The facelifted Volkswagen Bora has been launched on the Chinese car market. Price starts at 107.800 yuan and ends at 153.800 yuan. The facelift includes a new front with a new grille and new lights, new bumpers, new taillights, a redesigned D-pillar, new alloys, and a new touch screen for the top spec car.

This is the outgoing Bora.

Price for the outgoing Bora started at 104.800 yuan and ended at 149.800 yuan. Two engines: a 1.6 with 105hp and 155nm, and a 1.4 turbo with 131hp and 220nm. The 1.6 is mated to a five-speed manual or a six-speed automatic, and the 1.4 turbo is mated to a seven-speed DCT.

These two engines are ancient Chinese-Volkswagen warriors, the 1.6 has been in use in various Volkswagens since about 2004 and the 1.4 turbo arrived in 2008.

And the engines continue yet again in the facelifted Volkswagen Bora. The 1.6 gets a power up of five (05) horses, so it will have 110hp. Torque didn’t change. The 1.4 turbo gets five (05) newton meters more torque, so it will have 225hp. Power didn’t change.

Volkswagen calls the 1.4 turbo a ‘TSI’. But that is not really fair. This engine is not a TSI twincharger. It is a 1.4 turbo with a normal single turbocharger. Volkswagen is using the same deceptive naming scheme with the Chinese Polo GTI, which is a truly fake of a car.

Volkswagen claims these engines are ‘new’, but that is just very untrue. The name is new though. The used to call the Bora engines ‘EA111’, and now they call them ‘EA211’.

They also say the Bora is an “all new” car.

We can’t call it cheating, but it comes close.

They did made the new Bora a bit wider, something they are very proud of. How much wider you might ask. Well, a panda will tell:

Yes. That’s a whole 18mm. Measured from mirror to mirror.

Size of old: 4523/1775/1476, wheelbase is 2610.
Size of new: 4562/1793/1468, wheelbase is 2614.

The engine-cheat and the panda are screenshots from a presentation shown during the launch ceremony for the facelifted Bora. After that was all done, people started dancing spontaneously. The ultra hip folks in the middle are absolutely no hired models or such. Volkswagen would not cheap us like that, would they now?

Side profile.

The interior is exactly the same as in the old Bora, bar for some extra shiny buttons. Compare:

Old.

This is the interior of the new top-spec Bora. It has a touch screen, which is good, and kind of revolutionary for Volkswagen. The screen measures a whole…. five inches. FIVE. That is simply pathetic. Even the cheapest Chinese cars go with minimal 10 inch these days.

The Bora however has an air purifier system, but only in the high-end versions. It will filter the 2.5pm particles out of the air, and that is useful.

Too small, and looking cheap. You can buy better ones on any car parts market in China.

Flat seats and it is all very gray.

And there goes the siren of the muffler alarm! See that muffler hanging in nowhere land under the body, with the pip hanging down.

New grille looks nice.

This is the 1.6. Not much of an engine cover. But the good thing of these ancient engines is that every mechanic in China can repair them, even down village in the countryside.

New taillights are not bad. Muffler!