Farewell mighty steed
 

Well, I sold my '13 Lightening Red last week. I already miss the car. Barely drove it this year due to COVID. I've got a baby on the way and I needed a proper baby daddy. I was gonna go with a WRX, but I also have a small business so I needed space. So it was between a JKU Wrangler and a Golf Sportwagen 4Mo. I also needed stick so that's why those were my two options. I also need to save up buy a house so I stuck with the Sportwagen. Turbo, AWD, and stick. About to pull the trigger on one so we'll see how it goes. I'll stick around this site and hopefully someday I'll buy my car back.

I took this pic right after I signed over the title.

did you have it since new in 2013?

Yup, got it in March of 2013. My wife and I had only just started dating then. Not joking, she was always jealous and hated my car.:bellyroll:

I noticed your join date, 2010, you were one of the founders of the community!

I followed the development of this car really early on. I was obsessed! And when it went on the market, I had to get one! I don't post that often but I definitely lurk. I'll continue to do so.

Been forever and a day since I've been on! My son was born on 3/2/2021! Papahood has been incredible. Highly recommend it if you have the means LOL

I've been rocking an '18 White Silver Metallic VW Sportwagen 4Motion 6spd with 16k on the odo! I really love it! It's sooooo much softer than the BRZ, yet still very composed and very competent! It's so Germanic! I'll post pics and give a little review of it. I had shipped all the way from AZ, sight unseen, and it was CLEAN and the paint was just about perfect. It was as clean a car as one could hope for! It gets awesome mileage on the highway - not so much in local driving. That itty bitty turbo boosts very early on!

Congrats. Time for some "newborn" driving gloves. :)

Thank you good sir! Unfortunately, they won't be nice Florentine leather. They'll have to be baby-puke proof.

1st lesson I learned after having a baby is, you can't have anything nice anymore, because it will be puked, pissed, or shat on. :bonk:

Hope the new owner's going to take care of it as you did.

Ok so where do I begin? As I mentioned before, I bought an '18 VW Golf Sportwagen 4Motion 6spd in white silver metallic. I wanted red - but that was super hard to find. However, the white silver metallic is a cool color - it's white, silver, or light Nardo gray depending on the light. I like it much more than I thought I would!

So why this car? Because turbo, AWD, manual wagon - that's why. Like Subaru used to do. Remember that Subaru? I'd be all over the Impreza wagon if it weren't so slow - or - just bring us the damn Levorg Subaru! I'm sick of your sh!t Subaru!!!

Issue with these cars is they're somewhat rare-ish in the US. They only made them in 2017, 2018, and 2019 and very few people actually bought them. To put things in perspective, there were brand new '19's manual 4Mo's selling in September of 2020. I really really wish I had the chance to buy a brand new one but by the time I actually sold my car, they were all gone. Brand new they started at $24k but dealers were getting them off the lots for $21-22k. So I settled for a CPO '18 that was in AZ with only 16k miles. It was the first car I ever bought online, sight unseen, and the first car I ever had shipped. Mine was $21k, taxes, registration, and shipped to my home.

When it showed up, it was basically flawless! I couldn't believe it! Interior was super clean, and I didn't see any chips or scratches on the paint. I feel like I really got lucky, and I don't know if I'll ever buy another car sight unseen because I know cars get wrecked all the time without an accident report or insurance claim - and I can't have that.

Exterior:
It's not exciting to look at perse, BUT it's not overstyled and it's quite a handsome looking car. I'm in the camp that cars today are waaaay overstyled. It's the trend in today's car design. I feel like designers add creases and vents for no reason other than to add creases and vents. Cut that sh!t out guys. I makes cars look outdated really quick. There's a reason why the BMW E39 5er will always look good.

It's a simple designed car, but the proportions are oh so right in my opinion. I tend to like long roofs more than hatches. It's easy to see out of, and the sightlines are are awesome.

This one isn't mine but it's the same color. You can see the Nardo grayness that I mentioned earlier. This basically my car sans the roof box:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/danval...n/photostream/

Same here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/danval...n/photostream/

This has the Golf R valence with quad tip exhaust. The R valence is a bolt on affair is somewhere on the list of things I wanna do.
https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/index...67-jpg.206852/

Interior:
I like the layout and overall design of the interior a lot. Very high quality materials! You can defintely see the Audi in this car! This is the first car I've had with such nice materials! The interior looks and feels like it's punching way above it's weight! Very premium.

There are SO MANY cubbies to store things! There is even an underseat drawer that I can add - and plan to add later on! It's like a minivan on the inside in that aspect! My interior is black (which I always prefer over tan, beige, or gray), but somehow the car seems spacious and airy. Gauges are analog! Yaaaaay! They're nice to look at and they're super legible.
https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/2019-V...ureId=48363448
https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/2019-V...ureId=48363471

What I don't like is the seating. Coming from a heavily bolstered BRZ, these seats have zero support. I have to brace myself when I turn. At 3mph.:thumbdown: Luckily, GTI seats are a bolt-on affair as well! And that is on my list of mods. I love me some plaid GTI seats! if you haven't sat in a GTI or Golf R - the seats are damned near perfect. Well bolstered, but super comfortable and supportive. Plus plaid. Did I mention that I love plaid?

