10,000 Miles

Early July and it hasn't really stopped raining, but we've been out a few times in the Scirocco and it's now gone over the 10,000 mile mark.



Everything is as it should be so far - well almost. In 15 months and 10,000 miles the only criticism I currently have is that the folding Mirrors don't quite work properly. I'm not sure if it's the mirrors themselves or the switch but either way they don't work every time.

And I still wouldn't complain except that the car won't fit through my (single) garage door without being folded.

First Service

AFY went in for its first service last week. I somehow ended up not buying the 3 year service plan with the car although I had intended to do so. So I got a quote from the dealer that I bought the car from which seemed quite reasonable, and they offered a "while you wait" service which I thought should save me the trouble of getting a lift there or anything...

...I should probably have asked how long it would take though as it was almost 3 hours. Still, I had my book with me.

The car has a couple of issues - firstly one of the rear shock absorbers has a leak. This is minor and can apparently be fixed under warrenty later so no big shakes.

As I said in my last post, I've curbed my alloys, but it turns out it's worse than that as it seems that 2 of the wheels (the offsides) are buckled. I think I can guess where that happened but I think that means expensive replacements at some point quite soon.

The other problems that I reported was with the Headlight alignment and the Bluetooth phone unit. The headlights have not been right from new and the dealer confirms that they were set well too low and has adjusted them. The Bluetooth Unit was apparently broken, and has now been replaced, at no cost. Nice to have that working properly again.
I did get offered a 2 year service deal when I came to pay - not as good as the three year original would have been but It'll save me a couple of hundred pounds next year.

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.

2000 mile report

Miles: 2185
Age: 4 months
Mph: 31.7
Costs: £0

Ok, a little over 2000 miles actually, but not much.

My average miles per week has reduced significantly as expected, and I'm probably at about the 100 miles mark now. Average fuel consumption has dipped again - now 31.7 mpg. I'm still very pleased with that, but will be less so if it keeps going down - especially if it ends up under 30. I'll be sure to let you know.

I am happy to report that the car is still completely fault free - everything works exactly as it should - and there are no rattles or squeeks that some other owners have reported. The car is noticeably loosening up, feeling much smoother through the whole rev range.

Having cleaned the car thoroughly a couple of times, I can see its picked up a couple of minor blemishes - 2 around the nose, one on an alloy and one on a door mirror. None of them large, but all will need sorting sooner rather than later.

So far i can wholeheartedly recommend the Scirocco, it's much faster than i expected, except perhaps off the line.

Fuel Consumption

I'm not really sure what sort of fuel consumption figures I expected to get out of the Scirocco - Most cars I've owned have averaged around the 26mpg mark and the Jaguar I had before this only 22mpg. I checked Suzi's 7 year old 206cc 1.6 that we've had from new, and that claims an average of 33.6mpg.

So I was plesantly surprised to see that the Scirocco has managed 32.1mpg after the first 1600 miles, and that seems to be improving a little, I suspect largely because my driving is calming down after the first flush of getting the GT.



VW claim a combined 38mpg for my model - I'm pretty sure mine will never go quite that high - but I'm pleased so far that so much performance is available for that sort of economy.

But all this leads to another issue. How should modern cars report fuel range? The first car I had with a computer was a Vauxhall Vectra. Nice simple system that reported how many miles you could travel on the remaining fuel based on the average mpg of your last 12 miles. Once (in over 100,000 miles of driving it) I let it drop to zero, and guess what? It run out of petrol about a mile later. To my mind that was the perfect system.

The Corrado was awful - Not only no range on the computer but no fuel warning light or buzzer or anything. You literally had to look at the fuel gauge.

Suzi's 206 reports miles remaining until you get to 24, then it goes blank, but you can see that the gauge is still in the middle of the red, so you can keep going for a while.

So how does the Scirocco handle it? Not very well in my opinion.
Once the range has come down to about 35, the fuel warning light comes on, a message 'Please refuel' flashes up on the MFD and you'll notice that the needle is right on top of the red on the gauge. Fine so far.

But, after the 35 miles or so, with the range reading zero and the needle now firmly at the bottom of the red there is still a reserve of 5 liters, which is effecively unusable. I don't want to run out of fuel - I really don't - but this system is reducing my actual range from 385 to 350 miles.

