into the likes just the dynamism just that news they've done wonders on what this car can do it's near unflappable it has this trick diff at the rear which is new on the mark 8 golf and if you do buy this performance pack then you have the nurburgring setting on your driver preference and also a drift mode madness i mean it was on the focus rs so these i suppose they feel they have to do it as well but i can just tell you it's on your side it's those evo subaru days of old now you've got it in a posh golf can do the same sort of things and at gr yaris you would say glued to the bumper of one in this thing and that's as high accolade as i can give it for chassis dynamics it's a golf so it's so easy to live with four-door practicality you can get it past the management indoors um she'll use the golf and not realize what's underneath so that's always been the beauty of golf r that to a lot of people it's in disguise of what it actually can do so yeah concluding the golf r well it has all this new tech and the new tech has some benefits one you get horsepower from a two liter engine we didn't think was possible 10 years ago 320 horsepower and this amount of torque and this amount of responsiveness unbelievable tap with a dual clutch transmission that is switch-like in how quickly it can change gears drivetrain excellent clever e-diffs and that sort of thing but also with that new technology has come nonsense touch screens and things the electric steer which i thought i'm afraid is part of the safety kit and it's becoming mandatory so the car can steer itself out of a hazard so i've sort of mixed with this golf r i admire it i mean it is it's a competent bit of kit i can't knock it but it is the definitive performance golf now i think the gti days have gone with this amount of horsepower you need the four-wheel drive and when it's as accomplished as well just tick the box the price difference between a two-wheel drive gti and the four-wheel drive golf r with an extra 50 odd horsepower you're just going to go for gold fast i can see why it's a 10 of golf sales because it's so damn good i'm just a little bit disappointed that the steering and the electronics i don't need them and i they're but they're here to stay i'm afraid so as long as you can live with those buy your golf r for me i'm sticking with the silliness of the gi yaris for my hot house thrills but i can quite understand if you go for the golf so there you go i hope you enjoyed this video if you have please keep watching and keep subscribing more videos coming along very soon you

Channel: Harry's garage

Views: 243,121

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Id: G-n84SE448k

Length: 20min 10sec (1210 seconds)

Published: Sun May 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/YouAreMentalM8]

I wonder how long it will be until certain touch screen functions are outlawed. It just doesn't make sense that it's illegal to use your phone while driving, but if a giant phone is stuck to your car's interior then it's OK. It's equally if not more distracting because you're forced to use it for basic functions, therefore you are forced to look away from the road.

[u/say-aloha-2my-a-hola]

Yeah I’ll wait for the 8.5.

[u/efficientcatthatsred]

I miss cars with simple dash and real tachometers

[u/Impressive-Potato]

This like a digital vs analog discussion. Harry bought a GR Yaris as his family run around car. I guess he made that much of an impression on him.

[u/Paschalls_Law]

What a frustrating car...The pinnacle of shitty ergonomics for the sake of "muh tech".

[u/GoToSleepRightNow]

For me, it's the Yaris.

[u/peakdecline]

I truly despise what they've done to the interior this generation. The mechanical improvements that are a legit step up for the MK7 make interior let down burn all the more. I loved my 3 years with my MK7 and I'm kind of getting the vibe now I could have held on to it for at least another year without any hit on depreciation. Dang!

[u/AMW1011]

I knew the infotainment would piss me off, but I can't believe they ruined the manual mode for the DSG. Apparently it now auto shifts up, does not hold revs like the previous gen DSG did. Seem I was wrong there, but the point remains. The Veloster N DCT holds it's gears. The new Golf generation just feels so phoned in.

[u/three_shoes]

Im a bit of a VW fanboy admittedly, but everything about the Mk8 has been underwhelming, at no point in its announcement and release have I been at all excited about it. Feels like it could be the most forgettable Golf generation, maybe of all time.