2024 VW Golf Review: Facelift (Mostly) Fixes Flaws

The Mk8 Volkswagen Golf got off to a bit of a rocky start – has a mid-life facelift made it the car it always should have been?

Consider this mid-life facelift for the eighth-generation VW Golf an apology. Before the Mk8 launched in 2019, ‘a Golf’ was the stock answer you’d give as a car person when someone asked you what car they should buy. Obviously, in recent years, they’d ignore that and get some blobby, overweight crossover instead, but the intent was there.

That changed with the Mk8, for one primary reason: the absolute hash VW made of the interior in its efforts to make it look sleek, futuristic and minimalist. Words like this clearly took precedence over terms like ‘intelligible,’ ‘user-friendly’ and ‘unlikely to make you want to headbutt the steering wheel so hard you set the airbag off’.

Its haptic steering wheel controls were unintuitive, its infotainment screen overly complicated, and its unlit capacitive controls a massive lapse in common sense, a rare thing from VW.

The company openly admits that fixing these downfalls, having taken on lots of customer feedback, is the primary aim of this facelift. Tweaks to the outside are minimal, extending to some refreshed lights and bumpers and a few new colours and wheel designs. Oh, and a light-up badge. Bleurgh.

The update also coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Golf, something VW is understandably making quite the song and dance about. After all, it’s sold over 37 million Golfs since 1974 – already some 16 million more than the Beetle managed in its 65-year lifespan.

Even as the trad family hatch’s place in the market looks on slightly shaky ground, VW still places massive value on the Golf, a model it’s confirmed will stick around into the electric era. It really needs to get this update right, then.

We’ll get the big question out of the way first: the interior tweaks have been successful. Mostly. The centrepiece of the cabin is the new, enlarged 12.9-inch infotainment screen, which houses the latest version of VW’s operating system. Efforts to streamline its user-friendliness have not been in vain – it’s clear, responsive, and has plenty of shortcuts anchored to the top, as well as accessible via a little touch panel beneath the screen.

It’s still not perfect – it’s not always obvious how you navigate back to the menu you were previously on, which leads us to another problem: there’s still too much happening on the screen. This isn’t a VW-exclusive issue, though, nor is is how much its voice assistant seems to have difficulty understanding you.

That’s where the big interior gripes end, though. Having proper buttons back on the steering wheel is a massive relief, eve if it’s a slightly busy surface. The backlighting for the capacitive volume and temperature controls rights a wrong, too, though we didn’t really get the chance to experience it because we drove the Golf during Britain’s five-minute-long summer of 2024.

Elsewhere, the interior is reassuringly VW-ish. Everything feels expensive and solid, even on the boggo versions. The seats are comfortable, the driving position and visibility good, and there’s plenty of space all round. The 10.2-inch digital instrument display is nice and clear if a little visually busy, and equipment levels are good across the board, with all trims getting adaptive cruise control and a backup camera as standard.

You’ve plenty of choice when it comes to powertrains, too. There are all manner of combinations of pure petrols, mild and plug-in hybrids, and diesels, which can be variously paired with manual or DSG auto gearboxes. The hot GTI and hotter R are landing later on, although neither will offer a three-pedal option.

Our first taste was of a mild hybrid petrol. It’s a 1.5-litre turbo four-cylinder making 148bhp, and augmented with a 48v starter-generator. Mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch auto, 0-62mph takes 8.4 seconds and it’ll top out at 139mph.

It’s a good powertrain, one we liked in the new Passat and Tiguan and that’s even better in the smaller, lighter Golf. It’s nippy away from the line, and the auto gearbox is as slick as you’d expect. Better yet, it’s eliminated the annoying habit it has in those larger VWs of cluelessly hanging onto a low gear once you’re up to cruising speed. The four-pot engine is always smooth and mostly hushed.

The other setup we tried was a 2.0-litre diesel four-cylinder mated to a six-speed manual. It’s a novel combination in a family hatch these days, and a good one. Power is a meagre 113bhp, and 0-62mph takes a sluggish 10.2 seconds, but it delivers a meaty 221lb ft slug of torque, so pulls strongly in gear. The manual gearbox is pleasantly slick and light in its action, too. We got MPG in the mid 50s in the diesel, versus mid 40s in the petrol.

Regardless of powertrain, the Golf remains a pleasant enough steer. There’s an inherent agility to the chassis and directness to the steering – nothing that’s going to raise anyone’s pulse massively, but perfectly enjoyable for a family hatch, and far sweeter than an equivalent crossover. Posher versions get multilink rear suspension, which helps.

It’s comfy, too, with a supple, composed ride, even over crater-like road surfaces. Even the faux-sporty R-Line’s comfort doesn’t massively suffer for its 18-inch alloys and ‘sports’ suspension.

There’s an argument that you could spend a chunk less than the £27,035 that buys you a basic Golf Match on something like a Hyundai i30 or Kia Ceed, and get just as accomplished a car. However, they don’t come with the Golf’s biggest USP: its badge.

It once meant you’d be safe in the knowledge that you’d get a fundamentally sorted car. The Mk8’s facelift has done a good job of clawing back some of that reputation. Basically, if someone asks you what new car to buy, ‘a Golf’ is once more a valid answer. They’ll still end up with that crossover, though.