{"id":4872,"date":"2015-08-11T12:58:23","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T12:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/\/?p=4872"},"modified":"2015-08-11T13:03:35","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T13:03:35","slug":"cars-saying-hello-to-the-2016-volkswagen-golf-r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2015\/08\/11\/cars-saying-hello-to-the-2016-volkswagen-golf-r\/","title":{"rendered":"Cars: Saying Hello to the 2016 Volkswagen Golf R"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Volkswagen Golf won car of the year for 2015<\/a> from Motor Trend. What\u2019s amazing about the Golf lineup for 2015\/2016 is you have these vehicles that share a common platform but range from 84 horsepower and 118 foot pounds of torque up to 296 horsepower with 280 foot pounds of torque with prices ranging from 18K to 39K USD and possibly higher with the release of the Golf R Sportwagen next year. It\u2019s a very versatile platform overall and, with the release of the Golf R 4xx (400\/420) coming next year, you\u2019ll have possibly the widest power gamut of any one family of cars and the highest horsepower output of any production 2-liter 4 cylinder engine on the market.<\/p>\n

As an owner of a 2013 Golf R, I\u2019ve been following the 7th generation Golf platform since the announcement 2 years ago. A few months after I bought my car, I knew a new Golf R was coming. Europeans received the car last year and USA received it this year but I held out. Why? I was holding out for nicer european style Pretoria wheels, a sunroof, auto-folding mirrors, LED Taillights and Apple Car Play integration. All of these were rumors for the 2016 North American model Golf R and all of those features were available to European R owners.<\/p>\n

The 2015 model year was around 1,500 units for North America and the 2016 has arrived just this week and of the features I wanted, Apple CarPlay was the only addition along with some minor improvements to the interior but nothing substantial.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad I waited though. The waiting game helped me save more money for a down payment ($3,000) and I aggressively paid more double payments on my current car. The result is a trade-in of my current Golf with $4,500 in equity over blue book and a solid down payment.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

What\u2019s better about the new Golf versus my current model? The amount of changes are truly staggering. At the performance end, we have an increase of 40 horsepower and about 40 foot pounds of torque along with limited slip differential and a more aggressive All Wheel Drive (Haldex system). The visual changes are simply too many to list but the car will arrive with 19\u201d wheels, a better designed spoiler, new front and side look and larger brakes. The 4-tip quad exhaust is ridiculous but multiple tips are now cool so I can\u2019t really do much about that. I\u2019d love to re-route the exhaust to do a single center pipe at some point but exhaust work is expensive and yields no performance so it\u2019s not high on my list.<\/p>\n

The biggest improvement despite all of these performance changes is a 15-20% improvement in fuel economy. It means nearly $500 a year in fuel savings at today’s rate and my insurance premium dropped by $18 which was a nice surprise.<\/p>\n

Interior improvements are what matter most to me. The infotainment setup is a 6.5\u201d LED display from my current 4.5\u201d setup. There\u2019s support for live Traffic, VW Carnet, Apple CarPlay and the center info area between my tach and speedometer is full color LCD with many more features easily in view. Finally, I have an auto-dimming mirror at night! The wipers and headlights automatically enable without any driver interaction and small things like the side-mirrors pointing down when i put the car into reverse along with activation of a back up camera. The seats have more power adjustable functions and, most importantly, I am moving to a Dual-Clutch Gearbox (DSG) instead of manual.<\/p>\n

I wrestled with the change to DSG (automatic) gearbox for a while but this is the future. DSG is faster at shifting, can handle far more horsepower if I modify the engine and increases the resale value. There are times in cities where I like having automatic and, for every other time, I have paddle shifters that are easy to use and shifting is quick.<\/p>\n

The final change is Dynamic Chassis Control which allows driver selectable modes that make the car more agile, stiffer, quicker and louder. Comfort, Race and Sport modes will be a lot of fun. The DSG + DCC were extra costs.<\/p>\n

An aside to the improvements is the built in navigation is now powered by TomTom Maps. I\u2019ve wanted TomTom in my car for a long time and now, for the North American 2016 model year VWs, navigation is no longer powered by Navteq. Having the maps I help make in a car I drive is exciting and gives me a sense of pride just like every time I route home using an iPhone.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

The most important aspect of the upgrade for me is that I finally feel comfortable making improvements and changes to my Volkswagen. So much that I\u2019ll be sharing updates here on the blog as a new section \u201cMy Car\u201d is now a permanent category that I hope will be full of interesting content for car-lovers.<\/p>\n

The MK6 Golf R was my introduction to Volkswagen, the community of drivers and the hardware components associated with the platform. I didn\u2019t make any changes to the car but I did learn all about everything that can break and how much it cost.<\/p>\n

