Volkswagen Golf R Cabriolet 4MOTION 2013 Review

OVERVIEW

Until then, it has a very expensive, very mediocre Golf R Cabriolet. That’s a pity, because the Golf 4Motion, launched a fortnight earlier than the Golf R Cabrio in Europe, boasts the best technology yet seen in the new Golf VII’s bodyshell without the Golf R’s big engine.

Though only available with two diesel engines, the 4Motion not only scores the latest version of Volkswagen’s all-wheel drive system, but also gets the multi-link rear suspension system deemed too expensive for the standard Golf VII.

Then there’s the Golf R Cabrio. Based on the Golf GTi Cabrio, the Golf R version adds a lot more performance but not much more grip.

Some might find it odd that the Golf R Cabrio emerges in the Golf VI bodyshell when everybody’s talking about the new Golf VII and it’s MQB architecture, but the Golf Cabrio is really a product line unto itself. It runs a couple of years out of sync with the Golf hatch, so there are at least a couple of years left in it.

But the oddest thing about the Golf R Cabrio isn’t that it’s in the old Golf bodyshell. It’s that it gets only front-wheel drive in spite of having a convertible body that’s not as rigid as the outgoing all-wheel drive Golf R hatch. And they share the same engine.

That’s strange because Volkswagen deemed that the stiffer hatch needed all-wheel drive – and no convertible in history has been stiffer than the hardtop it supplemented.

Volkswagen asks for more money from its German buyers for a Golf R Cabriolet than Porsche does for Boxster customers. That ought to tell you a lot about the quality of the engineering VW says it’s stuffed into the Golf R Cabrio. Or a lot about what it thinks of the type of person who would want to spend money on a soft-top VW.

But if it doesn’t offer 4Motion, the Golf R Cabrio at least has plenty of other stuff. There is a standard rollover protection system, bi-xenon headlights, rear LED lights, 18-inch alloy wheels, sportier front seats and leather trim.

There is also an automatic climate control system and, of course, that cloth soft top that pops up in nine seconds, even when you’re doing 30km/h.

It has some other gear too, that helps separate it from the Golf GTi Cabrio with which it shares so much. There are chromed tailpipes, a glossy black plastic on the mirror covers, the letter “R” painted on the brake callipers and grille, and stainless steel pedal covers.

The standard gearbox is a six-speed manual, though almost everybody is going to option up to the more expensive six-speed DSG dual-clutch unit.

The key to the Golf Cabrio, even in R format, is a roof system that uses its longitudinal members as drip rails and four cross braces, all holding up a three-layer roof that is remarkably quiet.

The front bow is very stiff, holding the roof in shape even when it’s pushing air across it at its 250km/h top speed, and it drops into its cubby hole in 9.5 seconds after you pull its electric switch. It takes 11.5 seconds to get it back up again and you can do that at up to 30km/h, so you don’t have to be completely embarrassed at the lights.

The boot is not a patch on a hatch, but there’s no difference in the space available if the roof is up or down. That’s because there’s a permanent box for it, which leaves 250 litres of surprisingly useful space at all times – and you can even pass cargo through into the back seat, because the backrest can fold down.

There’s no permanently in-place rollover bar any more, it now pops up automatically from behind the rear headrests if a predefined tilt angle is exceeded.

The Cabrio has a 2578mm wheelbase and for those measuring the garage, it’s 4246mm long, 1782mm wide and 1423mm high.
As for the 4Motion, it keeps all the space of the standard Golf VII five-door hatch, even though it is more complicated underneath.

These are legitimate questions, because the 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder Golf R Cabrio motor is demonstrably more powerful than it needs to be.

There are good things about this engine. In fact, there are many good things about this engine. It’s all alloy, it thumps out 195kW of power at 6000rpm and it crunches a diesel-esque 350Nm of torque between 2500 to 5000rpm.

The EA113 motor has been given direct fuel injection and crams up to 1.2 bar of turbo pressure into the block – which needed reinforcing, as did the pistons, gudgeon pins and conrods. All good so far, really.

Then there are the gearbox bits. The manual is not bad, not great, but the DSG is a cracker and then there’s the electronically locking front differential. The problem is that there isn’t a matching rear differential and nobody at Volkswagen gave a rational reason for its being overlooked.

