Volkswagen Golf IV 2.3 V5 

I've owned twelve cars in the last 15 years, some of them old run arounds, some of them brand new performance cars....... in fact, my very first car after passing my test was a Volkswagen Golf.

The first car in my household is a brand new performance car.....so we decided that the second car should be a bit more 'sensible', but something that would still have power as I do a lot of motorway driving.

We decided that a Volkswagen Golf would be a good option as we wanted reliability and we knew that for a small car, the Golf has an excellent amount of boot space. The rear seats fold flat giving more space if needed..... in fact, we fitted two mountain bikes in the back of the car last week.

There is no denying the car has power and is fun to drive......it's got a huge 2.3 engine. That said, there are occasions when the engine seems almost too big for the car. When you hit high speeds on the motorway, the car seems to judder slightly.......as if the small outershell can't quite cope with the huge engine.

As for reliability, we've had a few things go wrong with car already, but nothing major......and these have all been covered under the Volkswagen warrentee.

The major downside of the car is fuel consumption. It runs on unleaded and with such a huge engine...............my average is 29 miles per gallon........so not very economical. The other downside of the Golfs is that the dash board looks very basic.

I am thinking of selling the car shortly and will probably get something like the Golf 1.9 TDI. Economical and diesels today are so well made that they don't lose any of the power and are a lot quieter.