Overall, the MK6 Golf R was incredibly reliable, great in snow, rain, dry \u00a0roads. If there was a financial way to keep the MK6 R in a garage, I\u2019d do it. It\u2019s a car I\u2019ll think fondly of for a very long time. Now that I\u2019m into a new car, I have some planned changes that I\u2019m taking up that are very cool starting with some cosmetic changes that I\u2019ll share on this blog over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a review but I will post that soon. This is the intro to what I hope is a fun 5+ years with this amazing vehicle. I can\u2019t wait to take you all on the journey.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll take delivery today August 11th at 4PM. Here\u2019s the car being unwrapped off of the delivery truck. Built in Wolfsburg and now in America:<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Volkswagen Golf won car of the year for 2015 from Motor Trend. What\u2019s amazing about the Golf…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2016-03-17T02:21:45Z","apple_news_api_id":"4abe4d2c-2607-4570-be46-aeef4db88acd","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2016-03-17T02:21:45Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ASr5NLCYHRXC-Rq7vTbiKzQ","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[145],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-my-car","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-1gA","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5296,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2015\/12\/22\/cars-mk7-volkswagen-gti-versus-golf-r-what-to-buy\/","url_meta":{"origin":4872,"position":0},"title":"Cars: MK7 Volkswagen GTI versus Golf R (What to Buy?)","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"December 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"There have been a lot of people lately asking this question. I guess enough Golf R inventory has arrived with initial demand satisfied that average buyers are walking up to a dealer and seeing both cars available. I keep seeing people ask for advice and, like this thread on Reddit,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Car"","block_context":{"text":"My Car","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-car\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5266,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2015\/11\/24\/my-car-dyno-run-with-united-motorsports-stage-ii-tune-w-tcu-dsg-tune\/","url_meta":{"origin":4872,"position":1},"title":"My Car: Dyno Run with United Motorsport’s Stage II Tune w\/ TCU (DSG) Tune","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"November 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ll have more to write on this in the coming weeks \/ months but last week, I drove 2 hours south and changed the stock software on my 2 month old Volkswagen Golf R (2016). After many hardware changes were made, I was ready to take things to the next\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Car"","block_context":{"text":"My Car","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-car\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Golf MK7 United Motorsport Stage II Tune","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/605\/22851226912_e81230a2c9_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/605\/22851226912_e81230a2c9_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/605\/22851226912_e81230a2c9_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6124,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2016\/08\/02\/my-car-mk7-golf-r-20k-mile-service\/","url_meta":{"origin":4872,"position":2},"title":"My Car: MK7 Golf R, 20K Mile Service","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"August 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Today, I ordered all of the necessary parts to do my 20,000 mile service on the 2016 Volkswagen Golf R. As many of you know, I have a Golf R that\u2019s been modified and has enjoyed a few days at the drag-strip and track. I\u2019ve owned the car for only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Car"","block_context":{"text":"My Car","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-car\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Golf R 20K Mile Maintenance","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8706\/28437791840_2a5f8e2d23_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8706\/28437791840_2a5f8e2d23_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8706\/28437791840_2a5f8e2d23_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4977,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2015\/09\/01\/my-car-mod-10-volkswagen-golf-r-mk7-window-tinting\/","url_meta":{"origin":4872,"position":3},"title":"My Car: Mod #10 \u2013 Volkswagen Golf R MK7 Window Tinting","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"September 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Location: Tint King in Billerica MA. It's about 2.25 hours south of me but the place was highly recommended and I was going to be on the NH \/ MA border this weekend anyway. I showed up at 2PM, they got started at 2:30 and I was out by 3:40\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Car"","block_context":{"text":"My Car","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-car\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Volkswagen 2016 Golf R - Window Tinting","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/621\/20420633979_d923692908_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/621\/20420633979_d923692908_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/621\/20420633979_d923692908_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4017,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2014\/02\/27\/the-2015-volkswagen-golf-r\/","url_meta":{"origin":4872,"position":4},"title":"The 2015 Volkswagen Golf R","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"February 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, I went to my local VW dealership, gave them $500 and pre-ordered a 2015 Golf R that should hit the USA market in March of 2015, possibly December. My 2013 Golf R is the greatest car I\u2019ve ever had the privilege of driving and still be able to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Car"","block_context":{"text":"My Car","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-car\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4882,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2015\/08\/12\/taking-delivery-of-the-2016-volkswagen-golf-r-2016\/","url_meta":{"origin":4872,"position":5},"title":"Taking Delivery of the 2016 Volkswagen Golf R (2016)","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"August 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u2019s nearly 2AM here and I\u2019m writing this after reading through the owners manual and taking up my project management skills to document everything I plan on doing to this beautiful machine. I\u2019ll save all of that for a later post. This post is here to share some photos of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Car"","block_context":{"text":"My Car","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-car\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Volkswagen 2016 (MK7) Golf R (Lapiz Blue) DCC + NAV","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/305\/20314555260_1bd44334d2_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/305\/20314555260_1bd44334d2_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/305\/20314555260_1bd44334d2_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}