[Carpainter]

Originally Posted by vinodbollini

A little bit about my experience with this car so far:

A Rose by any other Name

I would love to tell you that there is a fantastic story about the name, but there isn't. I am very fond of Indian/Hindustani names (mostly female names) and the depth of meaning. Nearly everything I own has a name, much to the amusement of people who deal with me. Ritu is the term for a season in Sanskrit, and this is pretty much my love for all seasons.

The Drive

So I have clocked about 3000 kms in 35 days and a bit. I don't have a regular commute but use the car to go everywhere I go. Most of that is in South Bombay, with the occasional trip to I actually want to get the car to a setup of my linking, before I completely describe it. But, here are my first observations:

1. The suspension is quieter but still as taught as the previous Polo. As a general everyday car, I have grown accustomed to being careful with potholes, unless I can glide over without the body bobbing. In last 300 kms I have been using the yoke-s-drives and although there is some "feedback" from the road, the ride quality remains good to fairly awesome. Will be considering an upgrade to the shocks and springs soon. Teine and Bilsteins are being explored...

2. The brakes are bad to worse at medium speeds. The bite is spongy between 15-30 km/hr. At higher speeds the response does not feel linear, until the pedal goes down further. Will be upgrading to rear discs and possibly better pads soon. Brembo or Tarroxes, depending on the budget.

3. Lights are significantly improved over the previous polo and substantial step up over the Swift that I owned. I was little surprised to see the reversing lights on only one side, but that seems to be a European standard! Have a GTI OEM headlamp upgrade, but that is low on the priority list now.

4. Steering feels quite supple for the city drives, but would have liked a little more feedback and firmness at higher speed; but that is only because I am nitpicking.

5. ICE, interiors and other such things are good but have been better. The build quality has dropped a little, so I can hear the odd noise inside, but still way better than the other options I have seen. I love the new steering mounted controls as well as the white tone MID. An upgrade is planned for the ICE unit, but Carplay/OPS and a hi-res screen are little hard to come by so will wait till next year. The extra lights in the footwell, the black interiors are all right the way I wanted them. Have got the OEM arm rest, but not installed it yet. Will do with Stanley seats sometime before winter is out. The legroom is a little limited for the driver and a little bit of a problem for very tall friends at the back. But in general very comfortable. The automatic air conditioning has served fantastically well, even on hot days, although the blower fan is very noisy above a 50% setting.

6. The FE is at about 12-13 overall. I keep a very detailed track and I find that driving the car spiritedly actually improves the FE; but I might be telling myself that! I have gone all Speed 97, and I don't even want to know what the car feels like on the 91RON. In my Mumbai city runs, I have seen as low as 5-6 kmpl when the traffic crawls. Mumbai Pune, with heavy traffic gets me 15 kmpl on a spirited run. A recent trip to Nashik on the new shoes saw a whopping 17.6 kmpl.

Attachment 1303104

My Fuel Score So Far

7. Gearbox is unbelievably good 95% of the time. There is a mutual learning curve, of throttle versus gearbox response, and it is like learning to drink beer! Once that is past, it just puts you where you want to to be. The problem is with the down shifting which is not as responsive as I like it - whenever I open the throttle, the box just hesitates a second before shifting down. However I imagine this will be a much more civil union in the S mode, which I have not tested extensively, because of a lack of faith in the brakes and the suspension.
Having said that other than the few times you are cruising and put your foot down to pull away, the car is smooth, crisp and eager.

That is the objective list, but the real picture is hard to paint in words. The car is an _absolute_ joy to own and more importantly drive. The car just darts whichever way you point it. You do feel special sitting at the wheel. I hate handing the keys to a valet. I head out for a drive on the freeway when most people would make do with a coffee. I don't have another car, and doubt I'd ever use one if I did. I like that it is a bit understated, so that I can tell people that the good cars are the ones with the bits under the hood.

Congratulations Vinod on your new car. Polo is always a special car and do I have to tell you that Red looks best on Polo. Wish you many happy miles.

Regarding brakes, it's astonishing to know that Vw has not improved them yet. From my experience I know that it's not bad but at low speed it's not as strong as you'd like.

[Crazy_Bean]

Congrats Vinodbollini,

Amazing car and colour there. Did you say you got 5 16" TSW Mallorys ( including spare) for 75K. I think its a pretty amazing deal you got. Can you please tell me how you ordered these and how much time they took to arrive? Thanks

[vinodbollini]

Originally Posted by mmridul

Have a safe ride in that beast
O/T, could you send me you excel file used to calculate the figures an shown in you post above. Its really neat.

@mmridul; I use Numbers on the Mac and my iPhone and iPad, for things that don't need heavy lifting. This is one of those cases.
I have also converted it to excel (in Numbers), but don't have access to Office immediately, to make it "proper". Am attaching both versions, and will update if I can get the excel cleaned up as well.

Fuel Tracking.xlsx
Fuel Tracking.numbers.zip

Originally Posted by Crazy_Bean

Congrats Vinodbollini,

Amazing car and colour there. Did you say you got 5 16" TSW Mallorys ( including spare) for 75K. I think its a pretty amazing deal you got. Can you please tell me how you ordered these and how much time they took to arrive? Thanks

I only got 4 wheels for 75K. Did not look for a 5th taking robi's advice on this, since he could not fit the LV5s with the 17in Yokos in the boot. The spare is a steel one anyway.