First problem found, and now fixed.

I've never had any type of car kit for a mobile phone before, other than a cheap phone holder with a speaker years ago. in the days when I was a field service engineer doing serious miles it wasn't illegal to use a phone in the car, not that I did very often. But I did specify the bluetooth on this car to make sure I could alway legally and safely make or take a call whilst driving.

But, the only thing less than perfect I've found so far with the Scirocco was that the Phone menu disappeared completely.

It was there when I collected the car, as I made a half-hearted attempt to pair it with my iPhone - but later that day I tried again with confidence having read the relevent manual to find... well, to find nothing actually. The menu was gone. none of the phone related buttons worked.

I tried a forum post, but I guess I haven't successfully wormed my way into the right clique as my carefully worded question got only one single response from a Moderator, suggesting I take the car back to the dealer.

Well thanks, I hadn't thought of that...

So, last Saturday I found the will to pop back to Guildford and get my dealer to take a look. He pressed a few random button and then declared he hadn't seen anything like it (I forgive him though, he's a salesman, not a technician) and after 5 minutes in the workshop it came out working.

What was the fix?

Predictably, the fix was to unplug the bluetooth unit under the drivers seat and plug it back in. The 21st century car mechanic's equivalent of the three finger salute.

So now it works, what's it like?

Simple and brilliant. The pairing process takes a minute or two, but is perfectly logical as long as you read the infomation screen and the phone messages properly, and once paired the system has found my phone by the time the engine is running. The Phone info screen on the MFD screen displays useful stuff like the name of the phone connected, the signal strength and battery life, and the main touchscreen can be used for dialling numbers, or looking stuff up on the contacts list.



I should confess that I have yet to actually make or take a call through it yet, so look out for a new post called "Bluetooth looks great but...".

Edit 27/04/11:
I've used the phone through the system a couple of times and I'm happy to report it works exactly as you'd expect it to.

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.

Code 30...

Visited the dealer on Saturday to check progress face-to-face; everything is going to plan and the car is now "code 30" which apparently means that it has been built, and is now in transit from the factory to the port for shipping. Final stage will be code 36, Out for delivery.

Dealer say expect the car in 2 to 3 weeks, So delivery is still planned for sometime between 14th and 21st March.

Hopefully I will be able to post some photos to this blog very soon.

Confirmed!

Had a voicemail from my dealer yesterday - excellent news, my build week has been confirmed - week 8. That means actual build around the 21st February and delivery about 2 to 3 weeks later. So despite concerns to the contrary, the car should actually be available on or around the 11th March - and that was the estimated delivery date way back in November when I ordered the car.

Suddenly gone from slightly irritated at having to wait to fairly excited.

How much for a new Scirocco?

So thinking just about the GT model, how much does the new Scirocco cost?
Well that obviously depends what options you go for, so I thought I'd have a look at the configurator, and see...

So the base model GT with Manual and 2.0 litre 210 is £24,450. Although not too bad, this no longer seems like the cheap option it was on launch, although the rise is partly due to the increase in VAT.

I then worked through the options list and selected the best, or at least the most expensive of everything. No accessories at this stage, just factory options like DSG, Leather, Sat Nav, Xenon headlights... you get the idea. And the grand total? £34,624.

Ouch.

I know you'd get some discount on that, but there is no way you can describe that as cheap anymore. And just to compare, I specified a Nissan 370Z GT (that has a starting price of £33,000) with a similar set of options and it comes to £35,950. I can see the appeal of the Scirocco over the 370Z when there is a £10k price difference, but when the difference is £1,000 I think the Scirocco is in serious trouble. The only reasons to buy the VW in this configuration are if you need the back seats.

Anyway, I know as well as anyone that the reasons for buying one car over another are complicated and personal, but if VW don't keeep the Scirocco prices keen then people are going to stop buying it.

But perhaps they don't care so much - they already make fewer Sciroccos than they can sell.

Progress?

Call from the dealer a minute ago (well, a call back from a message I left) and my car is still unconfirmed. For the first time he has now mentioned a build week - 8, and from what I've read elsewhere I should get the car 3 weeks after the quoted build week. But obviously I can't start counting weeks until its confirmed.

