Rchive- An FL5 ownership journal

[1970B302]

Man, I hate to be this guy since you asked for my opinion, but I disagree with about 90% of everything you said. ?

I guess I kind of like most of the opposite/competition cars that you mentioned.

I hate Subies. Terrible transient boost response, weak engines, understeer city.

I also don’t like the GR Corolla, especially the Core without the diffs. The dash and front clip are huge, car feels 300 lbs. bigger than it is because of that. The engine’s power delivery is linear, but 1.6 liters does not fun make. interior is cheap, shifter meh, and it understeers like a Subalose. It is nothing like an Evo to me.

Regarding Evos, while the IX might be peak Evo, the US version ain’t. No SAYC in the US VIII and IX, and therefore, the X will rotate so much better. The X has Mivec on both sides, the 4B11 head easily outflows the 4G63. The X seats are also a lot better. The 4B11 can also make a crap ton of power with completely stock internals reliably. So while it’s not 4G63 level, it’ll still make 500whp without too much effort.

On to the Type R, the FL5 is a bit heavier than the FK8, but has higher grip levels due to 265w tire with better compound and more damping. I do like the front end’s turn-in better on the FK8.

I would take an FK8 or FL5 over any US WRX/STI, GRC, or RS by a mile. Huge upgrade over all those cars if you value handling.

So if you value handling so much why buy a golf R? And the GRC has close to zero understeer and drives pretty damn similar to the old evos in my opinion and far better than the X did. I have spent hours driving evo 10s….and enough time in the IX to know I’d rather have the old car but to each there own

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[CTR]

So if you value handling so much why buy a golf R? And the GRC has close to zero understeer and drives pretty damn similar to the old evos in my opinion and far better than the X did. I have spent hours driving evo 10s….and enough time in the IX to know I’d rather have the old car but to each there own

I can't speak for @Noize but as I have aged I have started to value modern creature comforts along with great handling.

I have a hard time getting excited about owning older halo cars that I would then be forced to drive frequently. If I had more disposable income and room for cars I could see the desire to own multiple cars from the era you are referring to. Since I'm not in that position in life right now I would have a hard time giving up so many of the great things about a modern car just to own something that MIGHT handle better in some conditions.

While I haven't driven an FK8, I think the FK8 and FL5 are similar enough that the actual handling "feel" will be viewed as nearly the same in the grand scheme of things. The FK8 styling is too over the top for a lot of people so I don't see it aging as well as the FL5.

If I remember correctly he couldn't get over the lack of traction in wet weather. I've noticed that my car is now extremely fun to drive with all season tires in the rain. I would be pretty confident in saying that it probably handles better than a Golf R on summer tires...

 

[Noize]

So if you value handling so much why buy a golf R? And the GRC has close to zero understeer and drives pretty damn similar to the old evos in my opinion and far better than the X did. I have spent hours driving evo 10s….and enough time in the IX to know I’d rather have the old car but to each there own

A Golf R will walk a GRC Core with no diffs on track. With the differential pack or the Circuit, the GRC definitely has a leg up in handling. Unfortunately, it falls down everywhere else. The interior and giant dash are a letdown, the materials are substandard compared to the other two, and it's hopelessly stiff for no reason. The engine is just ok in the GRC. The EA888 Evo4 is a tower of power compared to the Toyota 3 pot. Especially if you are benchmarking a DSG car, or accelerate to higher speeds.

All these cars have some compromises, but the Golf R doesn't need very many changes to be great. The rear of the car with the new Magna diff is good already. The handling issue lies in the front. It needs an aftermarket front LSD, and front camber plates to increase negative camber for sure. The body will accomodate 255w tires without problem. The factory rubber isn't great, for sure.

Car & Driver did a comparo of these three cars, and the FL5 took first, followed by the Golf R, and the GRC came in last, so clearly I'm not the only one with this opinion. I drove all three with an open mind, and this is just my personal preference. We clearly differ in our preference of sport compacts, and that's ok.

The small area we overlap in opinions is that old cars are still a viable option due to much greater ease of customizability: No convoluted tuning hurdles, much simpler fuel delivery, and a deep aftermarket of proven plug and play hardware choices.

