Volkswagen Golf Review & Prices

Ah, the Volkswagen Golf. It’s about as iconic a family car you can buy, and it’s been a staple hatchback for over 50 years. The latest (eighth generation) model is comfortable, comes with a wide range of engines to choose from and it’s practical enough for most needs, but you’re better off elsewhere if you want a car that’s fun to drive.

Like a pair of Levi jeans or a white T-shirt, the Golf’s key strength is its mass appeal. This is a car that ignores classes, one you can cross-shop against a sensible Vauxhall Astra and Toyota Corolla, or even a posh BMW 1 Series and Mercedes A-Class. Even its cousin - the Audi A3, isn’t miles ahead of the Golf in terms of badge appeal, though the latest Honda Civic does a similar job of being more upmarket than its brand would suggest.

That being said, like a white tee, the Golf looks a little bit generic compared to the alternatives. Where the previous generation was all sharp lines and angles, the current car is a bit softer; its slender LED lights and wide grille look tidy, but far from head-turning.

Video group test: Audi A3 v BMW 1 Series v Mercedes A-Class v Volkswagen Golf

The interior isn’t hugely exciting either, but it feels as solid as ever with plenty of soft-touch plastics where you’re most likely to touch and physical buttons on the steering wheel - introduced in a 2024 update to replace the naff touch-sensitive controls which the Golf launched with.

A whopping 12.9-inch infotainment touchscreen sits on top of the dashboard, and while it’s quick and responsive to the touch, the haptic climate control sliders are irritating to use on the move, and the menus are a bit fussy to navigate.

Practicality is middling, because while the Golf is perfectly sized for most families, it’s not exceptionally roomy either. There’s enough room in the back for tall adults to sit comfortably, while up front there is plenty of room to get comfortable, but the 380-litre boot is about the same size as the Audi A3, smaller than a Honda Civic and larger than a Mercedes A-Class. Look at the Skoda Octavia for exemplary cabin space.

Out on the road, the Golf is as easy to drive and comfortable as they come. There’s no bad engine in the range, from the 1.5- or 2.0-litre petrol engines, the plug-in hybrid with an excellent 88-mile range or the motorway-friendly 2.0-litre diesel. If you’re feeling spicy, there are the hybrid GTE, venerable GTI and range-topping Golf R hot hatches to choose from, too.

They’re all comfy around town, soaking up speedbumps and dips in the road, while minimal wind and road noise makes them pleasant on motorway journeys. None of the regular Golf models feel sporty on a country lane, you’ll need a BMW 1 Series or Honda Civic for that, but they’re stable and even a bit fun to chuck into corners, filling you with confidence.

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The Volkswagen Golf starts at just under £29,000, which makes it a chunk cheaper than the BMW 1 Series, Audi A3 and Mercedes A-Class. The Ford Focus and Vauxhall Astra are cheaper still, but don’t feel quite as premium as the Volkswagen.

Life trim starts the Golf range, fitted with 16-inch alloy wheels, LED lights all round, a leather steering wheel, 12.9-inch infotainment display and parking sensors front-and-rear. You can only have it with the basic 1.5-litre petrol engine and a manual gearbox, so don’t go expecting ballistic performance.

Match trim opens up the engine and gearbox options with a bit more kit and privacy glass, while you can see the Style trim gets chrome details on the outside and fancier headlights. R-Line cars, meanwhile, have a sporty body kit and fancier cloth seats inside as standard. You can’t have one as a PHEV, though, while the range-topping Black edition starts at £33,200 and is pretty much an R-Line with the posher headlamps and bespoke wheels.

The Volkswagen Golf is easy to drive in town, comfortable on the motorway and fun in bends, but it isn't the best at anything – it’s a jack of all trades but a master of none

In town

The Volkswagen Golf is easy to drive in town. You get good all-around visibility, light steering, a clutch pedal that isn’t too springy and brakes that are progressive, not snatchy. The manual gearbox is a little bit notchy, but there’s always the option to go for the seven-speed automatic.

