Coming from someone who had a MK7 and loved it, I would one hundred percent get this car if it simply had buttons for the climate controls..you interact with them every single time you're in the car. I have seen countless reviews for this car, and not one of them has had anything good to say about the lack of buttons. Honda figured it out and hopefully VW will do the same real fast.
@@xnopyt13 for sure..I can't get over how bad they messed up the "less is more" lol. look at 11:00 I couldn't imagine living with that every day its insane
@@chriskonte1909 Agreed the exterior is much easier on the eyes. The thing is people who buy the GTI know exactly what they want and notice these changes, it's not a point A to B car that people buy just because they need a cheap generic car. That's the only reason that has me hoping VW will make changes, but the whole design language of the interior is based on the touch controls so they would have a lot to move around. It's upsetting because it looks like its sick to drive
I want to know what the designers were thinking. Like I want them to explain their decision and watch them use this system on the road. The car is great, the infotainment is a dumpster fire
These touch sensitive controls and going through several menus on many infotainment systems, just to do simple actions are very frustrating. Nothing beats a single press on physical buttons.
@@nairamize4996 touch is not hip and cool, boomers won't know how to do simple tasks that are easy on every other car, and millennials will be frustrated that they cant even turn off dsc with a hard button or have to swipe to adjust volume. this amount of haptic buttons was a shot in foot for an otherwise good hot hatch
@@nairamize4996 cheaper? no they are not. If it was cheaper, then why do cheaper cars have loads of physical buttons, unlike expensive cars? If it was all about money, not a single car would have a single physical button anymore.
@@CyAn-S Yes, a display is lot cheaper nowadays than physical buttons because you don't need the buttons, the wiring and the dashboard that holds the display is a lot easier to manufacture. The reason cheap cars don't have a lot of displays is because you need to engineer and design a UI and control concept and develop the software. Also it's a selling feature for higher priced cars. Once that is done you can equip all cars of your range with the same concept. Economies of scale. Production of the car is also faster because you only need to mount one display instead of several physical buttons.
@@naughtysauce4323 Tesla wants the industry to have no buttons, but if anything goes wrong, it will cost a fortune to fix. Then there’s planned obsolescence.
@@jmcampbell That's true to any product manufactured after the 2000's. Things are just not built as well anymore. But my problem with Tesla is Elon is playing with people's lives. Can I live with a faulty fridge? Yes because it won't kill me, but if you're looking down for every little function in your car, now that can absolutely kill you.
@@naughtysauce4323 I want you to share some links that show how many people have died from the problems that you've stated. Because I haven't heard of that at all. Wtf.
After experiencing the climate control layout in the new Mazda 3, there’s no excuse for any company to not do what they’ve done. Buttons, if intelligently located, don’t reduce minimalism. Period
80% of my driving is on the interstate with the cruise set. I appreciate it when you just set the cruise in top gear and talk about the ride and the noise level. It also lets the viewer see what the revs are at highway speed. Thanks for the great channel.
i personally LOVE the new interior. And honestly the interaction is not that bad. The system is very configurable and you can place the thing you want (like ESC) is short cuts.
@@CyAn-S plus there is a new voice response system... just say hey Volkswagen to change climate to this or that, or change radio, close or open sunroof, etc...
100% Agreed. I bought a 2021 GLI and I had a bit of buyers remorse when I heard the MK8 was right around the corner. So glad I bought it. The interior changes on the Golf R and GTI (and probably the rest of the MK8 Jettas) are a complete turn off for me.
@@RussellKasem He straight up said he had to turn on lane-keep assist just to use the touchscreen. It's downright negligent to use this approach to interior design.
The infotainment isn’t as bad as people say, living with it day to day it’s definitely not bad at all just because a lot of stuff changes on it’s own, the car is genuinely so good to drive and comfortable to be in, actually kinda impressive with how vw did with the way it drives for a fwd car
My Mk7 was great to live with partially because the controls were well laid-out. It was fun to drive, too. They could've literally re-skinned the old car and updated the drivetrain without touching the interior and it still would have been a great buy.
