I'm a newbie here so feel free to ignore my advice - but my defence is that I did a lot of research before buying my Mk5 GTI and have previously owned Mk 2, 3 and 4 Golf GTI's.
If you guys are looking at relatively low mileage '05 or '06 cars with fVWsh I reckon there should be little in the way of nasty shocks to be had. I'm not aware of any significant build/recall issues so just judge the cars on their individual merit. Without wishing to state the obvious ALWAYS do an HPI check however genuine the owner may seem and bear in mind that VW suggest a cambelt change (£350-£400) after 4 years irrespective of mileage (I know it's debatable!).
£14k for the 56 plater seems very big money, I spent exactly £4k less on an equally-loaded 55 plate (but with xenons and no sunroof) which had done 12,200 miles and just had the cam belt change - but I was lucky and very quick off the mark !