It shifts gear smoothly once you’re underway, but can be slightly jerky at slow speeds which you’ll notice when parking. Otherwise, the Golf is an easy car to park. All models come with progressive steering that has not much more than one turn lock-to-lock, front and rear parking sensors and the optional auto-park system can park the Golf in bays and perpendicular spaces. It can even nose you into gaps if it needs to.

The Golf’s adjustable dampers are another option that’s worth considering. It gives the Volkswagen a surprisingly comfortable ride over poor surfaces like cobbles and potholes. A word of warning, though, only Golfs with 150hp or more get independent rear suspension that deals better with bumps than the standard setup.

On the motorway

The Volkswagen Golf is very relaxing for a car this size when you get up to speed on the motorway with comfortable suspension and a quiet cabin that’s only spoiled by a little flutter of wind from around the wing mirrors.

All models come with active cruise control that can accelerate and brake the car automatically. It works best when paired with the Golf's automatic gearbox, which means the car can come to a complete stop with no outside interference.

Matrix LEDs are another option worth considering. They have multiple separate LEDs that can be controlled individually so they don’t blind other road users while keeping the area around them fully illuminated.

On a twisty road

Volkswagen has even managed to make the Golf fun to drive in corners. It grips well and putting the car in Sport mode makes the steering heavier, sharpens the throttle and (in cars with adjustable dampers) stiffens the suspension. Okay, so it’s not quite as engaging to drive as a Ford Focus, but it is a better package all around.

The Volkswagen Golf is an easy car to get comfortable in and has a well-designed cabin with plenty of storage, although heated seats are an option on most of the range

Getting a comfortable driving position is easy in the Volkswagen Golf. All models get height-adjustable front seats with lumbar adjustment and the steering wheel also has a wide range of adjustments for height and reach.

Want your Golf to take the edge of winter? Then consider the winter pack which adds heated seats, a heated steering wheel, a quick clear heated windscreen and heated washer jet nozzles that won’t freeze.

There’s not much wrong with the car’s interior storage. All models have large bins in each door – they’re felt-lined to stop things jiggling about – a decent-sized glovebox and a small storage space under the front-centre armrest. The cup holders are also well designed so that they can grip large and small drinks, while the vanity mirrors behind the sun visors are illuminated so you can see your face at night.

Space in the back seats

There's plenty of room in the back of the Volkswagen Golf with decent knee room and headroom for six-footers thanks to the car’s boxy shape. The large rear windows also help make the car feel light and airy.

Wedge three people into the back and the middle passenger will feel squished but, on the bright side, your outer passengers won’t find their heads get rammed into the roof like they would in a Toyota Corolla.

The Volkswagen’s doors also open wider than the Toyota, which makes it easy to get a child seat lined up to the car’s clearly marked Isofix mounting points.

Boot space

The Volkswagen Golf has a 381-litre boot – a litre bigger than you get in an Audi A3 or BMW 1 Series (both 380 litres), although the BMW can swallow six carry-on suitcases while the shape of the Volkswagen’s boot limits it to five. The Toyota Corolla (361 litres) also falls behind, but the Honda Civic (410 litres) does best the Golf.

On the upside, the Golf’s boot has plenty of features including shopping hooks and a ski hatch that lets you feed longer luggage through into the cabin. An adjustable boot floor is also standard with it set in its highest position, there’s no load lip to lift luggage over.

It also means the boot floor remains flat when you fold down the back seats to reveal a total load capacity of 1,237 litres. That’s a bit bigger than the 1,200 litres found in both the Audi and the BMW.

The Volkswagen Golf’s interior – with its big screens and limited conventional buttons – looks very modern but it’s less easy to use as a result

The Golf’s interior came in for a lot of criticism when it launched in 2020 - mainly around its use of the central touchscreen for almost every function. That’s still the case after the 2024 facelift, but the screen has received a size upgrade and brand-new software, which both make it much easier to interact with.

