Approaching the end of year 1

It's been a while since I updated this blog - mainly because my experience with the car has been so positive that I have very little to actually say about it. This car really does do everything you could reasonably expect of it.

We had a little snow again this winter - not as bad as previous years but a few inches setted on the roads. I thought that I'd really miss the 4 wheel drive of my old Jaguar, but actually the little VW behaved itself perfectly (in the wake of sliding BMW's).

So at almost a year old I've booked the car in for its first service, and I'm not expecting it to be a big deal - the dealer suggested the work could be done while I wait.

I have asked them to look at two problems with the car; firstly, I don't think the alignment of the headlights has ever been right - they are bright enough, but too low to see up the road when not on full beam.
Secondly, the bluetooth phone unit stopped working. I know the unit itself is under the drivers seat, and it stopped working when I put the seat back to let someone in the back. Hopefully this is just a connection, but I have to say that the hands free phone works fine on my portable sat-nav, so not a massive problem.

Something else I'll have to get sorted is the alloys. I think I've now managed to curb all four - mostly my fault, of course, but I'm not normally prone to that sort of think so the design of the wheels is obviously not very forgiving.

Got it! - First Impressions.

So, Thursday 17th March '11, I finally got my hands on the Silver Scirocco.



The hand over from the dealers took only 25 minutes or so, and then a quick drive over to Mum and Dad's for them to see it. Having checked the car over there are 2 minor problems - well one 'imperfection' with the Life Shine - a black sticky mark on the nearside rear wing, and one problem. I specified the Bluetooth handsfree telephone kit, and when I first tried to pair my handset (an iPhone)the menus didn't make perfect sense, so I abandoned the process thinking I'd sort it later having read the manual. But since then the whole telephone menu has disappeared from the MFD. Odd, to say the least. Fortunatly, the Garmin Sat-Nav I bought also has Bluetooth, so we used that for the weekend.


So for the first day we did about 40 miles making about 50 total on the clock.

My first thoughts on the looks are that I'm delighted - I think it looks great from every angle, even where it looks slightly awkward in some photos in the metal it doesn't.

I still haven't seen a Scirocco in Black Oak Brown and will have to reserve judgement until I do, but I'm very happy with the look of the Reflex Silver - especially when its clean. I'm also glad that I didn't spend any money on bigger wheels - the standard 18" look huge and the ride (on UK broken tarmac at least) is very good on Comfort - a little harsh on Normal and noticably uncomfortable on Sport.



I've read conflicting views as to the neccessity to run in new cars, but decided to stay under 4000rpm for the first 600 miles - and aiming to get those done in the first weekend.

That trip was to go from home in North East Surrey, around the motorways to South Wales, and then up to Mid Wales on A Roads, back to Telford for an overnight stop, and then home on a mixture of roads via a few interesting stops.



As it happened, we also got a mixture of weather, from fairly heavy rian to beautiful blue skies.