2005 Volkswagen Golf GT TDi from UK and Ireland - Comments

Nothing so far.

This is my first mark 5 Golf after having 3 mark 4 Golfs in a row.

Styling is good and the car looks more sporty and aggressive compared to the mark 4. The colour (coastal blue metallic) and the 8-spoke alloys just make the car look great. I've had a few admiring comments from friends, neighbours and work colleagues.

The handling and ride is a big improvement over the mark 4.

Car is bigger inside than previous model especially for rear seat passengers. Quality of interior trim plastics and fabrics is very good and will hopefully stand up well to a good few years wear and tear. A slight downside though is that the boot is a bit smaller than on the mark 4.

The 2.0 turbo diesel engine is an absolute gem. Effortless performance and great mid-range acceleration coupled with amazing fuel economy (53/54 mpg)

Car is very quiet inside with only slight wind noise and tyre roar motorway speeds.

Climate control is excellent and has a feature which enables front seat passenger to control the temperature independently of the driver.

My only slight criticism is my previous mark 4 Golf had a 6-CD autochanger whereas this car only has a single disc in-dash mounted unit.

However this is a minor point on an otherwise very good car.

Better get rid of it before it costs you your retirement savings to repair it. New Volkswagen models are rapidly becoming known as the worst built and most expensive to maintain vehicles on the road.

I guess I must be lucky then as I've not had any serious problems with my last 3 VWs and any problems (minor) I've had have been covered by the manufacturer's warranty.

It's a bit early to tell with the mk5 Golf to be fair, but the mk4 has cost Volkswagen a lot of customers. Take the nice interior and great PD diesels out of the equation and you had a very average car to drive, with poor reliability and very patchy build quality.

I ended a run of six Golfs (mk1, 2 mk2's, 2 mk3's and a mk4) after experiencing untold quality and reliability problems with my 2002 Golf GT TDI 130. I now drive a Ford Focus TDCi 136PS 6 speed manual with which I am absolutely delighted. The Golf had trim rattles, electrical problems, gearbox and clutch problems, engine management problems and suspension problems. In fact, apart from the engine mechanicals, just about every area of the car had at least one fault in the 3 years I owned it. VW themselves seem to think it beneath them to acknowledge their cars might be problematic, which is a bit rich when you look at their prices.

I find myself agreeing with the first commenter above when he/she suggests that recent generation VW's seem to have lost the plot in terms of reliability. Not so long ago, you bought a VW because you knew it would go twice around the clock before anything serious went wrong with it. I know five people with 2000 onwards Golfs and Passats who have had endless problems. In fact, one 2001 Passat has cost its owner UKP 1,500 in unscheduled repairs since the warranty ran out in 2004!! The car has not yet done 50,000 miles.

Maybe the mk5 Golf will address these shortcomings, but after my experiences, I'm not prepared to risk finding out. Good luck. Although I mean that sincerely, something tells me you may need it.

Hmmmmm, I'm not sure if I should buy a Golf TDI after reading the other comments. I have always owned cars built in Japan and are very happy with the reliability and dealers. However the VW's fuel economy is a major +++ and the car is very nice to drive. I wonder - Mazda 3, Toyota Echo Hatch, Honda Civic, Suzuki Areo, or Golf TDI. What do you think?

I would look at the new shape Focus. The joint Peugeot-Ford developed 2.0 TDCi engine is an absolute peach, and the interior and build quality are now (at last!) a match for anything coming out of Germany. Being a Ford, you don't pay through the nose for parts and servicing either.

I have put 140,000 miles on an old shape TDCi 115PS model in the past three years, and had just one non-service fault (a squeaky aux belt tensioner). The most reliable car I have ever had without any shadow of a doubt. The new one is a fantastic drive, with a decent interior to go with it, and a more refined and powerful engine. I've only done 5,000 miles in mine so far, but it's a great car.

The Mazda 3 shares the same platform incidentally, although seems to be a little softer sprung (or the one I drove was).

Your review is premature. Come back and do another after you have owned the car for a while. Then you can talk about such things as expensive fuel filters, expensive special oil, expensive glow plugs that must be changed in sets when one fails, and if your engine's German electronics last longer than Lucas electrics.

Model:Golf Mk V 1.9TDI SE 105PS

Extras: Solid Black, leather wheel/gear knob, sports suspension, 16" 'Hockenheim' alloys, fog lights.

Problems: None so far.

