Key considerations
- Available for £22,500
- 2.0 inline-four petrol turbo, front-wheel drive
- 245hp feels like more thanks to good Mk 8 chassis mods
- 300hp Clubsport is lively but they’re at least £5k more expensive
- Knobless infotainment/function control system is pants
- Some electronic and software issues
Not for the first time in one of these buying guides we’re starting off with a call to ‘get one now while you still can’. The ‘one’ we’re talking about is the petrol-powered Volkswagen Golf GTI, because in January 2024 it was confirmed that the next Golf, the Mk9 due in 2028, will be all-electric. This means that the outgoing Mk8 GTI (alongside the updated Mk8.5) is going to be the last of a largely glorious – but occasionally inglorious – line of internal combustion hot hatches to bear the Golf name.
It’s the Golf’s 50th birthday this year (yes, it has been that long) and if there was a cake to celebrate that then the various GTIs would be the cherries on top. Not sure if that last sentence makes any sense but you get the picture. The GTI models we’re looking at here were launched in 2019 as part of the then-new Mk8 Golf range.
Like the Mk5, the Mk8 was a more significant departure from the usual ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ mentality that had underpinned Golf iterations down the years. It did use the same MQB platfiorm as the Mk 7, which was a pretty good car, but the 8’s body panels were all new, with a compressed, bladed grille, a more clamshelly bonnet and slitty LED lights. There was no three-door option but good advances were made in refinement, safety and driving dynamics. You got a digital dash, and as usual there was a powertrain for every occasion - but on the downside, the non-speedy models could feel a bit soulless and cost-cutting in the cabin materials and design made you wonder about the hoisted prices.
Still, the Golf was still a safe and steady no-brainer choice for many buyers, yet it was also true that quite a few of the rivals that had been playing catchup with the Golf for years were now at least equal to it, even in the Golf’s traditional heartland of perceived/actual quality. And as those who did buy it found out, there was another annoying drawback to the Mk8, which we’ll get into later.
First though let’s zoom in on the GTI that, along with the Clubsport, is the main subject of this guide. Under the standard GTI bonnet was the time-served EA888 2.0 turbo engine, rated here at 245hp/273lb ft, the same output as the Mk7 GTI Performance and a modest 25hp/11lb ft up on the non-Performance spec Mk7.
The Clubsport was given a new turbocharger, a bigger intercooler and a new, revvier map to lift its numbers to 300hp/292lb ft. What it wasn’t given, unlike the Mk7 Clubsport, was the option of a manual gearbox (which you did get with the normal Mk8 GTI), but with the fast-changing seven-speed DSG twin-clutch auto in place, the Mk8 Clubsport’s mid-five second 0-62mph time eased the pain. The regular DSG GTI needed 6.2 seconds for it.
VW released a limited edition ’45’ version of the Clubsport in 2021 to celebrate the GTI’s 45th anniversary. It came with an Akrapovic exhaust, a top speed delimited to 166mph, and 19-inch wheels fitted with Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport tyres.
In early 2024 £22.5k was the entry-level price for a 2020 Mk8 Golf GTI with under 40,000 miles, with the base price for Clubsports being around £5k more than that. These prices might seem high but the Mk8 GTIs were expensive when they were new, putting them at the mercy of substantially more affordable – and arguably superior – super-hatches like the Honda Civic Type R.
SPECIFICATION | VOLKSWAGEN GOLF MK8 GTI / CLUBSPORT (2019-on)
Engine: 1,984cc inline turbo four petrol 16v
Transmission: 6-speed manual or 7-speed twin-clutch auto, front-wheel drive
Power (hp): 245@5,000-6,500rpm (300@5,300-6,500rpm)
Torque (lb ft): 273@1,600-4,300rpm (295@2,000-5,200rpm)
0-62mph (secs): 6.2 DSG, 6.4 man (5.6 DSG)
Top speed (mph): 155
Weight (kg): 1,448 (1,471)
MPG (WLTP): 37.2-40.4 (37.7-38.7)
CO2 (g/km): 160 (166)
Wheels (in): 7.5 x 18
Tyres: (225/40)
On sale: 2015 - 2023
Price new: £33,460 (£34,960 DSG)/£37,215 (C’sport is DSG only)
Price now: from £22,500
Data in brackets relates to Clubsport
Note for reference: car weight and power data is hard to pin down with absolute certainty. For consistency, we use the same source for all our guides. We hope the data we use is right more often than it’s wrong. Our advice is to treat it as relative rather than definitive.
