Tag: Volkswagen

Why I absolutely love the Volkswagen Golf TSi

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So I’ve driven a number of different cars with my Zipcar account. And I have to say it, hands down my favorite car is the Volkswagen Golf TSi.

I should explain why. I’m a fairly confident driver. They say drive defensively, I aim for offensively.

And the Golf TSi – the perfect car matched to my abilities. It’s an awesome car, 0 to 60 MPH in around 7 second. All I now is at the top of the ramp to I-95 south near me, I’m doing maybe 30MPH and half way down the ramp I’m at 60MPH and I can hear the turbocharger kicking in. Nice.

Just last night, I was able to avoid an accident with an idiotic driver – the handling on the Golf is superb. The short wheelbase makes it a blast to drive too.

The only fault I have with the car, it’s the stupid decision by Volkswagen to not put a USB port in the car and instead that abortion of an iPod connector. Look, some of us don’t want to use an iPod. I suppose if I bought one I’d hack in a USB port – after all that dumb iPod connector has to have a 5 volt rail on it somewhere. Even if it didn’t, pretty easy with an LM7805  voltage regulator and a few other components I could even fashion one that I could tuck into the dashboard.

 

Wherein Volkswagen gets it wrong

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So I really like the VW Golf. All I’ve driven so far is the TSi but I want a TDI. They’re reasonable sized, hatchback and get pretty damned good gas mileage. For example I drove from Providence, RI to Cambridge, MA and back today. The gas needle barely used 1/4 tank. That’s pretty fucking good.

However there is one thing that Volkswagen did that makes my blood boil a little bit. The only charging connector on the car is for an iPhone or iPod. Nothing like saying “fuck you” to more than half the universe of mobile devices and fail to put a USB port on the car. What is even more irksome is that iPhones and iPod’s and even iPads come with connector cables that have a USB plug on one end. What the ever loving hell were Volkswagen engineers thinking?

I’m the handy type and I’m pretty sure at least two pins on that connector are +5V and ground. So I’d cut the fucking iPod connector off and wire my own god damned USB connector on.