That isn't actually going to stop me counting though, Week 8 is the week of 21st February 2011, 3 weeks later being 14th to 20th March.

So when can I have it?

I called Colbornes in the week before Christmas to check on progress but my salesman wasn't in. Guy who answered the call said call back in the new year. Humph.

Called again today... Incredibly, they still can't give me a build week for my car. Not even a guess. This is not good news as I have no idea when the car will actually be made.

Sumatra? Nope. Name found for this Blog.

Now the car is finally on order, VW have discontinued my colour choice. So, I will not be having a Sumatra GT.

I've given a lot of thought to colour, as I've never really had the choice before, and this was my thinking: My old Corrado was dark blue and looked great but the choice of blue for the Scirocco is either Rising (Suzi says it looks cheap) or Night (too dark). Black is out - as its just a bit too much. Viper green? Not for me. Black Oak brown? tempting but can't see one in the flesh yet and in pictures its a bit too chocolaty. There is also a grey, which makes the Scirocco look like an Audi. In a bad way.
Candy white -Ummm no. I know white is really popular at the moment but I just don't like it - to me it still looks like the no-cost option it is. And that goes for Salsa red too. Red would normally be my default choice for a car, but not fire-engine red. Unless its Italian.

And that led me to the old rule - if unsure of what colour to go for, stick with the National Racing Colour. In this case Silver for Germany. There is a choice of two Silvers for the Scirocco but apparently Silver Leaf would be better decribed as Champagne. So choice finally made - Relex Silver.

Hopefully this blog will one day be full of lovely pictures of my car, for now I'll just say that it should look a bit like this:

On Order

Today I have put down £1000 as a deposit for my new Scirocco GT 2.0 TSI. I am using Colbornes VW of Guildford as my dealer (from a choice of 4, all about equidistant). My total budget is about £25k before any discount I can arrange, and that fits in nicely with the options I discussed in an earlier post.

VW Scirocco GT TSI 210, Manual:
Metallic paint, Sumatra
Panoramic Sunshine Roof
Rear Parking sensors
Folding Mirrors
DAB radio

Unconfirmed delivery date given is 11/03/11. That's 4 months.

Choosing options.

I had a fair bit of advice from friends about what options to choose, and I think I've managed to ignore all of it.

Firstly, the model. I won't be buying an R. Too much money and I'm over 40 now so I don't need anything that hardcore. I'm not having a poverty spec car so therefore it will have to be a GT. There are 3 engines available, two of which are Diesel powered. One day I might buy a Diesel car, but it won't be a smallish sporty coupe. So 2.0 TSI 210 GT. This now comes with 207 horsepower, or 210 err... whatever VW measure instead of horsepower.

Then the expensive choices. Leather. This is quite a difficult choice, as I think all 'Premium' cars should have it but I'd never specify it on a Focus or Golf, regardless of the model. So what about on the Scirocco? In the end I've decided against for three reasons. 1) The standard Merlin interior is very high quality and looks great in a mixture of textures and dark shades. 2) Cost. Leather adds over £1200 to the price. And that's without electric adjustment and heating. 3) In my opinion the Leather just doesn't look that great.

Sat Nav. I might have been tempted to pay the £1200 to upgrade to the factory sat nav if the standard audio unit was not so feature rich. As standard the Scirocco comes with a touch screen info system that has an in-dash 6 disk CD player and an arm-rest mounted media unit that will play tunes from my iphone. Regardless of what upgrade I choose I can't have both multiplayer and media unit. We also have an excellent Tom-Tom, so job done, no upgrades chosen. Except I did specify DAB for the radio at £130. It feels a bit wrong to have to pay for it, but I'm not going without.

Sunroof. Have you seen inside a GT? Even the headlining is black. So even though I've heard other people's criticism that the sunroof is expensive, heavy (adding weight in the worst possible place) and only opens a crack, for me its a must have. So tick. One small point here though, if you specify the Sunroof then you automatically lose the in-roof storage unit which everyone will tell you, and the passengers grab handle, which no-one will.

