 I,ve only had the car for a year and it currently has on snow tires;  even so it is incredibly athletic.  Cornering is excellent as is the the straight line  tracking.  Acceleration is very strong with little turbo lag if you keep the rpm's a little above 2000.  You have to use the manual shift option to do this as the transmission, if left to it's own devices, will have the engine lugging along at 12-1500 rpm.  This is standard across all auto makes as they try to get a little better gas milage but it is irritating in a performance car.  The "sport" mode raises the shift points  so high that it is useless for normal driving.  All in all though, I love this car.  Jan 2018.  STM Tuning of Spokane,WA did a Eurodyne DSG tune for me.  It is perfect.  The DSG now shifts automatically at the shift points I had been using in the manual mode. The "S" mode is still only for the track but that is OK.  I could not be happier.  I would recommend this for any GTI with the DSG transmission.