Front brakes wore out excessively quickly even for hard driving.
This car has amazed me from all sides. The performance is on par with both the Golf 4 1.8T GTI as well as the Audi A3 1.8T GTI, running similar top speeds and as aggressive acceleration.
However, the torque on the TDI outmatches both competitors by some bit, and taking into account the cheaper price of diesel and better consumption rates, the TDI's ride is the cheapest of the three!
From first to third the TDI's power is awesome and have to be experienced first hand to appreciate, but fourth and fifth gear seems to lack the same drive. Still, the performance is excellent, and accelerating uphill to a steady 160km/h (100mph) occurs reliably even when loaded with 4 passengers, a driver and luggage.
Service costs are high, but the cheaper diesel expense makes up for it. If you intend to drive anything more than 2000km (1250miles) /month, I strongly advise the TDI just for the fuel savings!
The Golf 4 TDI is truely an amazing car. I "downgraded" from a 2.3 Audi500 to a 2000 Golf 4 TDI and I am not one bit disappointed! I bought it with 172000 Km on the clock mid 2008 and it turned to 200000 yesterday. I have not had one minute of problems during this period. Fuel consumption averaged over the past 30000 Km on 5.2 Litres per 100 Km.
Volkswagen made a true winner when they started to build these cars.
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