ENGINE & GEARBOX
Volkswagen had been playing catchup on its Golf GTI power outputs ever since the outlandishly feeble 115hp Mk3. Some thought that they still hadn’t got there with the Mk8 which was putting out an unspectacular-sounding 245hp at a time when the opposition – Focus ST, i30N, Mégane RS – were all easily into the 270hp+ bracket. The Civic Type R produced comfortably over 300hp from an engine with basically the same capacity and induction method as the Golf’s 2.0 turbo four. And all these cars were cheaper than the Volkswagen.
The thing is, a good drive isn’t just about good numbers. If you really needed big power in your Golf GTI the Clubsport delivered it (300hp and 295lb ft) but the standard GTI’s 245hp married to a new-found efficiency in transmitting it to the road (which we’ll talk about in the next section) went a surprisingly long way towards helping you forget about its perceived power shortfall. Higher fuel injection pressures, new injectors and a mysterious new combustion process gave the 245hp EA888 a new keenness to rev to 6,800rpm and there was a goodly amount of low-end shove too. It was a fine powertrain for real-world driving.
The twin round tailpipes were moved out into positions that were nearer to the car’s corners. Not sure if that was a visual improvement but the sound coming out of them wasn’t, despite the presence of a new actuator. It could get quite droney on the motorway.
A six-speed manual gearbox was available for the new GTI, though not for the Clubsport. The very small number of manual GTIs sold – DSGs outnumber them by about 20 to 1 in the classifieds – shows you how well-regarded the DSG auto was by this time. DSG boxes hadn’t been issue-free for quite a while, and some selector codes are still being thrown here and there on Mk8s but the biggest faults had been ironed out by the time this new GTI came out.
New GTI buyers might have been missing a trick in not choosing the manual because it was a nice box and some early DSG Mk8 GTIs did generate a degree of shunting when pottering around town. The steering wheel paddles were kind of small too, which was odd considering the fact the Golf R had longer, more user-friendly ones. The DSG auto on the Clubsport had a lower final drive ratio than the DSG on the straight GTI.
Manual gearshift knobs have been known to come off. Timing chains for the TSI engines once had a reputation for premature snapping, but sticking to the service schedule (and keeping an eye on the oil consumption, which can be high in these engines) greatly reduced the likelihood of that happening.
CHASSIS
The Mk8 was still on the MQB platform but it benefited from electronic chassis upgrades, principally VDM (Vehicle Dynamics Manager) which sped up the car’s reactions and, in a happy partnership with the XDS electronically-controlled diff lock, brought a new level of scrabble-free tidiness when you weren’t behaving yourself behind the wheel.
DCC adaptive dampers were an option. At £785 that was a box well worth ticking because the passive dampers could feel unyielding on busted-up urban roads. The Mk8 was certainly firmer than the Mk7 but on the upside it also seemed sharper on the turn-in than its predecessor.
VW said the Mk8 GTI was 4 seconds faster around its two-mile test track than the Mk7 GTI Performance. 19-inch wheels were a visually nice upgrade at £825, but of course putting bigger wheels on any car set up for smaller ones generally reduces ride plushness.
The Clubsport sat 15mm lower than the regular GTI (although there was no difference between the ride height of a DCC-equipped car and one that wasn’t). It also had a racier amount of negative camber on the front, where there were bigger brake discs (357mm, up from 340mm). Brake action and feel was excellent in both cars. Clubsport steering went from lock to lock in a smidge over two turns, there were new control arm mounts at the rear and the electronically controlled limited-slip differential allowed some tyre slip on hard starts, but the steering wasn’t as good as the rest of the chassis.
