Mine is in again today to have the leak causing the wet rear seats fixed - the recall adjustment on the rear hatch didn't seem to work.

 

Anyhow kudos to the dealer who have given me a courtesy car for "as long as it takes until they've fixed it for good". 

 

Interestingly I have been given a 13 plate Rapid TSI SE with the 105 engine instead of the 85 that I have in mine.

 

Under normal driving conditions the performance feels virtually the same but I have yet to "give it some beans" to see whether you can feel the difference then. But on my journey back from the dealer I recorded 54MPG which is better than I have had from mine in 8 months so it really seems the extra gear on the 105 helps with the economy in real world conditions. You can change up to 6th from about 40MPH and it will still cope on a flat road (barely above tickover!)

 

So if anyone out there is considering these two engines then I would go for the 105. The 85 is still excellent for the capacity but the slightly better economy, lower revs and thus noise at motorway speeds, and potential better performance would all be a bonus.

 

That said, the 105 costs around £700 more than the 85 and you'd need to go for the Greentech version to get it in the same tax bracket which makes it £950 more than the 85 non-Greentech. You pays your money and takes your choice I guess.

 

Other observations:

 

- Engine noise at tickover seems to be significantly lower despite being the same mechanically (I guess this is due to improved sound insulation fitted from week 32)

- The courtesy car is on 15s rather than 17s on mine. The ride is still firm but the 15s do take a bit of the edge off.

- Courtesy car lacks the nice options that mine has (Amundsen, Climate, Sports seats) and I miss them. The basic version is all solid and comfortable but the extras do lift the ambience quite a lot. Imagine the latest versions with the new steering wheels and dash inserts are very nice indeed.

That MPG figure is around the same ballpark as me, what sort of journey (Mway/A roads) did you do to get that figure? My mpg is reading slightly lower now due to the colder weather setting in (which I fully expected), and the 40mph in 6th gear thing is very much hit & miss for me, it really does have to be a level road or slightly downhill, if you're going up an incline slightly it's much better to stick with 5th gear at that speed.

 

If you know the route you're travelling well enough though then selecting the appropriate gear becomes second nature once you're used to how the car behaves.

It was a 12 mile journey of mostly single carriagway A-roads with a bit of 30-40 residential area in between, so ideal conditions really.

But I really wasn't trying to get that figure and probably would be able to improve upon it further once I learnt the new gearbox a bit better!