First impressions are, better than the Scirocco, by quite a margin on refinement and ride quality, toys and adjustibility of settings. Panel gaps are much tighter on the Golf, Scirocco looks more crudely built as a result.
Put it straight into "Sport" - no disadvantage on the economy front on a manual. Xenons are a huge improvement on the Halogens as standard on the Scirocco (and every other VW I have owned). Burning bright when going home through the Tyne tunnel.
I am missing the Scirocco rear view mirror though - the nice rounded mirror looks a lot better than the clunky oversized squared one in the Golf. My wipers are absolutely sh!te on the drivers side - next to useless, with a massive (3" wide) smear across the central part of the sweep - they will need sorting ASAP. Not sure the seat bolsters will last the test of time - they are much taller than those on the Scirocco (which are wider), you can't help but crease them getting out of the car.
Thats a mean looking motor mate! I love how much lower and beefier the mk7 is compared to the mk6, you can't really see it in pictures and looks much better in real life!
You've probably read about the windscreen wiper issues on the american forum? It seems to be affecting a majority of mk7's, i even e-mailed VWUK to ask if it was being looked at and when they called me back they said they'd only had a couple of reports so not really.