Should you buy one?

If you want a practical family estate car, the Golf Estate is a highly credible choice. It can do most of the things the larger Passat can but costs around £10,000 less to buy, and is a much better size for British roads. We rate the interior changes made as part of this facelift, too, though it’s not quite perfect. 

It ticks a lot of the right boxes for an estate car; it’s comfortable, well-built and has a huge boot, though the Skoda Octavia Estate is larger and it undercuts the Golf for price. But even still, the Golf’s excellent driving manners and smart styling mean it’s still one of the better compact estate cars you can buy. 

What we like

We like the Golf’s easy-going nature, it’s comfortable for long journeys and very refined and has a level of polish missing from many in this class. Both petrol and diesel engines are excellent and also return great fuel economy. 

What we don’t like 

It’s more expensive than a Skoda Octavia Estate and when you start optioning it up, it gets even more costly. The Octavia is ultimately the better car, too, and it’s a shame you can only get Volkswagen’s excellent plug-in hybrid setup on the Golf hatchback and not the estate.