03GolfTDI
Veteran Member
So after realizing my 2012 Sportwagen was not appropriate for my commute and usage (7-8k miles per year), not to mention the fact it has been in the shop probably 4 weeks of the 11 months I had just decided we did not need 2 TDI wagons in the stable. My other half has commuting and driving patterns more suited to a TDI and does 15-20k miles annually.
So a 2016 e-Golf SE popped up in local dealer CPO inventory, the 3 year lease returns from the CARB states are finally popping up in inventory in states where they were not sold and even the used ones were a hot commodity. Two people came to look at the example I bought within 24 hours of me putting deposit down.
Pros:
- Instant torque and its seamless. 199 lb/ft from 0 to I guess "redline". Even in eco mode its easy to leave traffic in the dust without going all out.
- Silence. Its eerie coming from a TDI to just not hear anything except tire noise and wind noise once you get going a bit faster.
- MKVII platform far surpasses the lipstick on a MKV "MKVI Sportwagen". Did not realize how much a rattle/squeak box my 2012 Sportwagen was until I drove this. The lack of a pano roof is probably a big chunk of that. Handling is much better as well, even with the heavy battery (its flat under the front and rear seats) tilting this Golf scales to almost 3500 lbs it feels very nimble and balanced and honestly handles better than my Sportwagen with the heavy pano roof way up top.
- Maintenance. Electric is the most maintenance free vehicles you can buy today. Tires, brakes (probably rare because most of the braking is handled via regeneration), cabin filter, brake fluid and a 12V battery is really all the common maintenance items to handle. It does have a cooling circuit for the electric motor but VW does not call for any coolant changes.
- No pano roof to leak, break. This was the final nail in the coffin for the 2012 - in 11 months it spent 4 weeks in the shop for pano roof issues, yeah it was CPO but what happens when its not CPO. I think that was over $5k in repairs just for the dang roof.
Cons:
- No cruise control. SE does not have cruise control for some ungodly reason, I'm not taking it on road trips so its something I may have used 5% of the time on shorter in town freeway trips. Has climatronic, auto headlights, auto wipers, heated seats.....but no cruise, kind of an odd omission.
- No steering wheel controls. I guess to differentiate the SE and SEL they did not put any steering wheel controls. I do miss the radio controls and the MFI controls, back is the old rocker switch and button on the wiper stalk.
Charging:
Fortunately the car I bought had the upgraded fast charger that was optional on the SE. Full charge would take ~4 hours if you drove the battery to critical level. It does also have the capability of DC fast charge which can bring you from almost 0 to 80% in 30 minutes, VW explicitly states that doing this too much will degrade the battery and they highly recommend you not DC fast charge back to back - so if you DC fast charge once you have to AC less fast charge the next time. The few DC fast chargers I found on chargepoint app are kind pricey so I don't think I will be doing that, think they are meant more for Teslas.
Today charging at a station at work I left it on for about 2 hours 15 mins which was about 42-43 miles of range on top of the 28 miles I had remaining - $2.15 was my cost. I could commuted back and forth to work a few more times before really needing to charge but I wanted to get the hang of the charging station first before driving to ultra low remaining range....just in case there were any issues.
I will miss the 2012, but we have the 2011 for the longer trip car so I won't be a stranger. I have always enjoyed this forum since 2003 so going to continue visiting.
So a 2016 e-Golf SE popped up in local dealer CPO inventory, the 3 year lease returns from the CARB states are finally popping up in inventory in states where they were not sold and even the used ones were a hot commodity. Two people came to look at the example I bought within 24 hours of me putting deposit down.
Pros:
- Instant torque and its seamless. 199 lb/ft from 0 to I guess "redline". Even in eco mode its easy to leave traffic in the dust without going all out.
- Silence. Its eerie coming from a TDI to just not hear anything except tire noise and wind noise once you get going a bit faster.
- MKVII platform far surpasses the lipstick on a MKV "MKVI Sportwagen". Did not realize how much a rattle/squeak box my 2012 Sportwagen was until I drove this. The lack of a pano roof is probably a big chunk of that. Handling is much better as well, even with the heavy battery (its flat under the front and rear seats) tilting this Golf scales to almost 3500 lbs it feels very nimble and balanced and honestly handles better than my Sportwagen with the heavy pano roof way up top.
- Maintenance. Electric is the most maintenance free vehicles you can buy today. Tires, brakes (probably rare because most of the braking is handled via regeneration), cabin filter, brake fluid and a 12V battery is really all the common maintenance items to handle. It does have a cooling circuit for the electric motor but VW does not call for any coolant changes.
- No pano roof to leak, break. This was the final nail in the coffin for the 2012 - in 11 months it spent 4 weeks in the shop for pano roof issues, yeah it was CPO but what happens when its not CPO. I think that was over $5k in repairs just for the dang roof.
Cons:
- No cruise control. SE does not have cruise control for some ungodly reason, I'm not taking it on road trips so its something I may have used 5% of the time on shorter in town freeway trips. Has climatronic, auto headlights, auto wipers, heated seats.....but no cruise, kind of an odd omission.
- No steering wheel controls. I guess to differentiate the SE and SEL they did not put any steering wheel controls. I do miss the radio controls and the MFI controls, back is the old rocker switch and button on the wiper stalk.
Charging:
Fortunately the car I bought had the upgraded fast charger that was optional on the SE. Full charge would take ~4 hours if you drove the battery to critical level. It does also have the capability of DC fast charge which can bring you from almost 0 to 80% in 30 minutes, VW explicitly states that doing this too much will degrade the battery and they highly recommend you not DC fast charge back to back - so if you DC fast charge once you have to AC less fast charge the next time. The few DC fast chargers I found on chargepoint app are kind pricey so I don't think I will be doing that, think they are meant more for Teslas.
Today charging at a station at work I left it on for about 2 hours 15 mins which was about 42-43 miles of range on top of the 28 miles I had remaining - $2.15 was my cost. I could commuted back and forth to work a few more times before really needing to charge but I wanted to get the hang of the charging station first before driving to ultra low remaining range....just in case there were any issues.
I will miss the 2012, but we have the 2011 for the longer trip car so I won't be a stranger. I have always enjoyed this forum since 2003 so going to continue visiting.
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