I had a mk7.5 DSG GTI and now own a mk8 MT GTI. Here's my thoughts on the issues with this new car. The ESC is deep in the settings, but can be mapped to the quick settings page and then toggled very easily like you did with the start/stop engine option. The MT does not have a start/stop, obviously...so that's good. I've had lane keep assist off permanently, it's really intrusive but I haven't had it come back on - if you press the driver assist settings in the gauge menus, you can turn it off completely. Ofc, it turns back on when you use ACC but other than then, it's off. I really like ACC on this car, even in manual it allows you to change gears without interrupting cruise control. And it's pretty good at handling speed and turning with other cars on the road. Now the big one, the infotainment and haptic buttons. The only buttons I have an issue with is the temp control. I've only engaged the heated steering wheel twice by accident, and both was when I was reversing into a spot. The temp control touch area is small and split into 2 spots and partially obscured by the steering wheel so I have to look at the slider before pressing or sliding. I'm also the kind of person who trusts the auto climate and rarely change the settings myself, so I've never really had to go into the Clima menu and fiddle with the temp. Volume is easy and you get the muscle memory of how to reach to it and slide. The steering wheel buttons are also very easy to use and hard enough to press that you can't misclick them. In fact, the slider for the volume and song skip/rewind is very good and the haptics in them communicate an accurate level of input. Yeah, so while I miss the physical buttons and the overall interior feel of the mk7.5, I don't think this interior is bad at all. I was like most reviewers who hated this and only test drove it for fun before looking for a mk7.5, but after driving it I found no alarming issues and decided to buy a mk8 instead. If you're going to live with it, you're going to learn all the ways of making it easier to control - just like any other car. And I love the drive feel of this car, so snappy and grounded + louder than the mk7.5. I think my honest next car (way down the line) from this is probably the mk7.5/8 R or FK8/FL5 Type R if manual, or a used RS5/RS7 if automatic. Btw Topher, you're driving an Autobahn spec, or the US equivalent - SE doesn't have smart climate control with 3 zones, different wheels, and no HUD.
Great video Tropher! Love your channel. I think the MK8 perfectly demonstrates how cars are becoming too complex… to the point where it is affecting safety and the overall driving experience (especially for enthusiast cars, as you demonstrated in this video). Thanks and keep up the great work!
Just want to add another perspective on the interior and touch screens, I've owned a Golf GTI mk8 for 4 months now, and whilst it is not as easy to use as the last generation, you do start to find ways to handle it, for example, you can set up shortcuts to get to the traction control very easily (so it's just one or two presses to turn it off), and you can use a shortcut to manage all of the climate control settings very easily too, on top of this, the voice recognition system is very good at understanding commands, e.g. "set the temperature to 20c", or "warm up my feet", admittedly it takes time to find these sort of things, but after a while, they're not as much of a problem as it looks in most reviews. I wish I had some physical buttons, but I also love the car, it's brilliant to drive and great fun to throw around, after four months, I wouldn't swap it.
@@jonathant.8952 lol leasing is a waste of money. But maybe it makes sense if you only drive unreliable German cars with their shitty "German Engineering"
@@siddharthsharma8940 They can be, but don't have to be. Hypothetically if you save $200 a month by leasing and put it in the stock market, after 3 years you'll have $7200 plus interest in an asset that continues to appreciate, and a new car on a new lease. With a purchase, you'll have $7200 more equity in a depreciating asset, and more than likely 2 more years of payments. Plus you never pay for maintenence on a lease. The only time you really waste money without exception, is with down payments.
