The VW Golf R Is Now Less Powerful And No Longer Available With A Manual
The Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (or WLTP) has claimed its latest victim. Having led to the demise of Jaguar’s supercharged V6 vehicles in the Europe (and, we’ve since discovered, the only recently introduced XJR 575), the VW Golf R has been hit by the more stringent, more realistic emissions test.
But don’t panic: it will stay on sale, albeit with a drop in power. Having been bumped up to 306bhp during last year’s facelift, it’s now been, erm, bumped back down to where it was. The car now produces 296bhp. A VW UK spokesperson told Autocar that “in the context of new homologations” it’s been necessary to make “adaptions for the exhaust gas treatment and for the power output”. No technical details were given, but this presumably means a more restrictive exhaust, perhaps with a petrol particulate filter included.
Current orders are affected, and VW will be in touch with buyers to let them know that they’re missing out on an extra 10 ponies. We’ve driven the car in both 296bhp and 306bhp forms, and we can confirm that the difference isn’t really noticeable.
It’s not the only change for the car though: the manual gearbox option has been dropped in the UK and Germany at least - we’re waiting to hear back from VW to see if this affects other markets too. It’s unclear if this is WLTP related - it may just be due to low demand, with the dual-clutch ‘DSG’ automatic version being the clear favourite up until now.
The Seat Leon Cupra - which uses the same VW Group EA888 inline-four turbo engine - has been hit by WLTP too. It’s dropped from 296bhp to 286bhp, although it’s a little more awkward for Seat, which has been badging the car as the ‘Cupra 300’ to tie in with its PS power rating. It’ll go back to being dubbed ‘Cupra 290’, as it was known before the last update.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
VW are being affected by emissions!? I’ve never heard of such a thing! I thought VWs had great emissions.
The irony is that they technically do/did, as the TDI is a comparatively sober engine. The problem was more with them cheating the emission results than anything else.
So its now more expensive for less hp? So no buy from me then ill stick to a wrx oh wait theyre not sold here anymore dang it!
Cupra should start selling an exhaust + 300 badge bundle
How power has to do with emissions? Why would it affect it at all? I don’t get it.
The basics are this. More power = more fuel = more pollutants
They add parts to the exhaust to lower emissions at the cost of power
More reasons to go for the GTI I guess
I don’t care if it has no manual, that dual clutch transmission is so good it makes the manual seem redundant (Inb4 the manual fanboys downvote me).
If you look at things objectively it goes a bit like this:
If you want a good transmission, you get an automatic.
If you want a good manual, you get a DCT.
A lovely little exhaust mod will fix this. No harm done.
Why is this legislation killing off petrol cars while the diesels that caused this overblown flap in the first place continue to be offered to the public despite collapsing diesel sales?
that’s not a problem. As long as the engine and evertything else is the same, we can always bring the power back by “tunning it back” or more with intake, exhaust, … or whatever we need haha
But the manual option is now gone. That is a whole topic on its own.
Noooooo!
Even the manual option is not available for the Golf R from now on?!
#savethemanuals