I've had my Mk 6 GTi since mid July and it's a manual. Just before ordering it I'd been very close to buying a really nice low mileage Mk 5 GTi DSG, probably one of the last ones around. To be honest, I loved both. However, I just felt ever so slightly "detached" from the driving experience in the DSG Mk 5. It's very effective at what it does but it just wasn't as engaging as my Mk 6 is. You takes your choice I suppose. The other thing of course was cost. The Mk 6 was steep enough without another 1300 on DSG on top. It is an awesome car though - totally love it 6000 miles later. Without question the best car I've ever owned.
How do you find the trick diff ? " XDS uses braking pressure to emulate the function of a differential lock. If the system detects that the wheel at the inside of the curve that the GTI is taking is insufficiently loaded, the car will brake this wheel to restore traction. It helps compensate for the typical front wheel drive understeer through fast curves "
Man id love a mk6 gti, just so once in my life I own a new car! Just out of interest, what is the wear and tear like on a DSG box, ie how long does a clutch last in comparison to a standard boxes clutch (which you regularly get 80k miles plus on) If it is all auto, maybe the syncros/ clutch will actually last longer because you factor out human error? And how much is a DSG box/clutch to get repaired, I figure newish technology = mega expensive at a garage!
My experience of Mk5 vs Mk6 is that the XDS just works. You don't notice anything, hear nothing etc...it just doesn't wheelspin or understeer as much. Pretty good...for what it is.
mk 5 & mk 6 system almost identical system, processor and programming altered slighty on road the will act the same!
It's not any kind of 'trick diff'. Infact, the actual diff is identical to that in the Mk5 - ie, a conventional old skool open planetary diff. The XDS just uses the ABS/ESP to proactively pre-empt any wheelspin by applying the brake to the inside front wheel whilst accelerating during a turn. A Quaife would have been considerably better - but then a Quaife costs a lot more than a 50 Euro cent line of software code in the ESP ECU . . .