Because I really love plaid

Other thing I'm meh about is the steering wheel. It's not bad - it's quite ergonomic actually. But it's a bit too big for my liking and the styling is ok. Again, the smaller GTI or R steering wheel is on that list of mods.

The Drive:
So this car is very different to drive than the BRZ. Where the BRZ is razor sharp, the Sportwagen is compliant. VW spent a lot of attention into separating the driver from the elements. All the bushings and mounts are pudding soft. So mushy that MANY people swap out the engine and tranny mounts. Makes for a very very smooth drive though. Maybe a little too smooth for my liking.

Despite the mushiness of the mounts and bushings, the car still feels mechanical. Not unlike my old 2008 Impreza (I loved that car!). You still get the sense that you're the driver, and you're driving the car. I appreciate this a lot.

The steering is very light, but direct and communicative. I prefer heavier steering but it still manages to feel nice. The cool thing is I can program heavier steering (and a lot of other things) with a device called an OBDeleven.

The car is a very competent handler! It's got loads of grip because of the independent rear suspension and AWD. Its very very composed in the corners, without being crashy or harsh. It's so... German! I haven't really pushed it that hard, but I get the sense that when pushed to it's upper limits, the Sportwagen will be very forgiving (eventual understeer). I would like to install sway bars, and slightly lower springs and Bilstien B8 shocks. But until then, it's quite nice!

The engine is a 1.8L variant of the GTI's and R's - still called the EA888. It's so tractable and torquey! Talk about the little engine that could! The tiny IS12 turbo spools up quick and early - but runs out of steam a little early. It's a very smooth 4 banger. Acceleration is briskish- it's so different from my BRZ because you don't need to wind it out. It's a different kinda fun.The cool thing about VW's, is that, very much like Subaru's, they're like Legos. There are so many interchangable bolt on parts between Audi's and VW's. For example, it's very common for people to swap out the IS12 turbo for a GTI (IS20) or R (IS38) turbo. They're OEM bolt ons, that make gobs of power. People have gotten 350whp+ using IS38, E85, and a few supporting mods. EA888 are quite stout so people aren't worried about boosting them a little further.


Now, my major gripe with this car is the shifter and clutch. This is the least confidence inspiring manual I've driven since my friend's '87 Integra with totally shot shifter bushings (when I was 17yrs old). When I want to shift to 3rd, it feels like I'm in 5th. So I gotta do a double take. The clutch has a very frustrating clutch delay valve (CDV) that slows the engagement of the clutch. So I look like a person who's just learning how to drive stick because it looks like I'm riding the clutch. Makes for a very jerky ride in some situations (changing lanes in stopped traffic, steep hills, etc). Positively infuriating IMO.

All in all, I really really like this car. Actually, I kinda love this car. It's utilitarian but not in a Soviet era apartment complex kinda way. It's actually fun to drive and does a lot of things really really well. I wish there were other AWD, manual, turbo wagons on the market, but nooooooooooo. Everyone wants their GODDAMNNED CROSSOVER with a stupid ass CVT. It makes me pretty sad that this will likely be the last car of it's kind unless Subaru does something fun with a wagon. I think I'll keep this car for loooooong time.

TLDR: Great, fun to drive car for the money, punches way way way above it's weight. Shifter and clutch suck donkey butt.

PS: I will get some pics of my actual car. But here's a beautifully done one by a forum member I'm in touch with:
https://i.redd.it/z3p1vzc3fx451.jpg

Young guy, but definitely a gearhead. I hope to someday buy the car back. I already miss it:cry:

I happen to have a 2019 Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen S 4-motion with a manual that I park alongside my 86. The GSW is my version of a sport utility vehicle. I sought out an S trim level wagon so I could avoid the pesky panoramic sunroof leaks that the upper trim levels are prone to. Also, the S has heated cloth seats that warm up quickly when it's cold and stay relatively cool in the summer compared to faux leather. I agree that everything about driving the VW is softer than the 86. But sometimes after you've finished emptying the third load of yard waste out of it at the landscape recycling center and you just want to get back home, it''s nice to have a car that fades into the background and does its job without complaint.

I love it! Any mods? I'd like to run a JB4 by the end of this year. And I want that OBDeleven. Apparently a lot of "options" are things that just need to be coded or unlocked. Hell a used low mileage GTI turbo (IS20) can be had for $250-$300, and a used JB4 can be had for about the same. It's cheap to make good power in this plaform.

"So why this car? Because turbo, AWD, manual wagon - that's why. Like Subaru used to do. Remember that Subaru? I'd be all over the Impreza wagon if it weren't so slow - or - just bring us the damn Levorg Subaru! I'm sick of your sh!t Subaru!!!"

That's a cool new VW - I haven't seen many around here. I am curious what percentage of them are stick? Manual transmission drivers are getting few and far between nowadays!

Congratulations on the new ride.