@@immortaldusk Isn't buying a car with a loan the best option? Atleast from where I am, it's best to purchase cars and homes on loans and Invest your money in stocks. The interest earned on the equity is higher than the loan interest. So I still don't get why people lease
@@siddharthsharma8940 A lease isn't much different than a conventional loan, except instead of financing the total purchase price of the vehicle, you're financing the expected depreciation for the term of the lease. Lease payments are often much lower than conventional loans, so if one is saavy, they would invest the difference. There are pros and cons to both, but leasing isn't always a waste of money. If you decide to drive the same car for 20 years, you will save more money than someone who leases, but if you purchase new cars and trade in old ones every 5-10 years, you're not doing much better than someone who leases. If you trade in your car every 3 years, you are worse off doing a conventional loan, and better off leasing.
Car enthusiasts are weird. 1 day they tell you that interior is not important, and it is all about the driving. And the next day all they do is complain about the interior, despite the obvious driving upgrades. Car enthusiasts make no sense.
@@CyAn-S Because the interior reduced function and made it visually more ugly. Too much gloss black. This is a circumstance where car enthusiasts are right
I’m happy I got a sweet deal on a ‘19 mk7.5 GTI. The interior is not only more functional but looks much higher quality, the styling I think is way better and aggressive, and other than the small power bump they seem to drive about the same. One of the biggest reasons reviewers say that the mk8 gti drives better is because it came on summer tires, where as all the press cars for the mk7 were on crappy pirelli all-seasons. A sticky pair of tires will change any performance oriented car drastically in steering, accelerating, handling, etc. I hope VW fixes their mistakes in the future and we get a mk8.5 with physical controls
I love how GTI’s are Jekyll and Hyde, especially with the DSG. In around town driving they’re quiet, comfortable and economical. But one quick stab of the throttle and they become diabolical. And with a TCU and ECU tune they become even more so.
@@070074810 I hate the way Teslas are designed, having to use the touchscreen for most of the functions. But it had two things that are done way better than VW. First of all it's faster and more responsive because there's actually powerful hardware behind the software. And secondly, it doesn't have haptic controls on the steering wheel.
i hope vw takes in this criticism and comments to heart and makes changes. its sad; it is a fun car with so much potential to be so much more fun. i love the golf
There's a hell of a lot of wasted room around the shifter that could be used for storage or other functions. You know, the entire marketing gimmick of having a compact shifter, more space
Bro I like the fact that you don’t go around the bushes but just the facts and you deserved more credits for that, you’re different from some car reviewers who make things look good even when they’re not
I can spot ways they could have integrated a volume knob, a ESC button and at least toggle switches for climate temp… looks like we are stuck with this for 6 years
Probably repeating here what has been written already, I have a Golf MK8 here in Europe (not a GTI though) Shortcuts can be created / configured including that for TC on a pull-down panel at the home screen. The home screen can be reconfigured to show multiple tiles - up to five different panels. There is a volume control and a track / channel control on the steering wheel. All of the ventilation controls can be controlled by voice commands, software detects which side of the car the voice comes from. Base models in Europe and other markets have knobs for volume etc. Almost finally as I have read here and elsewhere, I wish reviewers and those armchair critics who haven't even seen the car would get to know the car controls etc. before criticising. Reviewers often appear (after having the car for a day or maybe a few hours) to just repeat from a script what others have already written / stated. Finally it's not perfect and what I would criticise is the software behind a lot of the radar / sensor controlled features, that includes my own car - really, really bad in some cases. Software updates are promised to fix these but many are still waiting.
A few things. 1: The camera viewing angle can be changed in the bottom right corner of the camera menu for a wide view. 2: The infotainment system has a drop down menu with short cuts that you can configure. You can put ESC and multiple other shortcuts in there. Not as easy as a button but still way faster than through that other menu. In fact, you can literally configure and personalize the entire system layout. So when you own the car you can put stuff where you want. 3: Electronic parking brake has been there for ages now in several hot hatches. Don't see how that is a problem 4: The Infotainment has Over The Air Updates. So it does improve. 5: The Android Auto/CarPlay can be put in a home screen widget so the swapping is not that terrible.