The DCC dampers came with their own unique calibration that included a ‘Nürburgring’ mode that worked surprisingly well on British roads. The configurable Individual drive mode offered no less than 15 damper stiffness settings, which was perhaps overkill and the selection process was frustratingly time-consuming, but in the hard-to-quantify area of feel, like-for-like there was clear water between the regular GTI and the Clubsport. The Clubsport did feel more sharply focused.
The Clubsport’s harder hit of power wasn’t always what you wanted in cold and/or wet conditions however when the Bridgestone Potenza tyres struggled to serve up sufficient grip, but there were rewards to be had for drivers who were prepared to put the effort into understanding where its limits were. VW’s test drivers were fully prepared to do just that and found that the Clubsport was 13 seconds quicker around the ‘Ring than the normal GTI, albeit on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres. The Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport tyres fitted to the Clubsport 45 are not held in high regard.
BODYWORK
Ten individual LED foglights in the honeycomb section of the bumper plus a full-width LED light bar over the top of the headlamp units and through the grille gave the GTI some useful visual distinction over the rest of the Golf range.
The Clubsport had its own bespoke big-vent front bumper along with a larger rear wing and more extreme sill extensions, an aero package that was said to reduce lift at the cost of slightly increasing drag – not an issue unless your commute involved unlimited sections of autobahn, which they generally wouldn’t in the UK.
There was a recall to sort out possibly faulty crash sensors in the front doors for the airbag and restraint systems.
INTERIOR
The GTI cabin felt solid even if some of the plastics reflected a continuing reduction in the quality of the materials Volkswagen was using in its vehicles. Still, you got stainless steel pedals, a fat leather steering wheel and grippy standard seats with newly integrated headrests to mark the GTI out from the common Golf hordes. There wasn’t much in the cabin to mark out the Clubsport from the GTI though.
Right, there’s no point putting it off any longer, we need to talk about the central screen. It’s fair to say that the MIB3 software-based setup that made its debut on the Mk8 Golf (and the ID.3) did not get the warmest of welcomes. Nobody was expecting the laborious menu hierarchy, bonkers absence of backlighting for the volume and temp slider controls, the absence of physical knobs, the lagginess, bugginess and generally poor useability.
The need to lean forward in your seat and concentrate on something other than the road to do, well, pretty much anything useful was annoying to put it mildly. To put it less mildly, natural human interactions were turned into unnatural and potentially dangerous challenges. The drive mode button was stupidly titchy too.
Even Volkswagen, a firm not renowned for its humility, had to own up to the Mk8’s operational failings. In a remarkably honest comment made when he was chatting about the next (Mk9) Golf, VW’s head of technical development Kai Grünitz promised that they ‘would not be bringing any car to the road like you’ve seen with the (Mk 8) Golf and ID.3 with thousands of faults’.
Mk8 screens have been slow to boot up and have blanked out. Quite a few owners have experienced amber triangle warnings and insistent pingings to tell them that the Travel Assist, SOS, lane departure and auto emergency braking systems weren’t working. When it happened the only way to stop the pinging was to pull over, switch the engine off and switch it on again. Diagnostic readers might clear the codes but only temporarily. Fortunately, the problem was acknowledged by VW and the dealer solution was a new steering wheel, usually fitted free under warranty, although at least one owner whose car was out of warranty was quoted nearly £2k for the new wheel.
On some cars wireless CarPlay would stop if a phone was plugged in for charging, or the phone wouldn’t automatically connect via Bluetooth, or the radio wouldn’t start up, or not all the apps would be available, the most regular absentees being Spotify and Google Maps. Other cars had over-zealous proximity sensors that would slam the brakes on when (for example) reversing out of pitched driveways or when there was nothing in front other than a bump in the road. That was a software issue.