I got these imported through Motorheader.com, and they were very helpful. Vikram Sundarraj was the guy, number is +91 9790956786. They did not have the wheels and promised me delivery in 9 days; I got mine in about 6.

The official TSW distributors are 4SAuto in Tardeo, but ironically, they had a higher price than Motorheader, and less trade in than Premji (Mahim) for my stock set.

[mmridul]

Originally Posted by vinodbollini

@mmridul; I use Numbers on the Mac and my iPhone and iPad, for things that don't need heavy lifting. This is one of those cases.
I have also converted it to excel (in Numbers), but don't have access to Office immediately, to make it "proper". Am attaching both versions, and will update if I can get the excel cleaned up as well.

Thanks a ton.
using the XLS file right now, but will go home and try the numbers version on my mac

[humbleroadster]

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[Akshay1234]

Originally Posted by vinodbollini

Thanks! The TSWs were expensive. 75k for a set of four. But they are imported ad hoc so price varies quite a bit. Could have got it for 60k with the right exchange rate!

I am curious about the S Drives now! What should I expect?

That is pricey for 16" wheels. Though what do I know

The S drives will become hard and noisy by the time you do 5k kms. Mark my words. They are still good tyres, with good grip.

Also why didn't you consider painting the roof gloss black to match the stock mirrors?

The TSI is one hell of a car, wish I could get one as a daily drive.

[Schoudhury]

Wow, the car looks awesome .
Mine has reached the stock yard ,mostly will take delivery in January .
I am also looking for similar alloys ,but really confused between 15" and 16" as I do highway rides .
Bdw how much buy back you got for stock gt alloys .
I am planning for gloss black roof and white sport stripes .

[vinodbollini]

Originally Posted by akshay1234

Also why didn't you consider painting the roof gloss black to match the stock mirrors?

I am not a big fan of gloss. The wheels are matt black too. I have the mirrors in matt black 3M film also, so nothing stands out.

Originally Posted by Schoudhury

Wow, the car looks awesome .
...
Bdw how much buy back you got for stock gt alloys .
I am planning for gloss black roof and white sport stripes .

Thanks and congratulations on the new ride.
I got 15k for alloys and rubber (4). They had about 2700 kms on them.

[Schoudhury]

Originally Posted by vinodbollini

2. ICE and integration
I am very used to having my phone as central to what I do. So I tested out the BT, the "iPod" connectivity and checked if there were problems with the audio interlacing when using Google Maps. Was a little put off by the limited controls on the steering wheel (no way to end a call!), but was definitely not a show stopper.

Vinod, could you please let me know a couple of things regarding the ipod/iphone connectivity.
1. Does HU detect the Iphone/ipod directly , using the USB cable provided with Apple device.
2. Does the steering mounted controls work when the music is played from the Ipod.

Also, when you checked the Konig wheels, do you remember how much they were quoting for the alloys ?


Cheers.

[vinodbollini]

Originally Posted by Schoudhury

1. Does HU detect the Iphone/ipod directly , using the USB cable provided with Apple device.

2. Does the steering mounted controls work when the music is played from the Ipod.



Also, when you checked the Konig wheels, do you remember how much they were quoting for the alloys ?

1. Yes. I play with iTunes, Spotify and Saavn and it detects as iPod and displays track information correctly. It also resumes playing where I have left off my last track. However it is occasionally buggy and either sound output is missing or it does not detect track. IMHO about 1 in 30 times.

2. Steering controls work for "Previous", "Next", Volume and "Mute & Pause". Automatically pauses when I have an incoming call. I have used more extensive controls in a Jetta overseas, but this is plenty for my daily listening needs. Also the "Connect" button on the right works absolutely fine with Siri. Complete freedom! And Google Maps verbal directions work with a nice fade in when playing music.

I was told approximately ~30K for 4 Goodyears with Konig rims as a trade in for brand new alloys + rubber, and I think about ~60k without a trade in. Not sure if that was for 4 or 5 and dos not ask for a break down of the figure.

[Schoudhury]

Originally Posted by vinodbollini

1. Yes. I play with iTunes, Spotify and Saavn and it detects as iPod and displays track information correctly.

Yup,went to the showroom today and plugged in the ipod and it worked fine . I think the speakers needs to be changed as they were not sounding that great.

Originally Posted by vinodbollini

I was told approximately ~30K for 4 Goodyears with Konig rims as a trade in for brand new alloys + rubber, and I think about ~60k without a trade in. Not sure if that was for 4 or 5 and dos not ask for a break down of the figure.

30k for 16" tyre + alloy is not a bad deal . The quality of Kinog alloys are also not bad .

[psuraj]

Congratulations .The number of polo GT's in the forum keeps on increasing and each one of them are done up to their owner's taste.

Robbie was one among the first few who made the GT famous and it has become a favorite in the forum.

Anyways, I can try to help you to get a good deal in Stanley Bangalore since I know them quite well from a long time.

A small suggestion, please check out Karlsson also. They are also really good.
Have a lot of happy and safe miles ahead. Please keep us posted
Cheers.

Regards,
Suraj

[Hemant_Joshi]

Hi Vinodbollini, Congratulations on your Beauty, more so in the Red shade..
The finish is Awesome, many other cars dont even come close to the finish..
Enjoy your time with her,, and drive safe...its tempting to redline a fast car like Polo GT TSI....