Scirocco Central

My previous two cars have been a Golf 4motion and an audi A4 quattro V6, so I was a bit apprehensive of handling capabilities when falling for a 2.0 GT DSG Scirocco and its FWD. I can honestly say it feels rock solid, at least as secure as the 4motion, and somehow better than the Audi. Has anyone experienced any twitching when negotiating fast bends? I don't want to get over confident. I also think that 4WD would not be necessary, unless you start tuning to 300+ bhp.

Don't take roundabouts too quickly in the wet.

As an experiment I found if you push too hard and get understeer, and come straight off the power, the back end will start to slide. ESP corrects it quickly. But its stupid if you ever put yourself in that situation on the road. Take it on a track or an airfield.

I've generally found the handling pretty good, even in the cold weather. However, i do have a query - i was driving along a country road, ACC in normal, doing about 55, it was fairly cold and went over a hill into a fairly long, steep dip in the road, i lifted off the throttle a bit just as i went over the brow of the hill and felt the rear brakes come on slightly by themselves - i thought i'd imagined it but it did it on the way back along the same stretch of road - never happened before. I'm assuming it was the ACC coming on, perhaps because the weight was momentarily off the back wheels and the computer thought i was losing it?! I was going in a pretty straight line at the time and i confess it made me feel a bit uneasy! Has this happened to anyone else and am i right to assume it's the (overprotective?!) ACC?!

Cheers

i meant ESP not ACC!

when i had my winter tyres put on recently, i could not put the back set on because of the delay in delivery. I only had the fronts for the whole snowy period.

i found that when cornering on snow even at slow speed, the rear oversteers but it gets corrected by the ESP immediately.

it was fun because you can 'play' a bit knowing it wouldn't let you overstep it. but not done any doughnuts yet!


i also find driving with the rear seats folded forward ( with half a tank of petrol), it improved the weight distribution and further improves handling .

fun meter wrote:As an experiment I found if you push too hard and get understeer, and come straight off the power, the back end will start to slide. ESP corrects it quickly. But its stupid if you ever put yourself in that situation on the road. Take it on a track or an airfield.

Dido. On the track I found that You have to push it quite a lot to loose the rear end, and then it is never totally lost.

Cornering towards the limit it squeals on all four paws and understeers a little, which You can pull in with the gas
- to a limit

ESP is interesting, as its like it predicts what is coming up. Guess thats the super fast feedback on normal road surfaces. But you can catch it out (if one wheel lifts), then the front end bites a bit when it touches again.

The car thrives from powering through corners, its handling is great. The things myself and others have mentioned are all unusual and exceptional road surfaces or conditions, in which the car will behave differently.

I took my Roc to the Porsche Experience centre and used their kickplate and ice track to test the handling. I'm pleased to report that with or without ESP (although my Porsche consultant felt you can never fully turn the thing off) the handling was great. The kickplate at the top recommended speed didn't manage to spin me out.

The ESP isn't fully switchable on most/all VWs as far as I know.
As to Porsche's kickplate, that's probably more a testament to your good driving than the car I suspect. The kickplate requires quick reactions and then accuracy as you gather it up - though the Roc is undoubtedly a good handling car, an amateur will always lose it no matter what. Great fun though when you do lose it on that kickplate!

Thanks for all the feedback! Since posting this I have experienced a slight rear end twitch on an icy bend. I wasnt going that fast but the ice was not obvious and the car moved slightly at the back but was immediately corrected. Reading through the replies on ESP I can now see why its impossible for even the slightest handbrake turn on snow or ice, I wouldnt have thought that possible on non driven wheels. Scirocco ESP system must be far superior to other ESP equipped cars I have driven in the past.