Long-term Golf VII is a winner

As we told you at the end of last month, we have welcomed a VW Golf 7 1.4 TSI Comfortline into our long term test fleet at The Citizen. Not only does the VW Gold celebrate 40 years, the car we are driving is also Europe’s “Car of the Year 2013.” And this renowned international “Car of the Year” Award is deemed one of the most important barometers in the automotive industry.

The vote for ‘Car of the Year’ is one of the oldest and most renowned in Europe. The best new cars have been given prizes annually since 1964. The panel of judges, consisting of 58 automotive journalists from 22 countries, nominated eight cars for the final run. The finalists were compared and evaluated during the last few months under a broad range of criteria, such as fuel efficiency, comfort, safety, driving properties, functionality, design and technological progress.

The car in second place received a score of 202 points – a massive difference – and goes some way to explaining why the car is at the top end of the sales charts in SA and impresses us just as much.

The new Golf, which was launched in South Africa in 2013, has been hugely successful. Its weight has been reduced by up to 100kg, which has resulted in improved fuel economy by almost 23% depending on the engine. In addition, the seventh generation Golf features a new range of standard and optional assistance systems in its class.

To put this fuel economy statement into perspective, our particular long term test car arrived with 2 530km on the clock and has covered 3 375km at the time of writing this update while only consuming 236.02 litres of fuel. This means the car is averaging a very good all round figure of 6.99 litres per 100km and costing only R0.99 per kilometre to run.

Our Volkswagen Golf 1.4 TSI Comfortline with BlueMotion Technology produces a very perky feeling 90kW of power at 5000rpm and a pleasant 200Nm of torque from 1500 to 4000rpm while running the slick shifting seven-speed DSG transmission.

We have as few options fitted like, Light Assist R1 050, Leather Seats R11 250, Panoramic Sunroof R9 000, Media in with iPod adapter R850, Park Distance Control R3 050, Bi-Xenon Headlights R11 500 and Composition Media Radio R4 200 which add to the price that has gone from R300 500 to

R307 700 in the few months we have had the car.

VW claim that the 1.4 TSI can get from 0-100km/h in 9.3 sec while stopping at 203km/h. We will test these figures and bringing you the results at the end of June.