What We Learned After Testing a Volkswagen Golf GTI for 40,000 miles

Read more: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/... By now, most of us are quite familiar with the godfather of hot hatches. Always engaging and entertaining yet practical and rational, Volkswagen's Golf GTI has won us over time and again with the formula it introduced to the world nearly 50 years ago. Or maybe it's the GTI's non‑juvenile hot‑hatch persona—sans gaudy wing and shouty exhaust—that keeps us coming back for more. Either way, when the eighth‑generation GTI came out, we knew we needed one for a 40,000‑mile shakedown. In a rare show of restraint, we chose the $30,540 base model and added only one option: the humble Moonstone Gray paint for $395. More than $30,000 for a base GTI, you say? In a world where you can spend six figures on a Jeep Wrangler or a Ford F‑150, we consider it a bargain. Subscribe to Car and Driver http://bit.ly/SUBSCRIBEtoCARandDRIVER 00:00 Intro 00:50 What we got, what it cost 01:21 What we liked 05:32 What we didn't like 07:06 Fuel economy 07:45 Winter 08:48 Service, maintenance, and repairs 09:54 Tire wear 10:25 Recalls 10:45 Wrap-up