pretending i'm some kind of artistic photographer for this one

this spring, i bought a 2019 volkswagen gti now that i've put about 10k miles on it, here's some of my thoughts:

basic information

• S trim (no sunroof, no LED headlights, small infotainment sys, yes plaid seats)
• 6 speed manual
• performance package (actually standard 2019+; +15HP, bigger brakes, and eLSD)
• bought it with 79k miles, has 89k as of writing.
• white silver metallic (i don't see this color much!)
• almost completely stock; previous owner installed aftermarket turbo elbow and that's it.
• previous owner curbed the wheels really bad :/

the good

wow this thing is a blast to drive. my car in high school was a 2000 ford escort that was a 5-speed, and that was fun, but for a totally different reason. by the time it had to go away, it was tired and barely usable. so coming from that, and a few months of borrowing my mom's kia hybrid, it was like night and day. 10k miles and 6 months later, i haven't gotten tired of it.

feels like just the right amount of power for me really, and it's super fun to throw around corners and roundabouts or, uh, "attack the downhill" as it were. mine has the eLSD, which you can definitely feel.

also, you can fit a lot of shit in there. i had also considered a gli or an elantra N, but decided to go for the hatchback, and this was the perfect choice for me. lay down the back seats and it's surprisingly spacious. i can even sleep in the back in a pinch. granted, you don't really want to be sitting in the back seats for a long period of time, though.

the gas mileage is surprisingly alright, if i drive like a grandma i can pull 27mpg out of it in the city and like 39 on flat ground freeways. however, see above: i'm not really driving like a grandma most of the time.

i've taught a few of my friends to drive manual in this car, and it seems like it's very forgiving. i haven't deleted the factory clutch delay-valve which might be part of that, but it seems like even at low revs there's enough torque around that you can fumble the clutch a little and still be okay.

it sounds honestly pretty okay without being loud and obnoxious (stock exhaust). sometimes i do wish i could really let it rip, though.

seems fairly serviceable, although i havent had to do anything super deep. full brake job was pretty easy although i did have to buy triple-squares.

the bad

people like to complain about revhang in modern manual transmission cars on the internet so i wont rehash everything, but this car does have that, and if you're trying to drive economically or super smoothly it can be a little rough. the main remedy is just to shift later, which increases the fun, so that's fine by me too.

the 1st-2nd gear gap is kinda rough. it's manageable but takes some getting used to for sure.

the interior plastics are a lot of "piano black" which is glossy, so it attracts smudges and scratches like crazy and is always ready to reflect the sun perfectly into your eyes.

the rain-sensing windshield wipers are utterly useless, and cannot be trusted to do anything correctly. with them disabled, there's a giant gap in effective wiper speed between the different settings, which seems to be always where i need the speed to be.

the stock sound system was pretty pathetic bass-wise so i installed a way overkill subwoofer. this has entirely fixed the issue, but is something to be aware of. i believe some of the higher trims in certain years came with some kind of subwoofer-like situation.

there is a wind noise that comes from the area right by the mirror on both sides of the car. i've tried various aerodynamic solutions to fix this and none of them work. primarily fixable by increasing music volume.

backseats are a little cramped for larger passengers. but to that i say, skill issue.

overall

i really like it :)