I learned the word “ajar” from advertisements for these cars.

You are so so so wrong, Jason. My folks rented one of these when they visited us in California in the early aughts. I never get carsick, but I was riding in the back up the twisties of highway 1 in Marin county. I had to yell at my dad to stop, so I could dry heave a little on the side of the road. I got the front…

Test drove a 320i a few months ago. Seemed underpowered to me, coming from my golf. Maybe not enough torque? My wife said “why even get this in a manual, it’s no fun!”. Then we test drove the 335i xdrive manual. That was a totally different story. Ended up with the 328d wagon because kids and 45 mpg. No manual though.…

Talk to me about hot hatches, and we’ll have something to talk about. Or the non-existent BMW diesel manual hatchback or wagon. Hmmph. 10k off a new Golf R? Yes please.

I suspect the early symptoms of a cracked DPF on the tdi, but no codes were thrown, i have VCDS, and used it to change fuel filters, run the ABS pump after bleeding, etc. But how do we explain the soot on the 328d? A car I bought to replace the cheaty VW? BMW hasn’t been caught cheating... yet. But I know that even…

Modern diesels don’t produce any soot? My recently bought-back 2011 tdi wagon with its black sooty tailpipe would beg to differ. It was cleaner than my 2001, no question, but no need to jump to hyperbole, diesels still produce soot even with DPF, just a lot less. My current 328d also has sooty tailpipes, i would never…

I took a taxi ride across the Sinai desert in a Hyundai cab that had that infuriating chime set to go off at 100Kmh. Dude was driving 130-140 most of the time, except for traffic jams. You just started to tune it out after the 6th hour or so.

Nice build for sure. Any thoughts on how to convert our 2014 328d wagon to the proper transmission...?

As the stock photo illustrates, for sure drive a museum-quality mk4 vw, preferably TDI. That there’s advice you can take to the bank. Good advice for anyone.

“Critical Recall - Driver’s side airbags with defective inflators.”

Well I suppose that depends entirely on where and how your drive. I live West of Philly, and there’s lots of fun back roads to take vigorously but responsibly. The golf completely blows away a Prius with fun factor on those roads - slow car fast and all that. The tight handling of my old golf really makes the commute…

I think the closest comparison would be a 2015 golf tdi vs a golf tsi, but the suspension was such shit on the tsi, at least for mk6 the GTI was a closer comparison. I couldn’t believe how bad the last gen gas golf suspension was compared to the tdi.

Actually, isn’t Audi under investigation for doing the same thing with their automatic gas A4's, where as soon as it notices it’s being driven normally, it increases emissions?

Problem is, you need to look at real world consumption, not just EPA or manufacturer numbers. Getting 50 MPG in a TDI, even one that has been repaired to almost meet emissions, is no big deal at all. Our 328d gets an easy 45 MPG on the highway, and that’s just short trips. In town, it’s a bear, getting 35 only if I…

Neutral: Not too terribly bad, since the week we returned our JSW TDI, I came home with a used 328d wagon (miss the manual, though, how I miss the manual!). Still completely on the fence between a used 2015 TDI Golf and a 2018 GTI, I think the warranty, if it remains 3 years, or goes up to 6 on the GTI may be a…

Nah, I’m not that much of a jalop. Im ready for my car to be red. Or green. Or Golf R blue.

If the BMW 120d hatch was available today here with a manual, I would actually go to a BMW dealer and buy one new. So take that. A jalop buying a new BMW.

No one said or suggested that TDIs unregulated aren’t gross polluters. They are. That’s why the regs are absolutely essential. VW cheated and lied, and that’s how they killed the diesel in the US. It’s not the regulations. The regs are the only thing between us and Beijing air quality.

2005 a4s in the U.K. didnt have diesel particulate filters, so they probably do smoke, and that has no relevance to the current tdis

Only way that could possibly be the case was if the owner had removed the emissions system. Our family has owned 3 of these. There was never any black smoke from any of our cars. NOx is invisible.