Volkswagen Golf GTI Review & Prices

The Volkswagen Golf GTI has defined the hot hatch segment for decades, in the same way the regular Golf has been the ultimate all-rounder in the affordable family car segment. Over the years, though, the number of competitors has increased – but while alternatives have grown sportier, the GTI has clung to its everyday sensibilities.

It’s a bit like cheddar cheese – tasty and goes with most dishes most of the time, but you might prefer a blue cheese with a punchier flavour.

If you’re the strong flavour type you might want to consider more hardcore hot hatch alternatives such as the (admittedly more expensive) Honda Civic Type R or Mercedes-AMG A35, while the Ford Focus ST and BMW M135 are a bit less frantic and more school run-friendly. There’s also the Golf R if you want the next step up from the GTI.

Check out some of the best Volkswagen Golf GTI alternatives for 2024

The Golf range was given an overhaul for 2024, and the GTI is no different – it gets some subtly redesigned bumpers and headlights, though the new illuminated VW badge is a bit garish. The GTI Clubsport version gets more power, a bigger rear spoiler and the option of noisier Akrapovic exhausts. Either way, the Golf GTI’s design is sporty yet subtle, it doesn’t shout about its performance.

And this theme continues inside, where you get the same classy, well-built interior as the regular Golf, save for some sporty seats with the classic GTI tartan upholstery, red stitching, and stainless steel pedals.

It also gets the infotainment upgrades seen in the rest of the Golf range, with software that makes it easier to use. The awful touch-sensitive steering wheel buttons are thankfully gone in favour of actual buttons. Good news.

It’s practical inside, with plenty of space for those in the front and kneeroom the only minor complaint for those sitting in the back. However, the Golf has one of the smaller boots among hot hatches at 374 litres, though it’s a nice square shape so you can maximise the space on offer.

Out on the road you get the traditional Volkswagen Golf GTI recipe, which means a plate full of comfort and refinement with some performance grated on top. Most of the time this is great news, because even in its sportiest setting it handles bumps in the road really well, being comfortable to pilot down everything from a smooth motorway to a bumpy B-road.

However, if you’re happy to sacrifice a little comfort in your day-to-day driving, most alternatives are more fun on a twisty road – particularly the Honda Civic Type R, or perhaps the Toyota GR Yaris if you’re not worried about space and practicality. The GTI Clubsport could be worth waiting for, too – if the pre-update version is any indicator, it has GTI-typical refinement but is a bit more fun and capable in corners, as is the Golf R.

If you like the Golf GTI’s comfort-focused ethos, the adaptive suspension is an option box worth ticking. It lets you set the suspension to be more comfortable or more sporty, offering a better all-round experience than the standard setup.

Interested? Check out the latest Volkswagen Golf GTI deals on Carwow, or browse used Golf GTIs from our network of trusted dealers. You can also take a look at other used Volkswagens, and when you want to sell your current car, Carwow can help there, too.

The Volkswagen Golf GTI represents pretty good value compared with other hot hatches – it’s about the same price as the Ford Focus ST and a bit cheaper than performance-focused versions of the Cupra Leon. The Honda Civic Type R is considerably more, but it’s closer to a track day car than a commuter.

UK pricing and specifications have not been confirmed for the GTI Clubsport, but expect it to be about £2,000 more than the regular GTI, while the Golf R is likely to be another £2,000 on top of this. That makes the upgrades mighty tempting, budget-allowing.

The Volkswagen Golf GTI is comfortable and relaxing to drive most of the time, with a hint of sportiness when you want it – but alternatives are much more fun to drive

In town

The awkward truth about buying a performance car is that the vast majority of the time you won’t be driving it at the limit of grip on an epic country road, but instead cruising around town. On the standard suspension the Golf GTI is comfortable enough, but you can pay a bit extra for an adaptive system – do so, and the comfort setting makes it handle bumps just about as well as a regular Golf.

The steering is responsive and the car has a relatively small turning circle, which helps get around tight bends and mini roundabouts in town. You can’t get a Golf GTI with a manual gearbox anymore, but that’s fine in town because the auto is smooth to shift gears and takes the pain out of stop-start traffic.

On the motorway

The Volkswagen Golf GTI is just as impressive on the motorway or A roads as it is around town. Commuting isn’t an issue because it has a lot of the characteristics of a ‘normal’ car – namely the way it smooths out bumps in the road and cocoons you from too much tyre and wind noise.

Cruising along motorways is easy in the GTI, but then so is overtaking, with loads of power available throughout the rev range. The performance also means that getting up to motorway speed on a slip road, or pulling off a quick overtake, is no bother.

The GTI comes with adaptive cruise control as standard, which prevents the car from getting too close to the one in front. Lane assist can also nudge the wheel to stop you drifting out of your lane, while the cruise control also works in stop-start traffic so you don’t need to keep working the pedals in a jam.

On a twisty road

With plenty of grip and willingness from the engine, the latest Volkswagen Golf GTI is technically the best yet. However, when concentrating on high-end precision and the feel of the steering, brake pedal and gearbox, it’s not quite a match for the Honda Civic Type R. Okay, that car is much more expensive, but the same can be said of more affordable hot hatches such as the Ford Focus ST and Hyundai i30 N (though the latter is now only available on the used market).