Pro's: Excellent pace with regard to the MPG. I easily get 50+ mpg when cruising at 80 on the motorway, and when I have some fun I'm still getting 45 out of it!

With said upgrades the car looks great, and handles very well, just as good as the Mk4 GTI I had before this.

What I like especially is the low gear acceleration, 2nd, 3rd and 4th are it's strongest and will embarrass many larger petrol engines!

Con's: Runs out of punch after 3000 rpm (but I suppose this comes with most diesels). One annoying rattle occurs when you put your foot down hard, somewhere in the centre console, and the 'fuel range' gauge on the H.U.D isn't very accurate when you're running low.

On the whole: A fantastic car, very well built, economical and fun for what looks like your average sales rep vehicle!

The mk4 did not handle well. It was a stodgy, vague and woolly car with near zero steering feel and soggy damping even in GT trim (although it was admittedly better than the standard models).

If you want to know what a decent handling front wheel drive car feels like, go and find a Peugeot 306 or a Ford Focus. Either of these cars illustrate perfectly just how far off the pace dynamically the Golf was. Both have far better body control over crests and dips, both understeer far less, both ooze feel through their steering and to add insult to injury, both ride better (particularly the Pug)

I had a mk4 GT TDI PD130 and in many ways it was a great car, but even as a fan of it, I can't honestly say the handling was any better than average.

The mk5 is much, much better, but as VW poached some of the Focus chassis engineers from Ford, and the car wears almost identical rear suspension to the Focus, it really should do.

I own a mk iv '02 Golf TDi 150, and have had it for about 1.5 years. Only the cooling fans needed replacing. We've also had a '97 Golf SE 1.6 from new and nothing mechanical has gone wrong, only a minor alarm problem. Golf's don't have the advantage over other marques in reliability (which is avg) but they are really nice cars to live with. Little detail touches which are well thought out that I appreciate. Some Germanic traits are still there - I've yet to replace an exhaust on our 1.6 and the bodywork is of a thick gauge. In general its gives the car an over engineered feel.

The downside is the dealers or stealers as they are referred to, but the advantage of German cars there are lots of independent mechanics to choose from.

Some interesting comments on here.

I too have always bought VW cars and can say that I have never (touch wood!) had any major problems with them. I have owned Mk1's 2's 3's a 2002 Polo TDI and most recently a Corrado VR6 (which was still on its original discs and pads after 104,000 miles!).

People have commented on Focus, Peugeots etc and how good they are, and although they have caught up in the last few years the Golf is still head of the pack. The fact is that when someone buys a VW they don't expect anything to go wrong with it, and when it does they complain when ever and where ever they can, posting comments on VW this, VW that etc. I too could say lots of negative comments on family members focus (head gasket went at 64,000 miles) and 306's (gearbox went at 57,000 miles). The fact is that VW's do go wrong, so do 50 thousand pound BMW's, just not as often as others.

I, personally, would never buy anything non-german as you simply do not get the same sort of build quality in any other car. If you are looking at buying a Golf I would say go for it and ignore the negative comments on here.

I had the choice a couple of years ago and ditched my company Ford Focus for a Golf GTI diesel (150 Bhp ): it was fantastic. At 44 I was a boy racer all over again. I am mow on my 2nd Mark V diesel. Averaging 40,000+ miles a year, I have found these cars to be very reliable, with no failures to report other than the cooling fans, which were replaced on my last Mark V at 35,000 miles. I find handling on the Mark V to be superior to the Peugeot 406 and Ford Focus, which I sometimes have to drive and much quieter at high speed and very comfortable on long journeys. Fuel economy is about equal to the Focus and more than the Peugeot. I miss the plastic wood from my first GTI diesel from a fews ago, but find the resale value of my Golf's compared to a Ford as very welcome. I can always sell a VW Golf and having checked out a BMW 1 Series and a Mercedes B-Class, I now look forward to my third Golf which is great value for money compared to the others.

Some very good comments above, but it's worth remembering in relation to the Focus that Ford didn't offer a diesel version with anything like the 150 bhp of your Golf. Therefore you should really compare like for like.

Re the Focus and Golf debate, I reckon the two cars have now merged into clones of each other. In mk1 guise the Focus was a lithe, agile drivers car which substituted the Golf's refinement, soft feel plastics and expensive looking interior for lightness, feedback and driver enjoyment. Although a very well built and reliable car, it looked cheap in places and perceived quality was not in the same league as the Golf.