No offense, but your "hours driving Evo 10s" shows you don't know nearly enough about them. I've been site staff, admin, and content creation at Evom for 20 years, and spend at least 15 of those years owning multiple VIIIs, an IX, and Xs. The fact the US CT9As were neutered of their SAYC was a crime. But don't sleep on the X. The engine is plenty strong, head flows great, the transmission is more robust, aforementioned SAYC, the body accomodates substantially more wheel and tire, engine is 180 degrees for greater efficiency... I could go on and on. The car was benchmarked with the Evo IX as its only competition. The only chink in it's armor is the 180# of extra weight, but the benefits more than offset that. The 4B11 certainly had tuning teething issues while the new ECU's maps got slowly unlocked back in 2008, which caused a lot of hate until that got sorted, but people forget that the CT9A was standing on the shoulders of more than 15 years of DSM tuning knowledge to get the 4G63 Evos to where they were by 2008. People that still hate on the X or consider it "not a real Evo" are parroting 2008 dinosaur thinking and/or flat out suck at cars.

The challenge with any Evos these days is finding ones that haven't been besmirched with bad modifications, rust issues from northern cars, or are full of covered up mistakes from a multitude of prior owners. To me, the solution would be to watch and wait as they surpass the 25 year import time restriction and get a clean one from Japan, where the ownership base was much more conservative. Evo Vs are starting to show up in the States, and VIs are coming soon. You want a proper CT9A with SAYC intact, you're only going to have to wait about 3 more years.

Back to the Type R, of course we don't have a crystal ball to see the future, but if you want to buy an investment, it would be impossible to go wrong with the Phoenix Yellow FK8 LE. You'd definitely want one with sub 5000 miles, and drive it sparingly.

But any Type R is an amazing handling car and never a bad investment. Get past the standing acceleration woes, and there is no new car in this price range that will reward you in the corners, canyons, or on track like a Type R. Who needs AWD if you're using it as intended?

 

[1970B302]

A Golf R will walk a GRC Core with no diffs on track. With the differential pack or the Circuit, the GRC definitely has a leg up in handling. Unfortunately, it falls down everywhere else. The interior and giant dash are a letdown, the materials are substandard compared to the other two, and it's hopelessly stiff for no reason. The engine is just ok in the GRC. The EA888 Evo4 is a tower of power compared to the Toyota 3 pot. Especially if you are benchmarking a DSG car, or accelerate to higher speeds.

All these cars have some compromises, but the Golf R doesn't need very many changes to be great. The rear of the car with the new Magna diff is good already. The handling issue lies in the front. It needs an aftermarket front LSD, and front camber plates to increase negative camber for sure. The body will accomodate 255w tires without problem. The factory rubber isn't great, for sure.

Car & Driver did a comparo of these three cars, and the FL5 took first, followed by the Golf R, and the GRC came in last, so clearly I'm not the only one with this opinion. I drove all three with an open mind, and this is just my personal preference. We clearly differ in our preference of sport compacts, and that's ok.

The small area we overlap in opinions is that old cars are still a viable option due to much greater ease of customizability: No convoluted tuning hurdles, much simpler fuel delivery, and a deep aftermarket of proven plug and play hardware choices.

No offense, but your "hours driving Evo 10s" shows you don't know nearly enough about them. I've been site staff, admin, and content creation at Evom for 20 years, and spend at least 15 of those years owning multiple VIIIs, an IX, and Xs. The fact the US CT9As were neutered of their SAYC was a crime. But don't sleep on the X. The engine is plenty strong, head flows great, the transmission is more robust, aforementioned SAYC, the body accomodates substantially more wheel and tire, engine is 180 degrees for greater efficiency... I could go on and on. The car was benchmarked with the Evo IX as its only competition. The only chink in it's armor is the 180# of extra weight, but the benefits more than offset that. The 4B11 certainly had tuning teething issues while the new ECU's maps got slowly unlocked back in 2008, which caused a lot of hate until that got sorted, but people forget that the CT9A was standing on the shoulders of more than 15 years of DSM tuning knowledge to get the 4G63 Evos to where they were by 2008. People that still hate on the X or consider it "not a real Evo" are parroting 2008 dinosaur thinking and/or flat out suck at cars.

The challenge with any Evos these days is finding ones that haven't been besmirched with bad modifications, rust issues from northern cars, or are full of covered up mistakes from a multitude of prior owners. To me, the solution would be to watch and wait as they surpass the 25 year import time restriction and get a clean one from Japan, where the ownership base was much more conservative. Evo Vs are starting to show up in the States, and VIs are coming soon. You want a proper CT9A with SAYC intact, you're only going to have to wait about 3 more years.