Had the MK8 for 2 months as much as I don't like the climate control. I don't care about the rest not having buttons. After setting climate control to auto it's not too bad. Some reviewers have gone a little too crazy and say it's not useable it just takes time to get used to.
that startup chime gives me nightmares...i had a Jetta as a rental for 3 months while my Si was getting fixed in the shop. I hated that annoying VW chime and hated everything about that Jetta....I was so happy to have my Si back...the civic is such a better car.
Great review! I’ve grown used to the infotainment center and the haptic buttons. Once you get used to it, honestly not bad. They came out with a software update recently and it’s much better. The car is super fun to drive and love driving it. It’s a sleeper
Wow... that goes from *very* simple when it is off ... to OMG BUTTONS! Flashy Boxes! I think I saw Clippy on the dash! Definitely made for a different generation of drivers.
Wondering this too. Bought the 6 speed manual Mk7 because it was a lot smoother to row my own and it's a ton of fun, but interested in the 7 speed DSG if it's possibly better.
Seems like a great car, but that infotainment system and all those haptic buttons seem like an absolute nightmare. Hopefully VW updates this in the following year. Reminds me of the fiasco Honda had to go through after removing all the knobs and buttons and brining them back eventually. I HOPE they update the manual gearbox, cause it just feels so numb and sloppy.
As an owner of a 2021 MK 7.5, I'm happy I took a sweet Covid deal earlier this year. Still not sold on the exterior design or the shockingly ubiquitous use of haptic buttons on the interior of these new MK 8s. I went with the DSG, and although I get made fun of on GTI forums, it's a treat when my s/o can drive me home after a night out without vaporizing the clutch. Love the new steering wheel though (besides the buttons). Also, fantastic POV review as always Toph.
some of the best and most useful car reviews/drives I've seen. It's things like that infotainment system that make a difference (at least for me), and I'm glad to know, as I'm searching for my perfect first sports car purchase. As a sidenote: You've gotten me hooked on the LC 500 and the new 3.0 GR Supra, I'm really starting to like Toyota and Lexus these days.
you're damning this with faint praise.... I have been on the fence about upgrading my 7R to the new one. The performance improvements are great, much appreciated. And the heated steering wheel, cooled seats, HUD are great additions. The value proposition is great for the price as well. But the looks I'm not loving... front end looks too much like a corolla. And the haptics are just awful. Cadillac tried this for years, and just about every reviewer and owner hated them. Why you would mimic that is completely beyond me. Hard to believe that may be the deal breaker, but the more I see, the less I think I want to live with them. I'll never track the car, and get the chance to blast a back road at most once a week. My 7R does that pretty damn well, though by all accounts the 8 will do it quite a bit better. But the controls I have to use every. single. time. I start the car.
Don't buy this crap. Vote with your wallet, so that VW will see noone wants this techno touch screen crap in their cars. So the mk9 will go back to the traditional interior style
4:09 there is a shortcut at the top of the screen with quick access to all different settings including esp (but you have to set it up first) Why doesn't anybody know this? takes 2 seconds to turn it off after that every time.
As a recently former 7.5 owner & now new 8 owner, the ride is pretty markedly different. I live on a dirt lane, in my 7 I had to go VERY slow, in the 8 it’s way smoother. Also, the stop/start system is better than in my husband’s Mercedes SUV.
When I first got my mustang gt 2019 I was a bit sad that it did not come with the digital dash. A few years ago it was a bit more rare for cars to have them. Now every single cheap and expensive car comes with digital dash and I now appreciate my analog cluster waaaay more
you do know you can set a shortcut in the notification area for turning the esc off right? i mean, it becomes just one, 1 click away... i agree that touch controls are not the best, but i would like if reviewers and testers would stop bashing things without knowing them.. besides, if tesla does it it's ok, but vw? nono... bad, bad vw..
