Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £11,945 to £20,460
Interior appearance and quality, good crash protection, image, diesel's economy, strong residual values.
Quality varies, less appealing for keen drivers, new model now available, mushy pedals, slightly claustrophobic interior.
A bit long in the tooth but still a desirable and reasonable choice.
The Golf's feel-good interior helps matters here, as does its general refinement. Its ride isn't top-notch and some find the seats too firm, but we reckon they stay comfortable over long distances. Even when it was replaced, this version of the Golf was among the better cars in the class over long distances.
The Golf offers average space for the class, but newer rivals such as the Peugeot 307 and Honda Civic offer considerably more. Thick pillars and a dark cabin can make the Golf feel slightly claustrophobic too. It has a fair amount of oddments storage and a reasonably sized boot, but the estate is more of a lifestyle choice than a serious load-lugger. Its load bay is not very deep, but it is practical with clever design features and stowage facilities like shackling hooks.
All Golfs come with RDS stereo radio/cassette, with CD player added at the SE level. It sounds quite good but the manual-tune could be a little more intuitive, you might think, as you sail past Radio 2 on automatic-scan for the umpteenth time.
Satellite navigation is not available on base models and is a rather expensive option on the rest.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Volkswagen Golf
wrote on 20 06 2007
wrote on 14 10 2006
wrote on 06 06 2006