Faults:

Window clips.

General Comments:

The car is awesome, especially on longer commutes or road trips. Can you imagine getting 50+ MPG at 75MPH, and driving 600-750 miles before needing to stop for more fuel? Combine that with the fact that you can safely run biodiesel (made from soybeans) and you've got a frugal vehicle that isn't dependent on fossil fuels should the price of dinodiesel increase. The car loves steep hills, 5th gear with the air conditioner on full-blast, 75 MPH passing gas guzzling SUVs like they are standing still, with plenty of power in reserve... The new motor is diesel, and wait until a diesel hybrid is made available! I love my Golf, and you will too. NOTE: Save up a few more pennies and get a Jetta Wagon if you can find one in a manual TDI.

Faults:

The car is perfect with the exception of one thing: Randomly, about every 2000 miles, the engine shuts off. It just dies. The problem is that each time it has happened (4 total times), I was going 65mph in the fast lane. Each time I had to coast off to the shoulder avoiding accidents and come to a complete stop. Each time I am able to restart no problem and drive off with no problems, no symptoms, or indication of it happening. No one at VW has any idea what it is, nor could they reproduce it or find any clue indicating the cause. I ended up exchanging it for a brand new 2003 Golf. 2500 miles into the new one, the same thing happened. Does anyone have any idea what is going on??

General Comments:

This is an excellent car in my opinion in terms of features, comfort, power, safety. I have had bad luck with a very mysterious random bug in the engine.

Faults:

Some noises (Almost can't hear) in the passenger seat and in the seat-belt.

General Comments:

Great car with great reliability.

Great top speed (230 km/h).

Have a hard suspension, but is a "sporty" car.

Great "recaro" seats with heating.

Faults:

Rattle from driver's side dashboard.

General Comments:

This car is amazing. Easily doing over 50 miles-per-gallon yet with performance to seriously challenge my previous BMW-328. Overtaking is an absolute joy, just make sure you've got 1700rpm on the tachometer and off you go.. with a six speed you're never lost for a gear. What a hoot!

The brakes snatch when first pressed, but then need firm pressure to lose speed quickly, making smooth braking quite difficult.

Engine noise is ever present, more so than in many of todays competitors, but it isn't too bad.

Ride comfort on the standard suspension is good (The PDGT150 is too harsh for distance traveling).

Faults:

Car was supplied with finger tight passenger seat mounting bolts, misaligned headlamps and a loose gear knob.

Various trim rattles.

Air conditioning compressor failed.

Two ignition coil failures, resulting in two breakdowns within the first month.

Driver's seat belt is slow to retract.

Fuel gauge erratic.

Engine management light sometimes came on and all performance disappeared. Switch off ignition and back on again, and it would be fine. "No fault found" according to the dealer.

Airbag light came on and stayed on.

Idle speed erratic when the engine was hot.

Front suspension started knocking at 13,000 miles.

Drive shaft joint failed at 16,000 miles. Car stranded (again!)

Gearbox became obstinate when cold.

General Comments:

Dreadful car. Looks the dog's danglies in the showroom with its classy interior, gorgeous alloys and body kit. I was sold before I took it on the test drive, but it drove even better than it looked. Smooth, punchy turbo engine, tidy handling, refined etc etc. I bought it there and then.

Within a week and 300 miles of taking delivery, a creak had developed from the trim on the B-pillars, and there was a slight misfire. This persisted (dealer "could not find fault") until one of the coils failed 1500 miles later and the car coughed and spluttered to a halt. This was fixed, only to have it happen again less than 600 miles later. Two breakdowns within 3,000 miles!

From then until I sold the heap, it was just constant visits to a dealership which didn't want to know, and fruitless phone calls to the customer service department who were even worse. VW as a company, and the supposedly high quality Golf model are both drastically overrated. The attitude is very much "we can sell as many cars as we can build anyway, so we don't need to look after our customers". Fine, you've just lost one. A friend who was about to order a V6 4 Motion has also gone off to talk to the competition.

My wife drives a base spec 1.6 litre Ford Focus, which she bought new two years ago, and it hasn't missed a beat in nearly 40,000 miles. I had to really work on her to justify my spending nearly £19,000 on a car at the time, and my excuse was "It's a VW and it will run forever". I'm still wiping the egg off my face. Hopefully, the Focus RS I've just taken delivery of will be similar. I've had it four weeks and nothing has gone wrong, so it's already one up on the Golf. Much more fun to drive too, but the interior isn't a patch on the Golf's.

The really sad (literally) part is that I was running around in a 120,000 mile MG Maestro 2.0 for two months before this, which was loaned to me by a trader friend as a stopgap, and it was rusty, it rattled, it squeaked and it smoked. But it worked. Oh dear VW, you really need help. Your nigh on £19,000 hot hatch flagship is less reliable than a £100 rusty Maestro.

I honestly loved the Golf as a product. It was fun, quick and handsome. But as a car, to live with daily, it was plain crap. There is no other word for it. I will never buy another VW, or allow anyone I remotely like to do so either.