So, we took the kids out to a country park and covered about 60 miles today, on all three types on road (M, A and B). A few of my thoughts for anyone interested or considering buying a clubsport, not too much detail as it’s been pretty well covered previously.
Firstly, due to covid and short notice, I never even test drove (or even sat in) any type of Golf mk8 before yesterday.
The build quality, I can see what a few are saying regarding cost savings over previous generations, I had a 7.5 GTD for 3 years and loved it, but for the last 14 months I’ve had a 67 reg focus titanium X pack, maybe it’s coming from the focus but in my opinion, the build quality is still very VW regarding the interior and stuff like the door open/close feel, it’s head and shoulders above what Ford offer.
The screens, the graphics (again compared to Ford) are immense, The lack of physical buttons we’re doing my head in at first, probably because I was trying to fiddle with all the new features, but I very quickly got used to it and I personally think the haptic steering wheel is brilliant, my missus doesn’t like it but I really do, the vibration feedback is very good.
The driving, wow, just wow, I’m obviously still running it in fairly softly but the odd occasion I did give it a little bit, it just took off. My last proper fast car was a focus MK2 RS in 2010, the clubsport is far better! It’s honestly like having two cars, a normal golf in comfort and a serious hot hatch in “special” mode. Anybody who’s thinking of buying one, just test drive it and focus only on the driving, you’ll buy it because of that and hopefully (like me) you’ll learn to live with the infotainment.
Edit: my only criticism would be the DSG, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, it just like the motoring journalist’s describe, fast in sport, smooth in drive. But it’s the first auto I’ve ever owned and I would have specced the third pedal without any hesitation given the choice.
