i traded in my 10 gti for 09 ralliart base. the interior gti will win but performance ralliart will smoke the gti assuming both are stock. now i am having MR with premium package, but the interior is comparable. actually some sort of package for the MR is not that bad at all.

 

Glad your friend like the Mini, I just could not stand looking at the gauges in that thing. I bought the base model evo since I just wanted performance not all the luxuries. I would say look at a Speed3 but it appears you want a automatic not a manual. There are lots of cars out now that you can get all luxuries and decent performance just go test drive them til you find something you like.

 

I traded my 2004 Evo in for a 2007 GLI a couple years back...worst decision of my life! Should stayed with the Evo definitly better with the AWD.

 

Why did you trade it in the first place?

 

It was newer thats all.. It was just a BAD mistake!

 

It works and is fun enough on the day to day but I'd never own this car without an Evo to play around in as well.

 

shulda,woulda,coulda..I should have had the GLI as DD and kept the Evo for weekends..a lesson for sure.

 

I liked my GTI on paper. I hated it in execution. I traded in my last X, a 2008 model. I realized it was a catastrophic mistake within two weeks and called the dealership back, willing to take the hit and try to swap back. Sadly, they had sold my car within 4 days.

I kept it for a little over 7 months, and put 10k miles on it. I added several upgrades to make it suck less, but alas, nothing helped. It was great at hauling my road bike around, and got killer gas mileage. I did several upgrades to my first X, made 150hp over stock. The engine and clutch laughed at the upgrades, and the car just got faster. I bought a canned flash for my GTI and put a downpipe on it. Although it was barely 40whp over stock, the clutch could NOT take it and started slipping. I had also done suspension upgrades on it- Superpro LCAs, Bilstein shocks all around, and DG springs. While they improved the feel, it would still not put down power in a corner, and was nowhere nearly as fast as a stock Evo X on a twisty road. I admitted defeat and traded back for a 2013 X.


It looked great with the BBS CO. You can dress these cars up, but they can't dance. Do not miss.

 

I thought you said were looking for something with quality.

The gti is a nice car. They can go pretty good with minor bolt ons. Fwd and boost is really frustrating. I had a speed3 and my buddy had an 06 gti. I loved my speed 3 it had the bose, navi, adaptive hid's blah blah. The seats were not near sporty enough for me though. Nothing beats the Evo X seats.

A mini cooper s is the slowest off all the choices, and not the cheapest. And a fully bolted mini cooper will not even hang with a stock speed3 or gti.

 

Current update now for me:
Well it's just my life situation is changing. I got to enjoy my evo being able to live at home thru college and this past year after. Now it's time for me to get on my own living. Me and my brother are gonna live together and looking at apartments now. I'm starting my career with this new job I got but it's still starting wage and I can't afford to keep the evo anymore With the monthly payment. So I'm planning only maybe a year or so to lower to a cheaper car until I get my career going. Need a year at job and will make more. So I gotta get a 20ish k priced car to get cheap payments. So I'm looking at a 2011 dsg gti or a 2008 r32 or researching other ideas.

 

Lease one from Sam, or maybe pickup a new Accord. Those V6's run 14's.

 

On a 2011 you should be owing in the 20s. Refinance it for a longer term and get the same payment as the cars you are looking at.

 

I've been thinking of getting a mk7 as a daily. Noize, it was really that bad compared to Evo?

 

Blitz, I hated mine. I do think if you have an Evo in your garage too, it would be a completely different story. Just relegate the GTI to being a commuter car that you leave stock. It did get great fuel economy, and was decently comfortable and quiet. The hatch was nice to haul crap around.

As an Evo replacement, though, it's awful. It's just not a "car guy" car by any means. I have a few really curvy roads on my commute, and the Evo just devours them. The GTI was just so frustrating in that regard, and I found myself cussing it on those roads and Interstate cloverleafs. It wasn't fast anywhere with that open differential and FWD.

The other issue I had is that I like to go to Cars & Coffee, and have some car buddies. The VW crowd around here is 98% rice and 1% of them care about performance. They love airbagged and stanced cars that handle worse than stock and look ridiculous. The love being the "illest" and sticker bombing their hatches. I guess that's ok if you're 19 and want a car as a statement, but I'm 40 and like a performance car that responds to inputs, so the VW mistake phase was just bad comedy.

The 7th generation release is just months away. Content looks a bit nicer, it has more torque stock (so hopefully a stock clutch that isn't made out of butter), and has a limited slip differential option. If you can stay away from their scene and appreciate that it's a completely mild car, you might be able to pull one of those off. But if you love Evos and are looking at a replacement, DON'T DO IT. lol

 

Thanks. Really appreciate the real world experience.

The plan has always been to keep the Evo and get a TDI as a daily. Lately though the Evo is just too much of a money pit and headache. For the reasons you mentioned (more torque, LSD, looks better), I started thinking maybe just get a mk7 GTI and call it a day. But now maybe not.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever driven or owned a 2008+ STI hatchback? Seems like a good compromise since we didn't get the IX wagon here. Someday I'll import one.