Okay, okay fella's here we go, an honest unbiased account of how good the ED30 is.
As standard the Edition 30 is a decent car, when modified it is a very good car. It will never be the fastest car on the planet due to being fwd, but as it is fwd it is safer at the limit than say a BMW 1 series.
Edition 30's do have some faults, but all cars of all makes do.
Typical faults are...
Cambelt squeal when cold, this can be sorted under warranty and if the car is outside warranty the cambelt, water pump and tensioner are changed at 4 yrs anyway - cost £300-400. I deliberately ran mine for a full 3.5 yrs without changing and it had the squeal at around 3yrs old. I was putting 440bhp and 510lbft through the car and the belt was still going strong when I sold it, so it isn't really a dealbreaker when buying a car.
Cam follower issues. As long as you chack it annually then there should not be any issues with it. Edition 30's tend to have the 2 piece cam, which isn't prone to wearing the cam follower as much as the single piece ones in the early GTI's.
Creaky steering wheel column. Not a big issue on the ED30, but on the early GTI's was an issue and subject to quite a few warranty claims.
Front brakes - On both the GTI and the ED30 are woefully underpowered for the car. VW should have really at least matched the front brakes of the R32 with them or specified better pads.
Suspension. As standard the ED30 suspension can be a little crashy on uneven roads. It is still way better than most other makes of hot hatches (Astra VXR and R26R are big culprits for poor comfort through the suspension). This is one area that I thought the standard GTI seemed better in. It maybe subjective as everyone tells me that the suspension is exactly the same, but I'm still even now not 100% that they REALLY are!
Turbo lag. Again the standard GTI is better in this department than the ED30. There isn't much in it, but I can tell the difference. A remapped GTI is a little belter and would be preferable over a standard ED30 in performance if that is all you wanted to do.
DSG issues - this is probably one of the most contentious issues for any VW golf MKV. There have been numerous faults with the DSG and if they occur out of warranty (as many now are) they can prove very costly as VW still insist on replacing the whole gearbox or the whole mechatronics unit instead of allowing individual parts to be replaced. The new DSG units in the MKVI and Audi's are second generation and not prone to as many failures as the 6 speed version, but are still relatively new, so issues may take a while to turn up.
