VW Golf GTE

[Phil Dicky]

Has anyone any real-world usage of one of these? What genuine electric mileage do they provide, any issues ?
Was originally looking for a GTi for Mrs PD. However, she drives 10 miles round trip to work, so a hybrid makes sense.

[FeelingLucky]

Mk7.5 approaching 20 miles pure EV summer, 15 ish winter.

As a fully charged each day hybrid over 100mpg
without the charge, mid fifties.

No experience of Mk8

Excellent car, I would recommend.

[dmsims]

Had one for 3 years and enjoyed it

25 summer, 20 winter EV range, charged it on a 3 pin plug only

There was an HV battery recall (to check for a leaking seal), 12V batteries can die (ours didn't)

DSG needs a service every 40K

VW extended warranty is very good and cheap!

Phil Dicky said:

Has anyone any real-world usage of one of these? What genuine electric mileage do they provide, any issues ?
Was originally looking for a GTi for Mrs PD. However, she drives 10 miles round trip to work, so a hybrid makes sense.

[Phil Dicky]

Cheers guys, so at 10 miles a day only need charging every other day, result.

[FeelingLucky]

Personally, I wouldn't. If you have the ability to charge nightly at home, it's always best to be topped up, ready for anything.

[Phil Dicky]

FeelingLucky said:

Personally, I wouldn't. If you have the ability to charge nightly at home, it's always best to be topped up, ready for anything.

Good point.

[blank]

Phil Dicky said:

FeelingLucky said:

Personally, I wouldn't. If you have the ability to charge nightly at home, it's always best to be topped up, ready for anything.

Good point.

And in winter the pre-conditioning will be very welcome!

[Danm1les]

FeelingLucky said:

Mk7.5 approaching 20 miles pure EV summer, 15 ish winter.

As a fully charged each day hybrid over 100mpg
without the charge, mid fifties.

No experience of Mk8

Excellent car, I would recommend.

Ours is the same, my partner loves it. She’s plugs it in every night regardless of use and keeps it brimmed. Regularly does 20 miles in a day in pure electric and if she knows she’s going to do more miles than the electric will give, runs it on hybrid so the engine kicks in as and when to assist.

I would recommend it to anyone who can charge it and does 20ish miles a day.

[Possum19]

Hello, I’m considering GTE 7.5 as a new car, but a couple of things I’m not sure about.

I drive around 20k miles per year including a 50m each way commute 3 times per week, so I’ve thus far stuck with diesel…but engine coking, EGR issues etc have been painful and put me off another.

So I’m wondering firstly if on a 100m round trip the charge will run out out 30miles meaning I’m driving an overweight petrol car?! There are chargers at work, but I’m not sure if they’re compatible.

Secondly, my high annual mileage means any car I get (can afford) ends up pretty high mileage after a couple of years, anyone have any insight into 80 or 100k GTEs?

Thanks for any advice

[p4cks]

Once the electric very quickly runs out you’re right - you are then driving a heavy petrol car and it does show. Expect low 40s on the motorway on petrol only, if you’re lucky.

I’d not recommend one.

[dmsims]

OK - I'm going to call custard on that emotive tripe - please back this up with actual experience and figures

p4cks said:

Once the electric very quickly runs out you’re right - you are then driving a heavy petrol car and it does show. Expect low 40s on the motorway on petrol only, if you’re lucky.

I’d not recommend one.

Edited by dmsims on Thursday 5th September 22:46

[dmsims]

There is a selector (it varies slightly dependent on year) where you drive purely in Electric or switch ot Hybrid - so you would use the former in urban areas and the latter on fast roads to maximise efficiency

The extra weight is pretty much irrelevant if you are not accelerating and you have the benefits of automatic seamless start/stop and regen braking

Your chargers at work will almost certainly be compatible

Battery will degrade slowly over time/mileage. The DSG needs servicing every 40K

Custard (still with 12 miles left in battery)

Possum19 said:

So I’m wondering firstly if on a 100m round trip the charge will run out out 30miles meaning I’m driving an overweight petrol car?! There are chargers at work, but I’m not sure if they’re compatible.