I don’t know if you have said it, I might have missed it, but it looks like a euro spec car (It does have a German plate as well). In that case it has a slightly different engine and an OPF (I believe it’s called a PPF (Petrol Particulate Filter) in the UK) which takes away some of the noise and helps with emissions (might be why the exhaust tips are clean too). It’s also pretty loaded with options from what I can see, so you’re looking at probably €45-50k.
I think there are well-designed minimal interiors that are well thought out and are still functional... and then there are interiors that are made to appear minimalist just for the sake of being different and hip. In that case, I agree, the latter does not deserve to cost nearly as much
Honestly, I'd go ahead and buy a MK7, no point messing around with this one. The entire car shouldn't get bricked when the screen breaks. And for the first time, I disagree with TheTopher, this interior is an absolute deal breaker. Driving impressions are great as usual though.
So, the problem with the ESC is not 100% true. You can link your ESC controls up to a shortcut in the Menu, so you just have to swipe down and the ESC shortcut will be right there. Though even I would still prefer a button.
I think I may go Hyundai... Veloster N or that Elantra N coming out soon. I know the Elantra is not a hatch, but the interior is modern without looking hard to use. More HP and more TRQ... Volkswagen has real competition in this segment in the US market now.
No manual handbrake isn't a surprise. I hate to break it to GTi aficionados but the GTi has been moving away from a "pull the handbrake" type car for several generations now. It's a grunty and surprisingly fast moderately luxurious hatch. Hopefully they make a proper drivers car version somewhere along the line by making such changes as replacing the ludicrously soft engine and gearbox mounts with something that allows hard driving and road texture to reach the driver.
Lack of physical buttons is an absolute deal breaker! I really wish my 2019 GTI wasn't a lemon and I didn't have to sell it back to VW. The mk 7.5 GTI was the perfect balance of everything (except mine couldn't seem to stay running without stalling).
For the price point this car is amazing one of the best bang for your buck all around vehicles. And the inside materials can all be easily replaced to give a more luxurious feel.
Gotta be honest.... this t ype of gear shifter would be tough for me, at around 5:45 where you put it in reverse... if I do the same but leave it in drive I'd forget to put it in park cuz its a button, I'm not saying I'd forget to switch to park before getting off every time but subconsciously I'd just forget that its a button and just get off.. I prefer a traditional shifter over this type ones with buttons.
I’m not going to lie but all that gloss black trim around the digital cockpit looks cheap. I love how they did it for the MK7.5R, the surrounding part is gloss black but where the digital display is at there is a matte plastic.
With so many compelling competitors such as the Type R, Elantra N, and Veloster N, the poorly designed haptics and laggy infotainment turn into a deal breaker, which is unfortunate for this otherwise cool car.
I honestly don't know anyone who uses infotainments for anything other than Bluetooth, I get the crappy haptic stuff but I don't understand why the bad infotainment us a big deal.
I for one would not buy one with an automatic. Gotta be a manual. I am not crazy about everything being controlled through touch screen interface either.
The exhaust tips being clean are likely a result of the DPF style particulate filter (similar to a diesel) after the catalytic converter. Some 2021 MK7.5 models also had this.
Was interested in this car before I saw the infotainment system. I'd much rather have knobs and buttons. You mean I have to exit navigation to change radio stations? Looks like the Toyota GR86 is a better idea.
The thing is VW is a more conservative company, more budget friendly. More buttons = more parts that cost money to be made (plastic presses, materials and so on). They also can break, a lot of buttons = a lot of things that could go wrong, hardware is harder to fix than software. having a single system managing everything is much easier and cost friendly. I understand that having climate controls not physically accessible sucks, but there's some small touch buttons in front of the screen that help
It's not just VW though, but far more expensive cars in the vw group, like the porsche Taycan have predominantly touch based interiors, I guess from a manufacturer perspective, it's more convenient (again to the manufacturer) to build them this way...
