1996 Volkswagen Golf GL Classic review from Australia and New Zealand

Since I got the car a couple of months ago, nothing new has gone wrong. However the following was wrong with the car when I got it:

The central locking only unlocks the front door in which you put the key, the right back door, the fuel cap and the boot. The back left door stays locked, as does the front door you didn't manually open.

The plastic protector strip down the drivers door had come off the clips on the rear half and was hanging off enough to be taken off by a car that was driving past, so I improvised and re-attached it to one of the broken clips with a screw and clipped it back in...

This car is much better than on paper. It says it only gets 85kw from the 2.0L, but it feels like so much more. The engine is absolutely beautiful to drive. You can rev its heart out til the cows come home (thought it tends to chew petrol at an uncomfortable rate when you do) and you can also change at 1800rpm and travel at 45-50km/h in fifth and it'll pull fine, it's just not very responsive, but then what car is at that speed in top gear??

The gearbox has a little bit of play, though it's still very short and an absolute pleasure to use.

The interior's generally quite comfortable, though the pedals are quite far away and the steering while quite close so if I put the seat where I had it in my old car so my arms are fully stretched out I can't push the clutch down the whole way, so I have to sit a little bit closer, though not much and it's still quite comfortable. There's also no head-rests in the back so my back-seat passengers complain, especially on long trips. For a good luxury (almost) model German car of this age, I'd expect it to have headrests...

My biggest problem with the car is that the suspension is too soft. If you come down a drive way too fast (which isn't fast at all), when you get to the dip at the bottom the car go down so much you take out the front plastic guard under the bumper and then you have to get out and clip it back in... Also, in cornering, it can lean a bit, thought as soon as you have 2 or more people in it's fine, and it's very stable at high-speeds (which it gets too quite easily)...

Personally, I prefer the Golf III to the Golf IV, so when I upgrade, I'll probably go for an Audi A3 (or A4) or something else European - I prefer European cars to Japanese, American or Australian (which usually aren't even Australian - rather imports with Australian badges, which I guess it okay)...