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The Volkswagen Golf has continued been a basic of economical travel. Over the years, the Golf ancestors has developed to accommodate a cardinal of altered variants, and barring some slight adjustments, the accomplished ancestors is aback for 2018.
The 2018 Volkswagen Golf underwent a mid-cycle refresh. There are new bumpers on every model, as able-bodied as LED taillights, some new acrylic colors and some new caster designs. But those aren't the better changes -- that's larboard to the tech.
I was accustomed the adventitious to drive every affiliate of the 2018 Volkswagen Golf lineup, and I'll altercate anniversary briefly below. But afore I get to alone vehicles, I'll allocution about the tech that's new for this year.
The two above updates that affect assorted Golf variants are newer, beyond infotainment screens, as able-bodied as Volkswagen Digital Cockpit, which replaces the barometer array with a screen.
The infotainment arrangement is abundantly the aforementioned as the one that came before, but it's bigger, bluff and added responsive. The abject awning is now 6.5 inches, with a larger, 8-ish-inch assemblage aloof for college trims. Touch credibility on either ancillary of the awning accompany up accepted appearance like media and navigation, although I will say I animosity the actuality that these buttons are now touch-based and not actual, concrete buttons.
As for Volkswagen Digital Cockpit, I adulation it. It's ablaze and it lays out advice in a aboveboard manner. It contains all the aforementioned advice that the Golf's abate advice affectation did -- ammunition economy, aeronautics directions, audio advice -- but it's added visually appealing. Accepting the aeronautics map amid the gauges is consistently nice, too, but I ambition that little map displayed the acceleration absolute like the arch assemblage does.
Sadly, Digital Cockpit is alone accessible on assertive e-Golf variants and the Golf R. Added models don't get it in the US -- for now, at least.
It's a abashment you accept to pony up about $40,000 to get Digital Cockpit in a gas-powered Golf, while the Europeans can accept it on abundant added affordable models.
I am starting with the Golf SportWagen because Volkswagen dead off the three-door Golf in the US, abrogation aloof the five-door bear as its abject model. But the SportWagen is alone a thousand or two added expensive, and clashing the five-door, you can get one in the top SEL trim. Ignore the five-door. Spend the added money and get the wagon. It's account it.
Full disclosure, I own a 2016 SportWagen, and I adulation it. Nothing above has afflicted actuality -- it still wields a 1.8-liter turbocharged I4, akin to either a six-speed chiral or a six-speed automated and front-wheel drive. It rides nice, it holds a agglomeration of crap, and it's accessible on the eyes. What's not to like?
However, I'm anxious that Volkswagen is prioritizing the Alltrack over the SportWagen. The Alltrack has acceptance to VW's new LED headlights, which the SportWagen does not. The Alltrack carries 75 percent of long-roof Golf sales, so I get it, but still, why bargain out on this one specific feature? My 2016 has LED headlights and I affirm by them. What a asinine omission.
I'd altercate that the SportWagen is additionally added adorable than the five-door Golf, in accession to accepting added utility.
The Golf Alltrack is basically a lifted, all-wheel-drive SportWagen. The added lift in the abeyance provides for a hardly softer ride, abnormally in affiliation with tires featuring thicker sidewalls. It floats a bit added than the SportWagen, but otherwise, they're abundantly the aforementioned car. All-wheel drive is invisible, and you won't feel its furnishings until they're needed.
The six-speed automated is bland and hits all the appropriate about-face credibility no amount how you're driving. The six-speed chiral is okay, featuring a almost absolute shifter, but the clamp pedal lacks a categorical chaw point, so it's harder to get activity smoothly. I apperceive this sounds heretical, but I'd apparently opt for the automated over the chiral -- on this model, at least.
The Alltrack picks up this attractive new adumbration of blooming for 2018, and it's excellent.
Now we're accepting into the fun stuff. For 2018, the GTI gets 10 added horsepower, bringing its net achievement up to 220 hp. The GTI's archetypal checkerboard seats are accepted on the SE trim now, and you can assuredly get the seats in affiliation with a sunroof. The top Autobahn archetypal gets disciplinarian abetment systems, parking sensors and automated parking assist.
The GTI charcoal one of my admired hot hatches, acting now as a center footfall amid the Golf and the Golf R. It's a little stiffer in accustomed active altitude than the Golf R, acknowledgment to a abridgement of a Comfort mode, but it's still bendable abundant to area circadian commutes won't bang your spine.
Its chiral is abundant added absolute than the accepted Golf, too. The chaw position is accessible to suss out, and it's easier to drive smoothly, whether your foot's almost on the gas pedal or awash into the floor. The agent agenda is nice, but it's partly synthetic, as it is on the Golf R, which not everybody enjoys. The council is faster and added than on the Golf, too. It's a abundant all-around amalgamation for addition who wants fun but not too abundant fun.
The GTI is a hot-hatch staple, and every time I drive it, I'm reminded why.
The Golf R, on the added hand, is too abundant fun. With 292 application on tap and accepted all-wheel drive, it will hustle through corners with added aggressiveness than the GTI. Yet, with a Comfort mode, it's still accursed accessible to drive day-in, day-out. Plop this hot bear in Race mode, though, and it stays buried through corners like it's establishing a basis arrangement into the asphalt. The abeyance is decidedly adjustable in Comfort mode, admitting the Golf R's ample auto and attenuate tires.
The big account for the Golf R this year, forth with its dashboard screen, is a new seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. I adulation the six-speed manual, but the new seven-speed is added acknowledging than it was before, and while it accouterment in a hurry, it's not uncomfortable.
However, with a starting amount aloof beneath $40,000, it's an big-ticket hypothesis in the face of new competitors like the $34,000, 306-horsepower Honda Civic Type R. The Golf R is an accomplished car, but I'm still on the fence as to whether or not the hardly nicer materials, dashboard awning and all-wheel drive are account $6,000. But if you do pony up the amount of admission, you're not activity to accept a bad time.
In a apple of high-horsepower cars, the Golf R proves that 292 hp is added than enough, provided it arrives in the able package.
