I colleague has one of these and I got a chance to play the other day.

Walking up to the Golf gives the impression of a quality product. The design is smart and restrained, looks purposeful and tasteful. Using the familiar VAG flipkey, I clamber inside to find a very different place to the Octy 2. Although there are familiar fixtures and fittings all over the place, everything feels a touch cheaper and there are bits of hard plastic occuring a bit too much. Grabbing the gearstick to check it's in neutral inspires no confidence either, the feel being "remote" and the gearbox feeling a bit numb. Starting up the engine is delightfully quiet, although I suspect this is probably as I am used to oil burners.

The 1.6 engine seems to give a reasonable amount of low down torque for pulling out, but once on the move it is dissapointingly gutless. Even grabbing it by the scruff of the neck doesn't seem to yield much more. The steering wheel feels larger than that of the Octy, although the car feels marginally tauter.

Backing off and cruising along though, the car redeems itself with a smooth and composed ride and the engine steadies down to a fairly inaudible thrum . . . it's a shame that for it's size, it is pretty uneconomical though.

I'm afraid that overall I felt it was a bit step down from my Octy. There were a few places where the Golf excelled, but these were far outnumbered by it's failings.

Nice write up Rob, good result for Skoda too

I found the 1600 Octavia to be a rather pleasant surprise when I drove one the other year

Yeah, I was a little dissapointed really. I can remember when the Golf mk5 first came out and I had a play with one in a showroom thinking "wow, what a superb car . . . wish I could have one". Maybe that was part of the reason for why I felt a letdown after that expectation, but I think it's also a good indicator of the superior quality of the Octy 2.

Sounds quite similar to my experience of the GT PD140. I think a lot of it lies with expectations and VW seem to be cost cutting, especially on interior quality :(

Chris