SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here possibly applies to the models you can get at home.

*To read one of our archived road tests, just select from the alphabetical menu of manufacturers' names on the left. Hover your cursor over the manufacturer's name, then choose from the drop-down menu that appears.

*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


You could drive the 2014 Volkswagen Golf ‘R’ gently. But why would you want to?

It just seems so easy

Critics have said, “Boring old Golf shape; who wants that?” They miss the point. Wings, skirts or vulgar paintwork would give the game away. This thing is a sleeper, an angry young hooligan car thinly disguised as Aunt Myrtle’s 1200cc shopping buggy. Now that’s the point.

You need to know what you’re looking for. Exterior clues include subtle ‘R’ badges on boot lid and front wings; quadruple exhaust pipes; blackened tail lamp lenses with LED strips separating the upper and lower segments; subtly different side sills, bumper and rear diffuser, and 19” alloy wheels over black brake calipers with the ‘R’ logo on them. That’s from the side and rear. Up front there are different head lamps and running lights, a modified grille and a new front bumper with larger air inlets. That’s quite a lot, actually, and if your eyes are really sharp you will detect that it sits 20 mm lower than Aunt Myrtle’s car or 5 mm squatter than a common GTI. As we said; you have to know.

So what else sets it apart from a common GTI?  Almost R89 000 is one thing. And power - a further 44 kilowatts and 30 Newton-metres. And 4Motion, which is what the VW division calls Quattro. Now in its fifth generation, it’s the Haldex awd system that’s been separating men’s cars from boys’ toys for years. The suspension has been ‘R’ rated too; nothing you could see immediately, but the engineers developed new lower wishbones, altered the scrub radius and increased lateral rigidity by tweaking the steering link bearings. The multi-link rear end received some attention too, but VW is keeping quiet about exactly what.

Another thing the company plays close to its chest is power; different states of tune for different markets. Europeans get the piping hot 221 kW (296 horsepower) version, Americans are a little short changed with 216 kW (290 horsepower) and we, with the Aussies, make do with 206 kW or 276 horsepower.

The official reason given by VW, both here and Down Under, is that we have extremes of temperature. That doesn’t really explain anything because other countries experience heat as well. We suspect it might have something to do with our dirtier fuel, but why not just say so if that’s the case? When we find out we'll post it here, but in the meantime our Golf ‘R’ is still dynamite. (Lucky Europeans; hate ‘em.)

On the inside, leather sports seats with Crystal Grey stitching, a leather covered, three-spoke ‘R’ steering wheel, Carbon Touch inlays on dashboard and seat and door panels, redesigned instruments and radio and navigation systems, and blue-inlaid door sills set this top model apart from the others. Our test unit was an early release fitted with the six-speed DSG autobox that launches you from zero to 100 km/h in five seconds flat. The manual box, that runs a little slower, is expected in a few months’ time.

The updated Haldex 5 coupling kicks in before any wheel starts slipping, eliminating nearly all traction losses. Under relatively low loads or when coasting, drive is primarily to the front, with the rear wheels decoupled, saving fuel. However the rear axle engages in a split-second whenever necessary via the Haldex coupling that’s activated by an electro-hydraulic oil pump.

A control unit continually calculates ideal drive torque for the rear wheels and controls how much the multi-plate clutch should be closed by activating the oil pump. Said oil pressure increases contact force at the clutch plates in proportion to the torque desired at the rear axle. So, the amount of pressure applied to the clutch plates continuously varies the magnitude of the transmitted torque. Wheels are prevented from spinning even when driving off and accelerating, because the control unit regulates torque distribution as a function of dynamic axle loads. 

Activation of the coupling is based primarily on engine torque demanded by the driver. In parallel, a driving status identification system within the all-wheel drive control unit evaluates such parameters as wheel speeds and steering angle. If necessary, nearly 100 per cent of the drive torque can be directed to the rear axle.

Add ESC, four electronic differential locks and XDS, and you have a system that makes it almost too easy to drive this car quickly. You can switch the ESC off in two stages if you’re going racing or want to hang it all out, of course.  Just be sure you know what you’re doing because safety kit is there to protect you from normal human stupidity.  Perhaps the power reduction is too. Okay; sermon over.

Whatever the case, the band of maximum torque stretches from 1800 rpm to 5500, intersecting neatly with maximum kilowatts kicking in at 5500 and stretching away to 6200 rpm, to provide a seamless rush of exhilaration from neutral to nirvana. But it’s not always perfect, unfortunately. There is a dead spot, just above idle, that can sometimes catch you out precisely when you need to get away from the stop street before the car approaching along the main road gets too close. It’s turbo lag and this 2.0-litre engine seems to suffer from it a little worse than other VW/Audi powerplants.  Just be aware of it.

Among the extras fitted to our test car was Dynamic Chassis Control, or DCC. It costs R10 200 and is possibly the most worthwhile accessory offered on this vehicle. Well, satnav with the sexier music system is nice too, but that comes to R18 350, so you might find a way to live without it. Anyhow, DCC gives you automatic and individual reactive damping on all four wheels to provide optimum ride and handling at any given moment. It also provides a choice of four driving modes; ‘comfort’, ‘normal’, ‘race’ and ‘eco,’ that explain themselves.

A fifth setting, ‘individual’, lets you tune the ‘race’ setup for engine, steering and chassis response, plus bend lighting and air conditioning. The first three choices we can understand, but the other two? Perhaps the marketing gurus insisted on them. As an aside, ‘race’ mode not only makes the car react more nimbly, but a built-in resonator tweaks engine sounds up from the usual pleasant snarl to just plain angry. Try it.

Apart from the special upholstery and fittings mentioned above, the ‘R’ is much the same internally as the 2013 GTI reviewed here. There’s more than enough space for family use, a pretty decent boot and a spacesaver spare. It's also remarkably comfortable for a sport sedan with low profile (235/35R19) tyres.

A minor ergonomic issue we had was with a wheel arch hump next to the accelerator. It's where your right foot lands naturally as you get in, and took a conscious effort to move it leftward to find the pedal.  Otherwise, we enjoyed living with it. It goes like a student in pursuit of free beer and the gearbox works like we wish all autoboxes did. We could almost get used to the half-million Rand price tag. And that’s saying a lot.

Test car from VWSA press fleet

We drove the 2019 updated version here

The numbers
Basic price: R486 200
Price as tested: R525 700
Engine: 1984 cc, DOHC, 16-valve, four-cylinder turbopetrol
Power: 206 kW between 5500 and 6200 rpm
Torque: 380 Nm between 1800 and 5500 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 5,0 seconds
Maximum speed: Governed to 250 km/h
*Real life fuel economy: About 9,7 l/100 km
Tank: 55 litres
Boot: 343 litres
Warranty: 3 years/120 000 km
Service plan: 5 years/90 000 km; at 15 000 km intervals
*Driven as it should be, much of the time

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.


Comments?
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