Volkswagon went slowly but progressivly downhill in my opinion after 1986. I had an example like yours. With the natural aspired engine they threw it together with another standard transmiision. I did not like the internal gear ratios. Fortunatly they left well enough alone with the turbo engines transmissions.

There was in my opinion no comparison with the earlier manual transmission. Also they slapped on so many plastic add on body stuff I figured they had purchased the reliable toy company by then. For a company that knew what they were doing something was going very wrong during that period in my opinion.

It accellerated somewhat better but lost a lot at the same time. The current company wants to be the largest auto producer in the world. Introduce the right products into north america might go a long way to achieving this. I am not holding my breath though.

Top end I never took one of those earlier turbo models to myself. A friend claimed 180km per hour or about 110 smiles per hour. All I remember is above about 80 miles an hour acceleration became almost non existant. You knew it was there but that was about all. The indirect diesels seemed to drop efficiency and as a result the bottom plunged out of the fuel milage at speeds much above the legal limit. Legal limit was still 110 kilometers an hour back then. I am not going to do the conversion math accuratly. but about 66 miles per hour I think.

The 240d knows it needs the five speed. It actually screams for it. Or at least sounds like it does to me. If it was my daily driver on the highway today I would really have to install one. I know I am not but to me it feels like I am abusing the engine.