In going to the mk2, Ford are clearly chasing Golf buyers. The interior is of a quality previously unseen on a Ford, and the noise levels are massively reduced over the mk1. It also has decent seats (at last!). Unfortunately, it's also gained 200kg or so in the process which means the handling, although still good, is blunted over the original.

The Golf has kind of gone the other way. The mk4 was a soft, comfy, nicely trimmed, lazy kind of car which didn't handle badly, but wasn't exactly an enthusiasts car either. The mk5 is sharper, more agile and has better feel, but has also lost the classy interior and detail touches that made the mk4 special just to sit in.

Both cars have met somewhere in the middle, and what we effectively have now are different badged versions of the same thing. Both very competent, both brilliant all rounders, but also both have lost the key strengths of their predecessors. I thought it was better when we had a choice, and was delighted with my mk1 Focus. Now I could choose either and know that the other wouldn't do anything significantly differently. A bit of a shame to be honest.

As for reliability comparisons, the Focus I'm afraid beats pretty much any non-Japanese comparison. Which? rated it as excellent, the German ADAC declared it the outright winner in a survey last year, and it has beaten the Golf (and most of its other rivals) in the Top Gear Survey each year. Mine did 105,000 miles and didn't need anything other than servicing, d tyres and two headlight bulbs.

I've had our Mk4 Golf TDi for 7 years, its used every day, day in day out. Its had.

1 electric mirror motor

1 relay (3 weeks after new)

1 Mass air sensor.

Pretty good I would have thought.

I drive a 2001 VW Golf TDI 115 Estate and it's an absolute joy. I would agree that it doesn't like corners much, but it encourages more relaxed driving. The engine is incredible, second gear, foot to the floor, is great fun and you can leave most people standing. Also being a diesel it has a very low first gear to over come the turbo lag (which is noticeable below 1500rpm), but this makes it very nippy around town, great for getting onto roundabouts quickly.

The power does tail off above 3600rpm, but I almost never venture that far as you simply don't need to. Especially as the gear shift is light and easy to use. One niggle though - does anyone think that the Mark 4 steering wheel is a little too big? Having driven a focus, I found the steering wheel a nicer size in the ford.

Brakes are nice - they feel really strong, and bite nice and early unlike the focus, where I found you had to press the brake pedal harder and it was more progressive, which I don't like. You do feel like there is always a lot under your right foot whether you want to go faster or slower.

So far (touch wood) we have not had anything go wrong with the car, though for some reason the rear electric window stopped working for a while, but now it works fine.

The interior is a lovely place to be, and the boot, though not as big as say a focus estate, is a good shape with almost no intrusions. Having driven a new Mark 5 Golf, the interior is definitely better on the Mark 4. The Mark 5 has lost some of the quality of the previous model. It just doesn't feel so tight, unlike my car which still feels like new after 4 years and 30,000 miles.

I've just ordered a MK V Golf 2.0 Tdi as my new company car. I've run a Passat Tdi Sport estate for the last 18 months and really liked it. After testing various cars including the new Civic I decided on the Golf.

I like that fact that its fairly plain - its understated. Also despite a very bland interior it is functional and it works well. The controls are laid out well and its pretty simply. Nothing much to distract you.

What I noticed about the two I've driven so far (1.9 SE Tdi DSG and 2.0 GT Tdi) is that the ride is very good. The GT is a lot sportier, but both ride well (the Civic is a bit too firm for British roads). The 1.9 with the DSG is fairly quick, but quite refined. The 2.0 GT Tdi is VERY quick - huge torque and handles exceptionally well with its lowered suspension. It never felt crashy and I tested it over a particularly nasty road in Surrey (Horseley to Ranmore if you know it - lots of dips, adverse cambers, twists and crappy tarmac) and it worked very well. The 2.0 diesel is quite noisy and coarse, but road noise isn't bad.

The main reason I didn't choose the Civic is because it is a very noisy car. The engine is more refined that the Golf, but the road noise is unacceptable in a modern car. Its such a shame as it marrs what is an exceptionally good car. Yes the Golf has a noisy engine, but once cruising you can't hear it, but road noise can't be got rid of.

Golf build quality seemed good, but its true that some of the plastics used in the MK5 are a lot cheaper than the Mk4. However what would you prefer - nice plastic or a decent ride with great handling? I know what works for me.

I'll post a proper review when I get it!