Many alternatives still have manual gearbox options, but the Golf GTI being auto-only isn’t the end of the world because it suits its character. While it is good fun to drive, it’s not trying to be too serious a driver’s car like the Honda.

Spacious enough for most in the cabin, but the boot is smaller than alternatives can offer

The interior of the Volkswagen Golf is more high-tech than ever, but thankfully, useful storage spaces haven’t suffered as a consequence. 

There are large door bins that are felt-lined to help sound insulation as well as adding to the quality levels all round. Other elements that have been carried over from the previous GTI include the central armrest with integrated storage underneath, and cup holders that can hold bottles big and small.

Space in the back seats

There is decent headroom in the back of the Golf GTI, though legroom might be a bit of a squeeze if your passengers are particularly tall. There’s just about room for three if your passengers don’t mind getting cozy.

One slight annoyance for rear passengers, however, might be the large sports seats in front, which tend to block the view out of the front window or into the front of the car.

Fitting a child seat is easy enough, because the doors open nice and wide and the ISOFIX mounting points are clearly marked. Even bulky seats should have enough space without having to push the front seat forward.

Boot space

You get 374 litres of boot space in the Volkswagen Golf GTI, which is a few litres down on the regular Golf – though this is caused by the speaker system being fitted in the underfloor storage, so shouldn’t be a problem.

It’s ample for most situations, but those who want more room from their sporty hot hatch’s boot will need to go for the Skoda Octavia vRS, which has a whopping 600 litres on offer. The Honda Civic Type R also beats the VW with 410 litres, though the GTI’s boot isn’t much smaller than the Ford Focus ST (380 litres) and Hyundai i30 N (381 litres).

So it’s not the biggest boot going, but it’s a usefully square shape, so you can maximise what you do have. With the rear seats folded there’s no ridge, making it easy to slide heavy items through, while features such as hooks for shopping bags mean you won’t risk cracking your eggs on a spirited return from the local Tesco.

Materials and build quality are excellent, and the updated infotainment is an improvement, but there are still some ergonomic annoyances

There’s not a drastic uplift in the interior for the Volkswagen Golf GTI compared with regular models. There’s some neat red stitching, stainless steel pedals and GTI graphics on the screens, though it’s good enough not to need it.

One of the more noticeable changes in the GTI is the addition of sports seats. They feature integrated headrests and plenty of side support to keep driver and passenger in place when putting the hot hatch through its paces. The seats also get tartan upholstery, which is a GTI hallmark, and front ISOFIX mounts mean you can keep an eye on your child when travelling with them alone.

The infotainment system is also carried over largely unchanged from ‘normal’ Golfs, which means dual screens that display a vast array of information in good clarity. The software has been updated for 2024 models, which makes the 12.9-inch main display in particular much easier to use.

Another great change is the removal of the rubbish touch-sensitive steering wheel buttons that have made their way across various Volkswagen Group models over the past few years. Customer feedback has thankfully been taken on board, so they’ve been switched for physical buttons that are much easier to use.

That said, there’s still a touch-sensitive pad beneath the main screen for various shortcuts, including the drive mode selector, which isn’t quite as easy to use as it could be.

There’s just the one engine available in both the Volkswagen Golf GTI and GTI Clubsport. It’s a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine that makes 265hp in the GTI (up 20hp on before) and 300hp in the GTI Clubsport (the same as the old one).

Both send power to the front wheels through a seven-speed automatic gearbox. In testing we saw 0-60mph in 5.4 seconds in the GTI, which is a few tenths quicker than the official figures.

Proving its daily driver credentials, official fuel economy figures are 39.8mpg in the GTI and 37.7 in the GTI Clubsport. Not bad for performance cars.

However, both have quite high CO2 emissions, meaning they’re fairly expensive in first-year road tax, and you’d have to get a basic car with pretty much no options to avoid the surcharge in years two to six for cars that cost over £40,000. The emissions figures mean the Golf GTI isn’t a particularly affordable option for company car drivers, either.

The Volkswagen Golf GTI hasn’t specifically been tested by safety experts Euro NCAP, but the wider Golf range received a maximum five-star score when it was evaluated after launch. Its category scores were on a par with comparable models in the class – with adult (front) and children (rear) performance being particularly better than the Honda Civic.

To match the performance offered by the GTI there are a wide range of safety systems fitted as standard to the hot hatch. For example, you get bigger brakes than the standard car as well as standard-fit adaptive cruise control, a system that can swerve to avoid head-on collisions, and an advanced driver drowsiness monitor.

The GTI comes with Volkswagen’s three-year warranty, which covers drivers for up to 60,000 miles in total. Volkswagen has a mixed record in some reliability surveys, sometimes finishing in the lower half of the list of manufacturers. 

In March 2022, there was a recall relating to engine cover installations on the Golf GTI and Golf R models. Apart from that the wider Golf range was called in for software- and infotainment-related issues in 2021.