My First Drive - MKVI Scirocco

[jamesatfish]

I'm not sure if I've misunderstood or not but to get it to downshift when you floor it in manual mode you have to push it into kickdown. If you push the pedal to the floor it seems like it stops but if you push harder you will feel it go further, you will feel a bit more resistance from the pedal than normal but this will get it to drop down and then resume to whatever gear it was in when you've had your fun/overtaken. Eg driving along at 100 in 6th in my TDI, floor it into the kickdown position, it will drop into 3rd and then change up through the gears at each redline and go straight back to 6th when I ease off.

Sorry if I didn't explain my comment completely.

With the VWs I have driven that have a 'tiptronic' style transmission with a Manual mode, the kickdown switch on the throttle remains active when the car is in Manual. That is, even though you are choosing the gear you want using the gearshift or steering wheel paddles, when you floor the throttle to the kick-down point the car will drop down to the lowest possible gear, as if it were in Drive.

By contrast, Porsche's Tiptronic gearbox (and no doubt others) ignores the kickdown switch when in Manual. That is, if you select 6th manually and floor the throttle, the car stays in 6th and you get full throttle acceleration in the gear you have selected. I prefer this mode of operation as once you've got the car balanced in a particular gear through a corner and you floor the throttle to exit the corner it is unsettling for the car to change gears of its own accord.

My observation was that the Scirocco, as far as my limited driving revealed, behaves in my preferred way - ignoring the kickdown switch when in Manual mode.

[mtj007]

Re-reading your original post I understand what you meant now. I thought you were saying you wanted it to kickdown like it was in D but it wouldn't.

[RolfGolf]

Thanks for the write-up. Just wondering what the rear visibility is like through that hatch window?

[jamesatfish]

Thanks for the write-up. Just wondering what the rear visibility is like through that hatch window?

It wasn't too bad, although I'm used to driving cars with smaller rear windows so perhaps if you're coming from a wagon you might find it a bit unusual. Certainly for motorway driving there was plenty of visibility to see vehicles approaching from behind across 3-4 lanes of traffic.

With 2 passengers in the back there is almost no visibility out the rear window so you'd need to rely on your wing mirrors instead.

[tentacles1]

Thanks for the write-up. Just wondering what the rear visibility is like through that hatch window?

The wide hips of the car also make parking slightly more difficult than in a golf and reduce visibility, parking sensors are definitely a necessary option.

[apom]

Nice write up!

Stunning on the outside... same same on the inside... R36 seats and steering wheel, generic VW bin HVAC controls and audio unit. VW need to put the same effort into the inside as they have to the outside so there is some differentiation.