After months and months of deliberations, test drives, rides in friends cars, hanging out at auto shows, and generally being a pest to my wife mentioning every new car that was on the market, I finally made a decision and bought something.
MK7 GTI w/ DSG.
The competition was as fierce as it was diverse, some of the other cars I considered.
2013 BMW 535i Msport CPO
2013 or 14 MB E350 Sport CPO
2016 Dodge Charger R/T or Scat Pack
2013 BMW 328i Msport (or sportline) CPO
2013 BMW 335i Msport (or sportline) CPO
2016 Ford Mustang GT
2016 BMW 228i
Notice anything about those cars? They are all RWD. I thought that was a big requirement...it wasn't.
3 of them are pretty big cars. While they all soaked up the miles well I didn't get the "connectedness" that I was looking for. I also started to worry about when fuel prices are going to go back and and didn't want to deal with 15k miles a year in driving a Scat Pack charger...
The coupes ended up out VERY quickly due to load/unload of 2 small children. Those that do that on a regular basis my hat is off to you, but that wasn't for me.
That left the 3-series on my list, but to get them the way I wanted required a LOT of options and they ended up being hard to find, also the F30 never quite did it for me, and the nail in the coffin was that in 2013 (where most of the off lease vehicles are aged right now) the oil change time/miles from BMW was set at 24 months/24k miles. So most of these CPO turbo vehicles that were off lease had only had ONE oil change in 3 years. It met the manufactures specs, but that struck me as being pretty risky.
So I checked out the MK7 GTI. It had every option I wanted, handled great, enough power to get in trouble, and I really like the DSG, feels much more like a manual transmission than I thought it would, the rev matching is great on the downshifts, and it is very quick/crisp. Interior is fantastic. The hatch is just highly versatile, and I am not a hatch guy at all. Mine has the VAQ LSD and it you really need to look for it to feel like a FWD, torque steer is non-existent.
Next up is stocking up on some filters/drain plugs, and VW 502 00 oil.
MK7 GTI w/ DSG.
The competition was as fierce as it was diverse, some of the other cars I considered.
2013 BMW 535i Msport CPO
2013 or 14 MB E350 Sport CPO
2016 Dodge Charger R/T or Scat Pack
2013 BMW 328i Msport (or sportline) CPO
2013 BMW 335i Msport (or sportline) CPO
2016 Ford Mustang GT
2016 BMW 228i
Notice anything about those cars? They are all RWD. I thought that was a big requirement...it wasn't.
3 of them are pretty big cars. While they all soaked up the miles well I didn't get the "connectedness" that I was looking for. I also started to worry about when fuel prices are going to go back and and didn't want to deal with 15k miles a year in driving a Scat Pack charger...
The coupes ended up out VERY quickly due to load/unload of 2 small children. Those that do that on a regular basis my hat is off to you, but that wasn't for me.
That left the 3-series on my list, but to get them the way I wanted required a LOT of options and they ended up being hard to find, also the F30 never quite did it for me, and the nail in the coffin was that in 2013 (where most of the off lease vehicles are aged right now) the oil change time/miles from BMW was set at 24 months/24k miles. So most of these CPO turbo vehicles that were off lease had only had ONE oil change in 3 years. It met the manufactures specs, but that struck me as being pretty risky.
So I checked out the MK7 GTI. It had every option I wanted, handled great, enough power to get in trouble, and I really like the DSG, feels much more like a manual transmission than I thought it would, the rev matching is great on the downshifts, and it is very quick/crisp. Interior is fantastic. The hatch is just highly versatile, and I am not a hatch guy at all. Mine has the VAQ LSD and it you really need to look for it to feel like a FWD, torque steer is non-existent.
Next up is stocking up on some filters/drain plugs, and VW 502 00 oil.