There was a recall to sort out a non-functioning e-call facility. One UK car’s headlights randomly defaulted to an LHD pattern. That car, and others, also had incorrect speeds coming up on the display. Some screens gave you warnings for schools, narrow roads and the like when there were none. The electronics generally are likely to give you the occasional headache, but that’s hardly unique in the car world these days.
To be fair VW hasn’t waited for the 9 to come out before starting to try and put things right. Early looks at the recently released 2024MY Golf 8.5 suggest that real improvements have been made in patching up the 8’s gammy software. The human interface is still touchscreen-based but the new MIB4 software should give it snappier responses, faster-access climate controls and a new ability to generate your own ‘commonly used’ icons on the 10.4-inch or 12.9-inch screens. Some seat bases have developed squeaks, usually another warranty fix. Others have had rattles from the dash when driving over rough ground.
PH VERDICT
The Golf has been satisfying millions of motorists worldwide for fifty years. In the realm of cars named after sports, the Polo did all right too, but you do wonder if VW would have had the same success with a Football, Cricket, Curling or Donkey Basketball (save yourself the bother of looking that one up, it’s real).
None of that matters. Although it’s fair to say that the Golf is now struggling to maintain its aura as a quality car for the masses – the Mk8 came near the bottom of the family car class in a well-known reliability survey, and VW finished in the bottom third of manufacturers – the name certainly hasn’t held the car back, and half a century’s worth of thoughtful evolution means that the current Mk8 GTI also remains entirely relevant.
PH’s own Nic C described it as the scatter cushion of cars, designed to be chucked anywhere to pleasing effect. As a used car, it will do a fine job for anyone needing a practical 5-door hatch that’s quick but not manic. That can be an important distinction. Keeping a low profile has always been part of the Golf proposition. Not everyone wants shouty graphics or overblown body kits on their performance cars.
Irrespective of the model, Volkswagen has always known how to charge for the Golf experience. At launch, even the lower-rated GTI was nearly £3,000 more than the 60hp more powerful Honda Civic Type R. The price gap between that GTI and the Renaultsport Megane RS300 was even wider. Proving some sort of superiority against either of those would be hard. It would be less hard in the Clubsport, but then again some of us shallower types might think that it wasn’t sufficiently attention-grabbing for its £37k asking price.
The Clubsport was the best Golf GTI but it wasn’t the best hot hatch. To give it more ammo in that firefight Litchfield did a stage 2 400bhp/390lb ft Clubsport in 2023. Although it was hugely quick on the right track (i.e. not a wet one) it cost just under £4,000 for the under-bonnet gear and just over £3,000 for the optional adjustable Nitron suspension. You could be well over £45k by the time you’d finished and still possibly wondering what that sort of investment might have given you in the Honda.
The problems with driver aid and comfort electronics that we’ve highlighted here seem to be part of a tiresome industry-wide trend. Some owners who got so fed up with their GTIs that they were thinking of starting rejection claims were offered compensatory lump-sum rebates on their lease costs. Quite a few preferred compo to rejection because they liked the core vehicle so much, which makes it such a shame that good cars can be blighted in this way. It would be interesting to know where the car companies are sourcing their electronics. In the meantime, we’ll just make our usual suggestion of making sure that the battery is in tip-top nick at all times as even a small dropoff in condition can trigger all sorts of nonsense.
DSG-transmission GTIs outnumber the manuals on the used market by a factor of around 20 to 1. The most affordable DSG on PH Classifieds in February 2024 was this red 2020 car with 68,000 miles at £18,998 but for an extra £1,000 you get could get a pretty much identical car but with less than half the mileage. There’s a lot of choice in the sub-£25k bracket, including this 8,000-miler at £23,700.
The cheapest Clubsport on PH Classifieds was this 25,000-mile car at £27,470. If, for you, it’s a manual or nothing, the cheapest three-pedal car on PH as of the end of February ’24 was this 2021 example with just over 30,000 miles on it at £25,995. There were a couple of zero-miles manuals on PH too, at very close to £40k each.
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