1997 Volkswagen Golf GTi 2.0 8v MK3 review from UK and Ireland

Regular stalling.

Broken airvent.

Heating control light not working.

Bad judder on start up.

Excessive (i feel) fuel consumption.

Previously I had a Peugeot 306 xsi (see 'faster than you think'thread). Got a bit fed up with the rattly interior and general feeling of the poor wear and tear of the car. Got to its 4 yr anniversary and the final straw was the £1,200 bill for assorted work such as cracked master brake cylinder, corroded radiator, rusted exhaust and a few other minor bits and pieces - all at 25,000 miles! not good. So I thought change to what I thought was the paragon of reliability - the VW Golf GTI.

The peugeot had fabulous handling and performance, but the go kart like nature of it wore me down so I didn't mind changing to an 8v golf gti. It's a 97 R plate with full VWFSH. Oh dear. This car is really a GL with a bodykit. I expected it to be slower than the peugeot, but its slower than almost anything. I had trouble overtaking a Fiat Stilo 1.6 on the motorway.

Its quite torquey for town driving, but sounds very rough over 4000 rpm. Its handling is nothing special with bad understeer and it runs out of steam at 120 mph.

When I first got it, it kept stalling (whether hot or cold) when the revs decreased in neutral or changing gear, but I sorted this out through the VW dealer. Turns out it was a dirty throttle valve housing. The airvent also broke and there was no light behind the heating controls. all sorted and minor, but very irritating.

At the moment its got a very poor rough running idle on first start up which might be normal in the cold weather, but its just had a full service and just sounds like its 15 years old, not 5.

The interior is very hard wearing and is in better shape than my peugeot was and that was a year newer with 35,000 less miles on it! It's a smooth relaxed drive with a great driving position and a nice solid feel to it.

The fuel consumption however is really poor. no more than 23 mpg (as per the trip computer) average and I get about 210 miles out of a tank (50 litres I think) - 60 miles less than I got out of the peugeout and I used to cane that.

Of all these points though, it is still a nice looking, solid car which drives OK, but is far too overated, and especially for a gti, too slow.

Overall, I love the new VW Golfs MK4 and would have one of those as they look great and seem better made.

I wouldn't buy another MK3 unless it was a VR6. Hmm, I wonder if I could buy my peugeot back?...