Year: 2025

End of the Line?

I was going to title this post “The End Of An Era?” but swapped it to the current one. Why, you might ask? When I opened WordPress, the song Radio Paradise was playing was by the Travelling Wilburys, called “End of the Line.”

I took the GTI to the local VW dealer to have them run the system checks they normally do when someone comes in for service. I also had them do an oil change because, for all I knew, it was the original 5-year-old oil. The car has only 14,000 miles on it, and that is below the synthetic oil lifespan. An hour and a half later, with a clean bill of health, we headed home. I’m really liking this car, and I’ll be driving it almost exclusively for the next 5 months. The Miata will get limited attention until late March.

Do I really need two cars? This led to a dark corner of my mind; maybe it’s time to get rid of the Miata. I know, sacrilege! I’ve owned a Miata for 35 years, and they are still a blast, but the GTI is 80% a blast. I hate the idea of it just sitting around; it should be blasting around winding roads, not staring at the backside of a Golf.

Ask me again in a week.

Old Guys in GTIs Club

Old Guys in GTIs Club

Saturday morning before starting out on the Mt. Hood drive, I headed over to Stomping Grounds to get my usual Salted Caramel Latte. My timing was great; there was a car backing out of the spot right in front of the door. As I got out, I noticed in a spot a couple slots away was a Black GTI. Same black wheels, same black color. What are the odds?

As I walk into the place, I notice a table right there with a couple of old guys, AKA my peers, drinking coffee and chatting. Two steps later the fellow facing me and the outside says, “Nice car, what year?” I instantly clock that he must be the other black GTI owner and say, “2020, thanks. What year is yours?” “2024,” he replies, “the last year with a manual. It is the S trim, meaning no sunroof and the Clark plaid seats.” “I searched for that spec specifically. Had to be manual with the plaid seats,” I tell him. The rest of the conversation revolves around wanting one back in the early 80s when they first came out. So he asks, “How old are you?” “Seventy, you?” I say. “76,” he says.

By now my latte is ready, so I grab it and give him a wave on the way out. I’d like to think that maybe if he was alone I would have asked if I could have sat with him and chatted some more. Probably not, but while ruminating on the missed connection, I came up with the idea of a club for old guys in GTIs. I spent 30 minutes on ChatGPT trying to get the right image, and this is the best I could do.

Coastal Postal Drive

Three Arch Rocks


 
After yesterday’s 150-mile drive to the Mt. Hood area and back and the predicted rain today, I almost didn’t go for the drive. But after living in this part of Oregon for a couple of years, I know that a 100% chance of rain means it will rain, but not 100% of the time. On the whole 270-mile trip over 7 1/2 hours, it probably rained 2 hours. But another 2 hours were sunshine, with the rest just misty or plain cloudy. I photographed 9 post offices, and in only one was it actually raining while I took the shot.

The GTI was a competent corner carver, and it felt very Miata-like. Its power-to-weight ratio is similar to the Miata’s, but the turbo engine brings on the torque lower in the rev band, so it does feel more powerful. I guess I should look up their respective 0-60 times and see.
BRB…
The GTI takes 5.9 seconds to get to 60 mph, and the Miata takes 5.7-5.9, so what do you know, they’re very similar.

Mt Hood Day Trip

Mt Hood From OR-35


 
I went for my daily walk, and as I was finishing up, I looked at the weather and realized it was going to be a good day. Instead of going home, I headed over to Stomping Grounds to get a Salted Caramel Latte and jumped on I-84 east. Plan was to get a photo of the GTI with Mt. Hood in the background. Bingo, see above.

After taking some more Mt. Hood photos, I opted to return home on the Washington side of the Columbia River. So I crossed the Hood River Bridge to get on WA-14. This bridge has a toll, but it doesn’t have booths; it takes photos of the license plate of the car, and they mail you a bill to get their $3.50. I don’t have plates on the GTI yet; all that I have are the paper CarMax ones. So will CarMax get that toll bill in the mail?

Night Vision

Night Vision


 
The ‘Modification Madness’ on the Golf has started. This afternoon I purchased some black carpet floor mats with red piping to replace the rubber ones that come stock. I also bought an adjustable clutch pedal stop, so I have a way to shorten the leg throw. I then bought a set of aftermarket headlights that have better lighting and nicer DRLs. The other thing I will do is the wrap, and after that, probably nothing.

Never say never.

Minivan?

Minivan?

From that angle it looks a little like a minivan, and parking it in the same driveway as a Miata does nothing to dissuade that…

Because the GTI will reside here in the Portland Metro area, it needed to be run through a DEQ inspection. If the car were 4 years old or newer (which we just missed), it would be exempt from testing. The test consists of plugging in a cable to the OBDII socket and reading the fuel mixture. So yesterday I drove to the closest testing station in Gresham. I was in line behind an old Chevy Suburban, and they had to run a sniffer up its tailpipe. And from what I could see, they didn’t pass. The Golf did pass as expected.

Afterwards I stopped into PDX Wraps to set up a day to have the car wrapped in green. I’ve decided to go different from the Avery Dark Green; it looks good, but I wanted something a bit…more. I picked out something from 3M, a Gloss Green Envy. If you google images of that, you’ll get some photos that seem way too light and bright, but I took their sample outside to hold it up to the car in shade and sunlight, and I loved the results. Maybe it just photographs overbright in direct sunlight. Here is a good look at the color, both inside and outside, on a Porsche Cayman GT4:

Their first opening wasn’t until November 10th, which was fine, except I’ll be gone. I won’t be back until early December, so right now I’m scheduled in on December 15th.

Now That’s A Proper Introduction

Now That’s A Proper Introduction

Discovered a MODE button, and as you can probably guess, I found the Sport Mode. It might just be the placebo effect, but the exhaust note got a touch louder, and the throttle pedal mapping changed so that the car felt quicker, win-win.