Secondly, my high annual mileage means any car I get (can afford) ends up pretty high mileage after a couple of years, anyone have any insight into 80 or 100k GTEs?

Thanks for any advice

[JNW1]

dmsims said:

p4cks said:

Once the electric very quickly runs out you’re right - you are then driving a heavy petrol car and it does show. Expect low 40s on the motorway on petrol only, if you’re lucky.

I’d not recommend one.

OK - I'm going to call custard on that emotive tripe - please back this up with actual experience and figures

I've no experience of a Golf GTE but isn't it just a statement of fact that you're driving a heavy petrol car with not a huge amount of power once the battery's run out?

I can remember seeing something similar in relation to the BMW 330e and basically the conclusion of the review was you needed to be sure of your mileage profile before you bought one. If you were likely to end-up running purely on petrol a lot of the time you had all the extra weight of the batteries but quite a bit less power than in the lighter 330i - not a great combination. Obviously different if your mileage profile meant you'd nearly always have some charge in the battery though....

[MrBig]

I ran a mk7 GTE for 4 years and very nearly 100k.

Great fun to drive, preconditioning is brilliant in both winter and summer. If you totally run the battery down you do lose a fair bit of power, but it's easy to switch back to hybrid when you get to 2 or 3 miles of range to keep some power back. It drives absolutely fine without any assistance, but I enjoyed the power and torque so always kept some battery remaining.

The car is very well balanced so it drives really well, don't listen to the "worst of both worlds" brigade who have never driven one. The hybrid system works very well, it drives up to 80mph on ev only, and it all integrates much better than the contemporary 330e (IMO).

There's not much point in talking about economy really because it's so varied on how you use and how you charge it.

My commute was 35/45 miles each way depending on route, but I charged at home and at work, so the 80-90mpg reading on the dash wasn't massively relevant!

When I drove it down to London it used to return around 45mpg IIRC, but then it was charging the battery then too.

[dmsims]

Delete your misinformed post then

JNW1 said:

I've no experience of a Golf GTE

[p4cks]

dmsims said:

OK - I'm going to call custard on that emotive tripe - please back this up with actual experience and figures

p4cks said:

Once the electric very quickly runs out you’re right - you are then driving a heavy petrol car and it does show. Expect low 40s on the motorway on petrol only, if you’re lucky.

I’d not recommend one.

"emotive tripe"

Apologies, I should have made my reply clearer as I wrongly assumed people would check out the 'My Garage' section before coming across as a bellend by jumping to a conclusion. So, for the avoidance of doubt, I owned a Golf GTE and my actual experience was that on a motorway at 70mph (ACC) I was seeing low 40s mpg on my 60-mile motorway journey each day.

Plugging it in every night was a pain in the arse too, in my opinion (for the avoidance of doubt)

[p4cks]

dmsims said:

Delete your misinformed post then

You seem lovely.

[JNW1]

dmsims said:

Delete your misinformed post then

JNW1 said:

I've no experience of a Golf GTE

Well a couple of Golf GTE owners on here seemed to have confirmed what I was saying (namely that if there's no charge remaining to power the electric motor you're left with a relatively low powered car which also weighs a fair bit more than the non-hybrid equivalent). But you sound like you know it all so I'll leave you to it....

[Ankh87]

Why not look into the ID3 as it's probably just as expensive to buy these days and possibly newer? You could easily charge is via a 3 pin socket as well which might be a better fit.

[Possum19]

Thanks everyone that’s replied. Considering my driving style, I’m no “hypermiler” shall we say, it’s a distinct possibility that I’ll use all the electric power and end up with a heavy petrol car quite often…

Add in that I’ll probably forget to plug it in sometimes and the work chargers may be full, and perhaps it’s not quite the solution I thought it was. Reading around it seems very complicated and dependent on mode, driving style and temperature and frankly I think something more straightforward and consistent may be better.