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VW Golf GTI Does Surprisingly Badly in Moose Test

Never judge a book by its cover! You look at the VW Golf GTI and expect a car that's planted to the ground and very predictable. It should ace something like the moose test, but it doesn't.
VW Golf GTI Does Surprisingly Bad in Moose Test 3 photos
Photo: YouTube screenshot
Golf GTI moose testGolf GTI moose test
The exercise replicates a real-world scenario where you would have to dodge an object that suddenly appeared in the middle of the road, such as a large animal. You would then try to pull the car back into its lane to avoid hitting oncoming traffic.

Last week, the BMW X2, which is a small crossover, could only reach 73 km/h because above that, the front would always understeer. The Golf GTI could only reach that speed, but due to an entirely different reason.

For a car to get a good result in this test, the traction and stability controls need to be set to "boring and predictable." I think the Nissan Pulsar did a really good job of that a couple of years ago.

While the Golf GTI was confidence-inspiring on the road, once km77 set up their cones, it showed its unpredictable nature. The hatchback reacted abruptly, oversteering and keeping the driver on his toes.

So basically, you might die to a moose, but you should have some fun in the GTI. I can live with that. "We die like men," and all that jazz. The Spanish magazine also noted that the stability control was left as-is in Normal mode, yet it intervened very little during the maneuver.

The oversteer tendency becomes even more noticeable at 75 km/h when the driver is forced to apply opposite lock. But it should be noted that the difference between a bad car and a great car in the moose test is usually no more than 10 km/h.

We're pretty sure that the GTI wasn't like this when the original Mk7 was launched in 2013. The nannies would always stop you from spinning the car.

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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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