• Choice of petrol, diesel and hybrids available
• 1.5-litre petrol engine is surprisingly efficient
• Plug-in hybrid eHybrid looks the best on paper

What are the running costs?

All Volkswagen Golfs should be affordable to run. They offer very competitive miles per pound figures of between 5.6 - 8.6 – and, in official WLTP fuel economy tests, every engine (apart from the performance derivatives) can return more than 50mpg.

The best-performing petrol is 115hp 1.5-litre mild hybrid unit, which has an official figure of 53.3mpg. The manual, non-mild hybrid model isn’t that far behind, though. When we tested the engine, we were averaging just over 50mpg in real world driving.

The 1.5-litre TSI petrol engines can also save fuel by shutting down two cylinders when driving gently. They can even coast when you come off the accelerator pedal.

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Naturally, the diesels are a lot more frugal. We spent a week with a 2.0 TDI manual, driving it more than 1,000 miles and we averaged 67.3mpg in a combination of motorway driving and mixed local pottering. Although it wasn’t driven hard, no particular attempt was made to maximise the fuel economy.

We expect any long-distance driver should be able to match or even beat our overall figure. The eHybrid is able to manage well over 50mpg on a long run, with shorter journeys improving that figure further. After all, the more you can run on electricity, the less fuel you’ll use. It’s even easier to run on electricity now, too, because Volkswagen has added 40kW DC rapid charging support as part of the update.

The 2.0-litre TDI uses a sophisticated AdBlue injector system that’s 80% more effective at reducing nitrogen oxide emissions compared with the old Golf. However, in terms of CO2 emissions the best performer is the eHybrid plug-in hybrid version with the sportier Volkswagen Golf GTE not too far behind. We expect any long-distance driver should be able match and even beat our overall figure. 

Servicing and warranty

Volkswagen offers a range of service plans that allow owners to spread the cost of maintenance. For the Golf, it costs around £500 upfront. Alternatively, you can break that figure down into 24 monthly payments of £20.50 – and it covers you for two services and one pollen filter change.

The advantage of this system is it protects you against any future increase in servicing costs (for two years, at least), and all work carried out comes with two years’ warranty.

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Every Volkswagen Golf is delivered with a three-year vehicle warranty. The first two years operate on an unlimited mileage plan, but the third year is capped at 60,000 miles. This is rather stingy compared to the seven-year warranty delivered with the Kia Ceed or the 10-year warranty offered by the Toyota Corolla.

Volkswagen has more than 200 dealers in the UK. That means a large, well-equipped showroom and workshop is unlikely to be far from you. Customer service is rated highly, although Volkswagen’s reliability record can’t quite match that of sister brand Skoda’s.

Reliability

• Four recalls so far
• New infotainment is much better
• Proven, dependable mechanicals

There have been four safety recalls for the Volkswagen Golf since it was launched, some more severe than others. The most serious one was a fault relating to the crash sensors for the airbags and seats belts – but it only affected 124 vehicles and Volkswagen jumped on the issue quite quickly.

The other recalls related to a fault with the Golf’s e-call function (so the car wouldn’t always call the emergency services in an accident), an issue with an incorrectly fitted heat shield that could melt the brake fluid reservoir and a fault with the brake servo. However, there haven’t been any recalls for the car since 2023.

The pre-facelift Golf’s infotainment system was a laggy, buggy mess. It would freeze and restart – and the issue wasn’t mended by software updates. But Volkswagen’s new infotainment system seems far better. We’ve used it in several different Volkswagen cars and are yet to experience any issues.

Remember that much of the engine technology is already employed within the wider Volkswagen Group, and they’ve all proved reliable in all the cars they’re fitted to.