The body is heavily reinforced underneath, with a stronger windscreen frame, a stiffer underbody and meatier crossmembers. It has two cross reinforcement beams in the sills, another two diagonals and a stiffer rear subframe. This pattern of stiffening is the key reason its weight has bumped to 1614kg

Then, VW sits all that on 18-inch wheels and tyres in a chassis riding 25mm lower than the standard Golf Cabrio. The MacPherson strut front end has continuously adaptive electric dampers that can also be fiddled for Normal, Comfort or Sport rides.

Officially, that leads to a 6.4 second sprint to 100km/h and a 250km/h top speed, along with a combined NEDC emissions number of 8.2 litres/100km and 190 grams/km. The fuel tank holds 55 litres.

The Golf 4Motion stands out from the crowd largely because of an all-wheel drive system that, on the downside, adds a neat 100kg to the standard Golf VII’s kerb weight.

That’s not all the fault of the Haldex V all-wheel drive, though, because the addition of all-wheel drive also means the addition of a multi-link rear suspension that is considerably heavier than the standard beam axle. It’s considerably more expensive, too.

ON THE ROAD

Golf chassis are engineered to a degree of amiability that most hatch makers would kill for, but punching additional drive through an extra set of tyres doesn’t hurt.

The beauty of it is not that it’s all-wheel drive, but that it works so hard to make the driver look good to anybody else in the car and to feel so secure at the same time.

Volkswagen couldn’t give us a front-to-rear torque split for the all-paw system because it doesn’t work like that. It’s not a set-and-forget all-wheel drive with a viscous coupling that only starts moving torque around when something gets urgent.

This one works by constantly assessing each wheel and the grip beneath it, and doing it damned quickly. It’s so quick that if one tyre hits a wet or loose patch, it can eradicate any torque and distribute it to the other wheels, then switch back when grip returns to the troubled tyre.

The beauty is that it does it all so seamlessly that it’s difficult to imagine what you’d have to be doing to lose control of a Golf 4Motion, even with all of its skid-control software switched off. There is such a depth of security at its core that the dash lights rarely flash, even on snow.

We tried throwing the 4Motion into snowy and icy bends at ridiculous angles, ludicrous speeds and with frankly laughably rough steering and braking inputs, only to find the car doing the mechanical equivalent of politely catching a dropped glass, replenishing it and seamlessly putting it back in your hand before you’d even noticed you’d let it go.

It’s difficult to imagine another hatch offering this level of overwhelming security but it’s not entertaining. In this guise, it’s not supposed to be. It will have to step up a gear when it becomes a GTi and another gear again when it gets to Golf R country.

Speaking of which, take heart all you car companies who feared Volkswagen was so clinical that it couldn’t mess anything up too badly. With the Golf R Cabriolet, it just did.

Front-wheel drive is enough for a GTi. It’s not enough for an R. Not by a long shot. In fact, most of the time under hard acceleration, the R Cabriolet becomes a one-wheel drive, with one of the front tyres either cooking up a storm or being throttled by the traction or skid-control systems in an effort to keep the thing pointed in more or less the right direction.

The shame of that is that although the engine is such a lovely example of the high-po four-cylinder breed, the chassis just isn’t man enough to let you play with it in the way it’s begging to be played with.

With 1.2 bar of turbo pressure, the EA113 motor has direct injection and a heavily reinforced block, pistons and conrods. It pushes out 195kW of power and 350Nm of torque, the latter arriving at 2500rpm.

Volkswagen says it will hit 100km/h in 6.4 seconds, but it’s difficult to imagine what manner of surface Volkswagen has for generating these times. Whenever we attacked the throttle, the Golf R Cabrio just pulled one way or the other sideways or, sometimes, both. What it never did was use all of its energy to go forward.

Its six-speed DSG dual-clutch gearbox is a lovely thing, but there’s just no circumstance under which you can push the throttle to the floor and not expect to have the whole thing confiscated by the police.

In its first three gears, the power will either be bridled by the skid-control system or, with that switched off, will use the tyres to reduce potential energy to smoke.

It’s not just sprinting either, because it can’t even use all that power to get out of corners properly. It can leave the car sliding wide under throttle when it should just be tracking along the road’s curve.

The car is more manageable with lighter throttle use, but what’s the point of that?

It’s clearly not as good a car as the Golf GTi Cabrio, even with way more power. The lack of a rear diff verges on unforgiveable when it’s deemed necessary for the hatch.

When they get around to combining this level of power with the 4Motion’s all-wheel drive system and the Golf VII chassis, this will be a terrific car. Until then, steer clear of it.

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