Back to the Type R, of course we don't have a crystal ball to see the future, but if you want to buy an investment, it would be impossible to go wrong with the Phoenix Yellow FK8 LE. You'd definitely want one with sub 5000 miles, and drive it sparingly.

But any Type R is an amazing handling car and never a bad investment. Get past the standing acceleration woes, and there is no new car in this price range that will reward you in the corners, canyons, or on track like a Type R. Who needs AWD if you're using it as intended?

too many contradictions. 20 years on the evom forum so you have first hand experience seeing 75% of X owners going back to the IX or wishing they could. X values are roughly half of clean IX one btw, so regardless if they have SAYC or not they ARE the best evo they ever sold here. Myself and many others believe that. I’ve had enough time working on a family members evo X, driving it, countless weekends modifying it, testing, modding again. Dyno runs. I could go on. I know how they drive and also know my focus RS ran circles around his car. The twinster diff in that car was a better party trick than the sayc in the X, which was a fat heavy pig of a car when it launched. The GRC won most of the comparison tests and always put down faster laps than the golf R. Actually, the golf is the least driver focused car of the 3. I’m a lifelong VW owner and fan, but I didn’t buy a 7.5R when I had the chance because it feels like…a regular car. No fizz or special feeling driving the newer VWs, and that’s fine, I had a mk8 gti for a few months and eventually found it too bland. Nobody’s ever tested a core GRC without the diff to know how much of a difference it makes, but I’m sure it isn’t as drastic as people make it seem. I can’t tell a difference driving it compared to before so far. Yep the car is stiff as hell, but it also feels a lot more solid than the competition from my experience. Like a tank. You can feel all the additional welds and support. The engine is the closest thing we’ve had in the states to the 4G63 in this segment, yes it’s a 4cyl, but it was developed for homologation purposes. And they can make big power reliably, the Australians have been doing it for years, this 3 pot might end up being known as the 1/2 sized 2JZ if they keep proving reliable and putting down power without any issues. I laughed at your interior comment. Sure it’s cheap feeling inside no doubt, but the evo x had the biggest shitbox hard plastic interior of any performance car I’ve ever been in. May as well had made in china stamped on the dashboard. If you owned one of those for along time, you can’t critique other cars for interior design or quality. Hardest nastiest plastic ever inside of that car, it made my 93 VW corrado feel like a rolls Royce next to his evo X.
Seems like we differ on a few things.

 

[Noize]

too many contradictions. 20 years on the evom forum so you have first hand experience seeing 75% of X owners going back to the IX or wishing they could. X values are roughly half of clean IX one btw, so regardless if they have SAYC or not they ARE the best evo they ever sold here. Myself and many others believe that. I’ve had enough time working on a family members evo X, driving it, countless weekends modifying it, testing, modding again. Dyno runs. I could go on. I know how they drive and also know my focus RS ran circles around his car. The twinster diff in that car was a better party trick than the sayc in the X, which was a fat heavy pig of a car when it launched. The GRC won most of the comparison tests and always put down faster laps than the golf R. Actually, the golf is the least driver focused car of the 3. I’m a lifelong VW owner and fan, but I didn’t buy a 7.5R when I had the chance because it feels like…a regular car. No fizz or special feeling driving the newer VWs, and that’s fine, I had a mk8 gti for a few months and eventually found it too bland. Nobody’s ever tested a core GRC without the diff to know how much of a difference it makes, but I’m sure it isn’t as drastic as people make it seem. I can’t tell a difference driving it compared to before so far. Yep the car is stiff as hell, but it also feels a lot more solid than the competition from my experience. Like a tank. You can feel all the additional welds and support. The engine is the closest thing we’ve had in the states to the 4G63 in this segment, yes it’s a 4cyl, but it was developed for homologation purposes. And they can make big power reliably, the Australians have been doing it for years, this 3 pot might end up being known as the 1/2 sized 2JZ if they keep proving reliable and putting down power without any issues. I laughed at your interior comment. Sure it’s cheap feeling inside no doubt, but the evo x had the biggest shitbox hard plastic interior of any performance car I’ve ever been in. May as well had made in china stamped on the dashboard. If you owned one of those for along time, you can’t critique other cars for interior design or quality. Hardest nastiest plastic ever inside of that car, it made my 93 VW corrado feel like a rolls Royce next to his evo X.
Seems like we differ on a few things.

