Volkswagen Golf R Review 2024

The Volkswagen Golf R aims to be the master of all trades. It'll beat sports cars away from the lights and along twisty roads while still aiming to be practical, useable everyday transport. The latest model adds more power and technology in the mix, and our VW Golf R review will see if the all-rounder can actually excite. 

The old Volkswagen Golf R certainly had its fans. It held widespread appeal amongst young car enthusiasts with a bit of money who wanted something more impressive than the usual Ford Fiesta ST, or even a VW Golf GTI. 

Much like fast Fords of the early nineties, it also developed a reputation as a car highly sought after by thieves. Hugely fast, four-wheel drive, discreet and with space for all your partners in crime, there isn't many better getaway cars. Small wonder undercover traffic cops started getting them too; if you can't beat them, join them. 

Anyway, the new Golf R joins an ever increasing number of four-wheel drive hot hatches vying for the same level of success. Key rivals include the BMW M135i, Audi S3, Mercedes-AMG A35 and Cupra Leon 310 Estate - and although it shares much with the Audi and Cupra, it has more power and an even more trick four-wheel drive system. It even gets a 'Drift' mode. 

You also get 320PS from a highly tuned 2.0-litre turbocharged engine, which combined with limpet-like grip means it's much faster off-the-line than even the Clubsport version of the Golf GTI. Another key selling point is that you can buy a Golf R Estate - you can't buy a GTI Estate. 

Bespoke styling inside and out - including big wheels, unique trims and figure-hugging sports seats - help mark it out as something a bit more special than the norm. But has it lost some of the subtlety of the old car? We'll let you be the judge of that. You'll certainly pay a premium for that R badge, too - you can easily spend £50,000 on a Golf by raiding the extensive options list. 

For all intents and purposes the Golf R offers as much space inside as a regular Volkswagen Golf, unsurprisingly. That means it's pretty roomy overall, but not a class-leader in the way that, say, a Skoda Octavia vRS is. 

Up front there's plenty of space for adults of all shapes and sizes. The driving position is comfortable and widely adjustable - although the seat doesn't go low enough for our liking - and the seats themselves hug you in the right places without being too restrictive for wider drivers. You also get adjustable lumbar support as standard.

In the back things are less accommodating, but two good-sized adults can still get pretty comfortable. Head and legroom is good but not exceptional. We'd recommend speccing the optional Winter Pack, which for a reasonable £670 nets you a heated wheel, front and outer rear heated seats and three-zone climate control, with a control panel mounted on the back of the front centre armrest for rear passengers. 

The VW Golf R's boot space is 374-litres, which is a mere seven litres less than the standard Golf on account of the four-wheel drive system. It's about on a par with an S3 and BMW M135i, but some way short of the Honda Civic Type R, for example. 

If that's not enough space, the VW Golf R Estate offers up 611 litres of boot space, making it a very practical and useable daily driver that can also serve as the weekend sports car. We actually prefer the styling of the estate, too. 

In terms of exterior dimensions the Volkswagen Golf R is 4,263mm long, 1,465mm tall and 1,799mm wide.  That's very slightly longer than the standard car (the chunkier bumpers see to that) but the same width and a lower height due to the lower suspension. 

The VW Golf R offers a generally good level of fit and finish. Nothing feels as if it'll fall off or break easily, there's no unsightly panel gaps and the materials are - for the most part - nice enough.  

Despite that, the same issues that the standard Mk8 Golf suffers from still exist. It's simply not quite as upmarket as the previous-generation Golf, with a few harder plastics and less neat details, while rivals have caught up in that respect. 

This is more apparent in the Golf R given its high price. Sure, you get a nice sports steering wheel and some Alcantara bolsters, but the carbon effect trim on the dash isn't all that pleasant, the gearshift paddles are plasticky and the patterned cloth upholstery for the standard R seats looks like it came out of a 1990s National Express coach.

The Volkswagen Golf R's infotainment is much like that of a regular Golf, although there is some bespoke menus for the drive mode settings - including a customisable individual mode - and special R displays for the digital dials. 

The touchscreen and haptic touch controls remain a bone of contention. The 10-inch screen itself is clear, bright and responds reasonably well. But there's unnecessary complexity - for example if you want to activate launch control in the Golf R (and you will, because you've bought a Golf R) you need to go deep into the car's settings to disable the stability control. Why it isn't just one button or icon we don't know...

What's more, the haptic touch controls are a pain. The fiddly volume and temperature sliders below the screen aren't backlit, so they're useless at night, while unlike the regular Golf you can't avoid the touch-sensitive wheel buttons. These are frustrating to use, and you often accidentally activate something while driving. 

