Picked up the car tonight and spent the last 3 hours driving it
Some random first impressions:
Looks great at night, with all the LED and Xenon goodness going on. Very happy with Estoril Blue too.
M Performance exhaust looks and sounds good. Happy I got it. It's a lot louder outside than inside and it sounds quite aggressive on startup. After that it offers a nice bassy note in the low revs and at times a bit of crackle and pop when lifting off. Doesn't seem to add much in high revs, where the GTI definitely sounds louder and quite frankly a lot better.
Generally it's fine, but still experienced pretty serious turbo lag a few times, especially in comfort mode. In any case, it's quick, but the GTI (chipped) feels a bit faster. This might also be caused by the sound and the added drama caused by a lack of frontend grip.
The (non-adaptive M) suspension is a lot softer than the GTI, almost too soft for my tastes, but it does hold the road much better. Much more grip.
Related, braking is much much MUCH better too, ABS kicks in a little later and I haven't triggered any silly braking or warning assistants yet, while the
GTI constantly wanted to flash it's hazard lights.
Steering is really light, too light to my taste but still nice and precise. Will probably get used to it. Servotronic at speed and in sport+ seems really subtle.
It takes a bit of fiddling with all the controls but once you get it right the driving position is great. Seats and steering wheel are awesome.
Feels a bit stupid getting out of the car with the stereo still on.
While we're on the subject of stereo: I got the Alpine retrofit. Seems to go really loud and there's quite a lot of thump, but midrange sounds muffled. But only listened to the radio for a few minutes, will have a play with settings and a proper source.
PDC not turning off when putting the car in neutral is really silly. Very happy I got front PDC with the magic button.
Extended light package in the interior is really subtle, too subtle for the money really. Yet the 'black panel' backlight is way too bright in my opinion.
I think like the iDrive and (business) Nav.
It smells nice
Overall very happy. Can't wait to drive the car again, but now it's time for a little drink and a bedtime reading of the owner's manual
Some quick pics (sorry for the crappy quality.. I was excited
), will get some better ones later. Yes, also of the exhaust