The screen itself now measures a massive 12.9 inches on the diagonal. Underneath it sits a couple of touch-sensitive controls for heater temperature and volume - though with a few combinations of touches it can also perform other functions.

The new software is a huge improvement over the old Golf. Functions are much easier to find thanks to a redesigned home screen, while there’s a permanent shortcut bar at the top which can be customised to show the functions you use the most. For us, it’d be the safety menu so we could turn off the speed limit warning straight away.

Other means of interacting with the car include the steering wheel, which now features proper physical buttons across the range instead of the awful touch-sensitive ones some pre-facelift Golfs got. Or, if you don’t want to touch anything at all, you can use Volkswagen’s voice assistant. Named IDA, it can control many of the car’s functions and is actually pretty good at understanding what you’re after.

Volkswagen’s also built in ChatGPT AI functionality, so if you ask the car a question it doesn’t know the answer to - a good recipe for cookies, for example, or a key date in history to settle an in-car argument - the AI will take over and answer for you. A necessary feature? Time will tell…

Of course, there’s also wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto functionality if you’d prefer to bypass VW’s system altogether. A wireless charging pad is also standard.

What hasn’t changed is that the Golf’s interior feels extremely high-quality. Little touches, like a luxuriously damped glovebox lid, felt lining to the door bins to stop items rattling or just the satisfying click of the few remaining physical switches leaves you in no doubt that the Golf’s interior is a cut above the Ford Focus or Mazda 3.

While the Volkswagen Golf is available in GTI, GTE and R specifications here we’ll focus on the standard car, which is available with a choice of petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid petrol models.

Most models get a six-speed manual gearbox as standard, with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic available as an option which comes complete with mild-hybrid technology. That technology allows the Golf to coast on the motorway and to activate its engine stop-start while the car is slowing to a stop.

The range kicks off with VW’s 115hp, 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol which returns fuel economy of around 50mpg and produces CO2 emissions of 123g/km. Want an automatic gearbox? Then you can swap the manual for a seven-speed twin-clutch automatic, which comes along with mild hybrid technology and improves fuel economy slightly.

Not enough power? Then try the 150hp variant, again available as a manual or a mild hybrid automatic. Their mixture of nippy performance and still-excellent fuel economy makes them the pick of the bunch.

Do lots of motorway driving? Then consider the 150hp diesel; plenty of mid-range shove and returns fuel economy of more than 60mpg.

More of a townie that does occasional trips out of the city? Then consider the 204hp plug-in hybrid. It can travel a hugely impressive 88 miles on battery power alone, meaning there’s the potential to save cash if you have a short commute and somewhere to charge the car.

It gets from 0-62mph in 7.2 seconds and officially returns more than 250mpg, but that’s not a like figure in the real world, unless you barely ever use the engine.

All Golf models avoid the luxury car supplement from years two-to-six as they stay firmly below the £40,000 threshold, while company car drivers should look to the PHEV model for its low Benefit-in-Kind rate.

European safety body Euro NCAP scored the Volkswagen Golf five stars for safety when it was crash tested in 2019. It comes with eight airbags and active cruise control that can brake and accelerate the car automatically. You also get automatic emergency brakes, lane assist, road-sign detection and driver alert which senses when it’s time for you to take a break. All models also come with an alarm, which has an interior sensor.

Volkswagen came 27th out of 31 manufacturers entered into the 2025 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, which is hardly a confidence-inspiring result. All of its alternative brands scored better, except for Cupra - its sporty Spanish counterpart. Ouch.

The new Volkswagen Golf has suffered from various infotainment gremlins that have been fixed with several updates – make sure any car you buy has been treated to the latest software.

The Golf comes with a three-year/60,000-mile warranty which is bog-standard, and on par with Audi. BMW offers a higher mileage warranty on the 1 Series, but the Toyota Corolla offers a stellar ten-year/100,000-mile warranty if you keep up regular dealer servicing.