Prices for the Volkswagen Golf R start at £42,895 all-in (including tax). You'll need £44,535 for the estate version, and that's before you raid the extensive options list. 

If that sounds like a massive amount of money for 'just' a Golf, it is. But remember this is a Golf that can out-accelerate and grip sports cars costing twice the price, yet also cruise along efficiently and comfortably with the family in tow. It's also a good £12k-£20k less than an Audi RS 3 Sportback, depending on which trim you go for in the Audi. 

Regardless, there are some options that really should be standard at this price point. Things like heated front seats, a head-up display, adaptive dampers, voice control and even a rear-view camera are on the options list - many of which you'll find as standard on hot hatches costing a fair bit less. 

Regardless of whether you opt for the hatchback or the estate VW Golf R, its official combined fuel consumption figure is 36.2mpg. In our experience you'll easily achieve that with a light right foot on a steady high-speed run, which is useful. 

Of course you don't buy a Golf R to hypermile it, so it's also worth noting that you can lop at least 10mpg off that figure if you start actually using the performance. A bigger sting in the tail is the £945 you'll need to shell out for the first year's road tax (VED) because of its relatively high emissions. 

The Golf R's insurance group of 32 is high but not drastically so. Due to its reputation as a target for criminals you might find high insurance premiums depending on where you live, however. 

In an objective sense the Volkswagen Golf R ticks all the boxes. The caveat with that is our test cars were fitted with the Dynamic Chassis Control (VW speak for adaptive dampers) which give it an impressive spread between comfort and sharpness. 

Keep the multi-stage dampers towards the comfort end of the dial and the Golf R does a good job of isolating you from potholes and speed bumps. On the bigger 19-inch wheels of our test car it will thump harshly over really big rural craters, and there is quite a bit of road roar, but the same is true of all the R's rivals. 

On the motorway the Golf R is really refined and, for the most part, you forget you're in VW's fastest model. But start playing with the drive modes and stiffening the suspension and you awaken its other side. 

There's masses of grip, and you'll struggle to unstick the R even if you're brutal with turn-in. The steering is direct, the body control is tight and (unlike the old Golf R) you'll even feel the rear wheels pushing the back of the car around the bend thanks to a trick torque-vectoring four-wheel drive system.

You can also spec a Performance Pack on the Golf R which, as well as adding a wing, 19-inch wheels and raising the top speed to 168mph also adds two new modes: Drift mode, which shoves a load of power to the rear outside wheel for semi-convincing slides (irrelevant on the road) and a 'Special' mode which sets the car up for the bumpy Nurburgring circuit in Germany. The latter actually works really well on UK roads.

Our one reservation is a subjective one. The Golf R is so capable, and so quick, that you have to be driving far too quickly for the road to find its limits and feel engaged. In a weird way, it might be a more enjoyable car to drive if it was slower and less grippy. Either way, it can't match the Honda Civic Type R for outright fun.

Every Volkswagen Golf R is powered by a 320PS version of the 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine you'll find in many other VW Group performance cars. 

Interestingly it's actually a bit more powerful than the supposedly more premium Audi S3. 0-62mph officially takes 4.7 seconds in the hatch and 4.9 seconds in the estate. But we reckon VW is being conservative, and many testers have recorded much better times. Why do this? To make the Audi RS3 seem faster and worth the extra cash. 

Regardless, Golf R is a monster off-the-line, and in gear pace is pretty incredible. But it'll cruise quietly and slurs gearshifts smoothly at low speeds. Enthusiasts will lament that the only gearbox option is a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, but a manual wouldn't really suit the way to Golf R goes about its business anyway.

There are two key issues with the engine, however. The first is how lazy its responses can be lower down the rev range. This is partly caused by a new petrol particulate filter that increases turbo lag. The second problem is the noise, which isn't very characterful at all regardless of which sound mode you have it in. 

The standard VW Golf has the maximum five stars from Euro NCAP, and there's no reason for the Golf R to be any less safe. 

There's a huge amount of standard safety kit, including autonomous emergency braking and Front Assist, adaptive cruise control, traffic sign recognition, lane assist and a driver fatigue monitor. There's also a system called 'Car2X' which uses the car's data connection to 'communicate' with the road infrastructure to warn of hazards ahead. That'll get even cleverer in future. 

Few people are going to be towing anything in their Golf R, but with a braked towing limit of 1,700kg it would actually do a decent job if you chose to. 

As standard the Volkswagen Golf R comes with 18-inch alloy wheels, unique R styling, ambient exterior lighting and IQ Matrix LEDX headlamps, a laminated acoustic windscreen, cloth sports seats, cabin ambient lighting, stainless steel pedals, a leather-wrapped heated sports steering wheel, progressive steering, sat-nav, a digital dial display, wireless phone charging and climate control.