75% of people wishing they could go back? Clean CZ4A is roughly half the value of a clean CT9A? You’re off your meds. I agree all Evos have very cheap interiors.

My friend owned Dyno4mance, an Evo and Subie focused shop in GA. I have more hours tuning Evos on that dyno than I can remember. Can we both stop listing credentials now? It is getting silly.

The RS was a POS head gasket killing monstrosity. Nice R&D job there, Ford.

The 7.5 R doesn’t have the Magna diff, it uses Haldex and that is why it won’t rotate.

You personally can’t tell a difference driving an open front diff car? Of course you can! I don’t believe that lie for a second.

 

[Noize]

Ok, I might need therapy.
I’m back, beeotches.

 

[Clark_Kent]

Ok, I might need therapy.
im back, beeotches.

Please don't tell me this is a cruel joke. Are you serious?!

 

[superporpoise]

Ok, I might need therapy.
im back, beeotches.

What! Haha. I need to hear why.

 

[Noize]

What! Haha. I need to hear why.

I was having lots of issues with navigation, where the car couldn’t determine my location. VW blamed Apple, Apple blamed VW. Waze and Apple Maps would inherit the location problem because it defaulted to the car’s Navi antenna.

As a realtor, it was a death sentence for the car. More than once I had to stop the car and walk away from it to let it figure out where I was.

I also admit that not having any manual transmission cars was a complete lack of fun.

I shopped and shopped for an awesome deal, and a semi local place came through!

 

[superporpoise]

I was having lots of issues with navigation, where the car couldn’t determine my location. VW blamed Apple, Apple blamed VW. Waze and Apple Maps would inherit the location problem because it defaulted to the car’s Navi antenna.

As a realtor, it was a death sentence for the car. More than once I had to stop the car and walk away from it to let it figure out where I was.

I also admit that not having any man transmission cars was a complete lack of fun.

I shopped and shopped for an awesome deal, and a semi local place came through!

This is validating to me — I was considering a Golf R but on the used one I was able to test drive the infotainment was laggy and I just didn't feel like it would work every time (also have read some horror stories from people who own them). I almost took the risk on a new '24 but I'm glad I didn't.

Hopefully VW sorts out all of the bugs for the '25. I do think dynamically it's a fun daily even though the driver inputs are nowhere near the Type R.

 

[Ultimateone]

Lmao insane

 

[Noize]

Another kick in the nuts for the VW was when my friend with a 991 Carrera S PDK was following me on a crazy curvy backroad that I know well.

We got to the end, and the open diff Golf R performed, but was not happy. Smoke was rolling off the front rotors, like I had been on a 30 minute session. The brake biased front differential is the achilles heel of that car.

This FL5 is a 2024, and none of the early bugs that plagued my 2023 are present. The dash doesn't rattle like crazy, and I'm not getting any of the front camera errors.

 

[CTR]

Welcome back! Kinda sad the infotainment was a major driving force in getting rid of the Golf R.

Good to hear no dash rattles yet. I bet your seat belt adjuster still does though!

 

[Noize]

Well, although I don't have dash rattles in this one, I do still have this exact same problem in my 2024 that I did in my 2023.

Here is info from a post I made last June.

From the thread-
Road departure and collision braking mitigation problems


If I wash my car, or it rains, I can pretty much guarantee it will do it whenever I start to back out of the garage if the car is still wet. Sometimes it doesn’t even need to be wet, it just decides it’s going to do it that day. And sometimes it doesn’t do it for a couple of weeks.

But I feel a little trapped, because I don’t really want the dealer messing with my car. Like I’d probably rather put up with it than risk them messing something up.

It always corrects itself within several seconds of driving, and sometimes reboots the head unit whenever it does it.

So either I have lightning-strike bad luck, or this is just something that happens with these cars.

 

[Noize]

Nerd rage!

This is just my subjective opinion, and a chart I made in Excel one day when I was waiting for my wife and daughter to shop.

This is why I go back and forth with these cars. They go about their business differently, and certain days, I prefer one over the other.

I plan and hope to stay with this one for a long while. I quite like it, and wish this was the color I got the first time.

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