Volkswagen Golf 1.0 SE: Car Review

What’s new? The latest VW Golf, at least a bit. This is the “update” of the “Mark VII” Golf launched in 2012, and they’ve added some more digital driving aids, such as automatic emergency braking, a new 7-speed semi-automatic gearbox, a modest tweak to the styling at the front, LED lights and a bigger better screen for the sat nav and entertainment systems.

They’ve apparently knocked £650 off the price too, quite remarkable given what’s happened to the pound since Brexit. Mostly it’s all very welcome and will help keep the Golf in buyers’ minds. However, this version of the latest “updated” Golf is I have to say, a rather unhappy marriage, leastways mechanically.

Which is an issue in a motor car, I think we can agree. Here are the bits that are trapped in the loveless relationship. First, the stop-start mechanism. Increasingly common, this is an unobtrusive little feature, and good for the environment, as it cuts emissions in traffic jams and the like. So, as you might have discovered, the car automatically turns the engine off when, say, you pull up at traffic lights. Ideally it is a fairly prompt lift-off: depress the clutch and the engine sparks up again, and off you go. Except that in the case of this Golf you don’t, which may be something to do with the dual clutch semi-automatic transmission.

It just takes too long to work out that you’d quite like to move off and to get its gear together, so to speak. This tardiness is made worse by the third side of this unhappy love triangle, the small-capacity turbo and supercharged engine.

This works best when you get the revs high, but that depends on the engine actually running when you’re trying to get away. So it’s a very ponderous sort of machine for tootling around in. I tested the more powerful of two 1-litre options (110PS), so I’d definitely counsel against the 85PS versions. You really need to be devoted to saving fuel money or the environment to put up with all that. The same mix of unresponsive characteristics also makes it too much effort to manoeuvre at very slow speeds.

The rest of the car is fine, and at anything above 5mph it’s fairly flawless. There is a reason why this car has sold 33 million examples, and became an industry benchmark when it arrived in 1974, and the latest iteration retains the features owners love; neat tasteful styling, originally by Giugiaro, classy interior, even in this more basic version, a solid feel and apparent solid build quality. All that said, rivals from Vauxhall to Nissan to Kia have done a lot of catching up, and sometimes can be more dependable and enjoy better warranty back-up than a Golf.

It cruises at speed well and, thrummy busy engine aside, is refined. The handling is excellent – fun and safe. The graphics on the iPad-style screen are clear and easy to navigate. It is a likeable car.

All of which makes its engineering flaws all the more frustrating. The good news is that there are many many other Golf variants to try, as well as Golfs rearranged, rebodied and rebadged as Beetles, Tiguans, Tourans, Seat Leon and Ateca, Skoda Octavias and Audi A3 S, among others. So if you are in love with the idea of a Golf, you don’t have to marry this particular one, given that there are 113 models of it to choose from, from estates to GTIs, and, with the other group brands, it doesn’t even need to be badged a Golf at all.