Big wheels. The standard 18" wheels are already pretty huge and the test drive I had in a car with 19" wheels felt quite harsh and crashy, even in comfort. So the standard wheels stay. There is an option to have the 19s in gloss black with piano black interior trim. Shame you can't have that with the 18s, as I'd probably have gone for it.

DSG. Tempting, but ultimately I don't want an auto box, no matter how clever it is. Like Diesel, maybe one day, but not on a smallish coupe. And that's forgetting the extra cost and weight.

Anthing else. A couple of little things - rear parking sensors, because I hope Suzi will enjoy driving the car on occasion, and I know you really can't see out the back. And folding Mirrors. It will live in our single garage when not in use, so they should make life a little easier.

And that's how I chose my options.

The test drive.

I should let you know that I've driven a lot of cars. I even worked at an airport for 5 months valet parking, and the stories I have from that could fill their own blog. My current, a Jaguar X-Type is my 15th car since 1987, which doesn't include 3 or 4 of my parents' cars, 2 of my wife's and dozens of hire cars that I've regularly driven.

So I know what I like, and really don't need to test drive 10 different varients to compare the nuances.

I called a couple of the dealers in my area to check that they had a suitable car to test. I may not have chosen all my options at this stage, but I did know that I wanted to drive a 2.0 TSI GT 210 with a manual 'box. Colbornes at Guildford had a relevant demonstrator, so I booked the test.

As always, I couldn't help but smile when the guy brought the car around. It was a Rising Blue example and looked great. The dealer drove us off the forecourt to a local garage - Suzi sat in the back (really not keen at all due to the blackness of everything and the small windows) me as passenger. Then I got a go. Guildford turned out to be the perfect place for a test drive, as I got to drive on roads the I know well, on a mixture of narrow back roads, moderate A roads and a couple of miles of dual carriageway.

The car is fast. I owned a Corrado VR6 with 197bhp prior to my Jag, which is the 3.0 sport with 231bhp. But the Scirocco is in another league. The performance figures don't show it, but I suspect its the delivery of the power from the Turboed engine, and the traction, and of course, the fact that everything is new and modern.

The test route was obviously the dealers standard one, about 8 to 10 miles I'd guess. Most of it passed in a blur, my over-riding feeling being that it was everything I hoped it would be, and that it would take a bit of getting used to to get the best out of it. I tried the three suspension settings, and to be honest, couldn't really tell the difference - the ride was fairly harsh and crashy on the poorly repaired Surrey back roads - but the car was fitted with optional 19" wheels that I won't be having.

The Dealer said no more than 10 words through the whole experience, but that was probably what I would have wanted. I've requested a quote, telling him that my order would go to the dealer that gave me the best price. So we'll see.

Why a Scirocco?

In 2008 when Volkswagen released the new mark 3 Scirocco, I was driving this:

a 1994 VW Corrado VR6, which I'd had a couple of years although I'd always loved them. The original Scirocco never really interested me though, I'd rather have had a Capri (which I did) or a proper hot hatch (ditto - an Astra GTE). The Corrado was supposed to be a stop gap for me, to replace... well that's another story, lets just say I had £2500 and decided that a 13 year old Corrado VR6 would be a good way to spend it.

Given that it arrived with over 100 thousand miles on the clock, I was lucky - it was still fast and great fun to drive, even if the 2.9 litre lump in the front made the nose a little heavy. In the three years I had it almost nothing went wrong, although on a car that age a few things did wear out. Eventually I sold it, to a young lad who will no doubt enjoy it, and I moved on to a 10 year old X-type.


But every time I saw a new Scirocco on the road it made me smile, and I hoped it would be as much fun to drive as my old Corrado - and looked forward to the day that the price of them would come down to my sort of levels.

And then I though perhaps its time I had a new car. I've never bought new before and things are going ok at the moment. Now to the actual question; why a Scirocco? Look at the listings in the car mags and a few relevant reviews and answer me this; £25k or under, 0-60 in 7 or less, 2 doors but 4 proper seats, some room for luggage. There are only a couple of answers - Renaultsport Megane, Seat Leon, Golf GTI, and Scirocco are the obvious ones. Of these, only the Scirocco makes me smile when I see one. Let me know if I missed anything.

Through this blog I plan to detail the whole experience, from test driving, talking to dealers, choosing options, buying and running the car.