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Mk8 GTI to be revealed in March

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dosjockey

Go Kart Champion
Location
South
lordnikon228 said:
GTI/Golfs used to have a lockable, lined and cooled glovebox. VW cheapened out sometime after 2017 for North American models.
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I had no idea. Was it air conditioned or Peltier-cooled?

If it's the latter, there's no reason I can't find one somewhere and put it on a switch.
 
KevinC

KevinC

Autocross Champion
Location
The land of Wyatt Earp & Doc Holliday
Car(s)
'19 Golf R, '21 M2c
My '19 R's glove box is lined, and has cooling.. but lost the lock after '17 like our GTI. Also the overhead console didn't lose its backlighting on the R like the GTI did. Some strange cost-cutting stuff was done on Puebla cars that didn't affect the Wolfsburg cars.

VW really screwed up with the 8's instrumentation and heavy reliance on touch and slider controls. Have you seen the headlight switch? Even that is an abomination of over-engineering. Clearly they came up with this stuff 5 years or so ago, and as the rest of the automotive world tried all these crap and failed with it, most have now nixed it after consumer complaints. VW brass is no doubt aware of this but some bean counter in the board room must have yelled "TOO LATE!" to change anything as production drew nearer. It's not going to go over well with consumers - watch. They'll relent like everyone else and return to more conventional controls. And hopefully lose the iPad-velcro'd-to-the-dash stale design too.
 
Carlosfandang0

Carlosfandang0

Autocross Newbie
Location
UK
Car(s)
2016 3Dr GTi DSG CSG
KevinC said:
My '19 R's glove box is lined, and has cooling.. but lost the lock after '17 like our GTI. Also the overhead console didn't lose its backlighting on the R like the GTI did. Some strange cost-cutting stuff was done on Puebla cars that didn't affect the Wolfsburg cars.

VW really screwed up with the 8's instrumentation and heavy reliance on touch and slider controls. Have you seen the headlight switch? Even that is an abomination of over-engineering. Clearly they came up with this stuff 5 years or so ago, and as the rest of the automotive world tried all these crap and failed with it, most have now nixed it after consumer complaints. VW brass is no doubt aware of this but some bean counter in the board room must have yelled "TOO LATE!" to change anything as production drew nearer. It's not going to go over well with consumers - watch. They'll relent like everyone else and return to more conventional controls. And hopefully lose the iPad-velcro'd-to-the-dash stale design too.
Click to expand...
Others including BMW have very similar headlight buttons on their latest cars, the BMW ones are physical buttons at least, but others I have seen are touch too,
2020 BMW -
CFD4E94F-031D-4405-A9AB-1806388FD47F.jpeg
 
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S

SRGTD

Autocross Newbie
Location
UK
Carlosfandang0 said:
Others including BMW have very similar headlight buttons on their latest cars, the BMW ones are physical buttons at least, but others I have seen are touch too,
2020 BMW -
View attachment 164319
Click to expand...
Smacks of form over function, and change for the sake of change in my opinion, although I’d hazard a guess that the BMW version with physical buttons is easier to use and find the button you want through touch than with VW’s (cheaper?) touchpad.

I accept that this seems to be the norm / the current trend, but what’s wrong with the good old rotary lighting knob that’s very easy to find and operate in the dark to turn the lights on and off, or set to ‘Auto’?

IMO, if it ain't broke, don’t fix it, as the old saying goes...............:unsure:
 
The Fed

The Fed

Old Guys Rule
Location
Florida
lordnikon228 said:
Agreed...I can't imagine how all those touch interfaces would work in really cold temperatures. And it probably won't work when you wear gloves. I guess I'm keeping my MK7 for a long time.
Click to expand...
VW should throw in a couple of pairs of gloves with the conductive index finger. I haven't paid attention to the displays. Are they still the type of LCD's that won't work in extreme cold weather?
 
The Fed

The Fed

Old Guys Rule
Location
Florida
I can't wait to see how they cheapen the MK8 compared to the MK7. Reminds me of my early-70's Chevy. My clutch jackshaft started squeaking. When my mechanic went to lube it, instead of a Zerk fitting GM merely drilled a hole and put a plastic plug in it. My mechanic broke 2 taps threading it. But it saved GM 5-cents at the time on every manual car.
 
B

Blindeye_03

Go Kart Newbie
Location
North KY
Carlosfandang0 said:
Others including BMW have very similar headlight buttons on their latest cars, the BMW ones are physical buttons at least, but others I have seen are touch too,
2020 BMW -
View attachment 164319
Click to expand...

I wouldnt mind that kind of light switch setup at all but having it on a LCD where you have no tactile feel would be less than ideal. If you need to adjust/turn off/on anything on those screens you have to take your eyes off the road to make sure youre pressing the right thing.
 
D

dosjockey

Go Kart Champion
Location
South
Blindeye_03 said:
I wouldnt mind that kind of light switch setup at all but having it on a LCD where you have no tactile feel would be less than ideal. If you need to adjust/turn off/on anything on those screens you have to take your eyes off the road to make sure youre pressing the right thing.
Click to expand...

Those screens are much cheaper to integrate than hardware buttons. Manufacturers are cheaping out and charging a premium for it because people get caught up in trends.

Then, once the trend is over, the industry is forever changed, and the simple control we used to have is gone. It never goes back all the way.

About fifteen years down the road, the computers will begin to hiccup because the actual infotainment hardware is not particularly good. The screens aren't very good, the processing is slow... It begins to show, and it begins to fail right about the time that those pretty graphics aren't pretty anymore.

Now, computers could be good. They could be rock solid, and last half a century. I've got near forty year old machines here that run perfectly well, I've never sold a machine with less than a ten year warranty, and I've never had a claim; and even the good modern stuff shows no sign of popping; but that's not what they're putting in cars. They're putting junk in cars. They had the right idea for a while when they were just calling Alpine and the like to design and manufacture the interfaces directly.

In the end, though, the venerable dot matrix LCD or primitive OLED in standardized sizes was choice. You didn't get much in the way of graphics, but dot matrix NEVER looks old, and built properly, they can easily out-live the user.

If they did this new stuff right; if they used good hardware, allowed access to most of the switches that things like VCDS does (VW went closer than many on my model), really let you tinker with the chassis in a "pro" mode, or limit it to tracks, and allowed the user to generate and upload fully custom skins via template... Then they would be on to something, and I'd think it was cool and worth the pointlessness.
 
Corprin

Corprin

Autocross Champion
Location
Magrathea
Car(s)
A car
The Fed said:
VW should throw in a couple of pairs of gloves with the conductive index finger. I haven't paid attention to the displays. Are they still the type of LCD's that won't work in extreme cold weather?
Click to expand...

The 6” in my Rabbit requires me to remove my conductive finger gloves to play with the screen. Exactly why I love having real buttons.

The 8” or what ever it is on my wife’s Alltrack is more sensitive. It starts reacting before you get your naked booger-picker near it. My gloves don’t work for shit on it either, but my wife’s OR, non-conductive fingered glove liners will work it when you physically touch it.

And we haven’t had any “why do I live here” days this season... yet.

Your concerns are valid.
 
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