Volkswagen Golf GTI 2025 Review

The 2025 Volkswagen Golf GTI 8.5 rises in price by $2900 to $58,990 plus on-road costs (ORCs).

It was only as far back as 2018 that you could buy a Golf GTI for under $40,000, so it has certainly climbed significantly in price.

Mind you, that was a three-door manual and both those choices no longer exist. These days in Australia the Golf GTI is a single five-door hot hatch with a 2.0-litre turbo-petrol engine and a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox driving the front wheels.

In the hot hatch world, it’s middle ground for value. The Honda Civic Type R is over $74,000 drive-away, the Toyota GR Corolla GTS is in the high $60Ks, while the Hyundai i30N is bang on $50,000 and the Subaru WRX still starts below $50,000.

There are other less obvious threats to consider like the Cupra Leon VZx – a high-performance Golf by another name – and even oddities like the electric MG4 XPower.

The GTI sits in the heart of an expanded Golf 8.5 line-up.

Key mechanical changes include a 15kW bump in power to 195kW (torque stays the same at 370Nm), plus revised suspension, steering and limited-slip differential tunes.

Standard GTI exterior equipment now includes 19-inch alloys (up from 18s fitted to the 8.0), redesigned LED headlights and bumpers and a light strip and illuminated VW badge in the nose.

Inside there’s a new 12.9-inch infotainment touchscreen (up from 10.0 inches) and the steering wheel regains physical buttons. Park Assist Plus – which adds automated gear selection, accelerator and brake assistance for parking bay and parallel parking – is now standard.

Other GTI equipment includes nine airbags, keyless access, tri-zone climate control with rear seat vents, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto wireless connectivity, wireless phone charging, satellite navigation, voice assist, a customisable digital instrument panel and 30-colour ambient lighting.

Metallic paint (although premium metallic adds $300) is standard and – hooray – so is a spare tyre. Sure, it’s temporary but it’s better than nothing. Stuff that’s missing includes traffic sign recognition and automatic SOS calling. Features such as these are coming to some models as part of VW technology and connected car upgrades being rolled out progressively.

GTI options include a $1900 sunroof, $2000 sound and vision package that includes a 360-degree camera and Harmon Kardon audio and a $3900 leather package.

The Volkswagen Golf range comes protected by a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, 24-hour roadside assistance and servicing every 12 months/15,000km.

There is an “assured” price servicing plan that averages out at a hefty $829 for your first five paying visits to the dealer workshop. You can get a bit of a discount on that if you pay for up to five services up front.

One of the great things Volkswagens have done for many years is make the driver feel instantly at home and comfortable.

It’s maybe waned a little bit in some models as cost-cutting has impinged on cabin materials quality, but it’s not noticeable in the 2025 Volkswagen Golf GTI.

It’s a car where the seats are comfortable and supportive, the steering wheel is adjustable in the right way and surfaces have a look and softness that suggests this is a premium vehicle.

Then you drive it and the whole thing just makes sense – especially if the roads you are driving it on are winding and varied. Then it really comes into its own.

The latest iteration of the EA888 engine is a fizzing, sharply responsive thing that provides enough urge to be enjoyable without being overwhelming or intimidating.

The 5.9-second 0-100km/h time captures that balance nicely. It’s quick enough to get your attention without being exotic.

Allied with that sharp-shifting dual-clutch gearbox – operated manually only by steering wheel paddles – it’s a genuine joy to operate.

It even sounds slightly better thanks to some exhaust retuning.

But it’s the chassis where there’s been an even more noticeable upgrading of performance.

Generation 8.0 was a significant honing of the GTI’s focus and 8.5 takes it even further, with stiffer front and rear springs, refettled adaptive dampers, quicker progressive (or variable ratio) steering and a tighter electrically actuated limited-slip diff (supported by torque vectoring).

It all means the GTI feels sharper turning into a corner and then grips prodigiously throughout its arc. Yet it’s also happy to adjust its line mid-corner – wider or narrower, depending on what’s required.

It does it without fuss and with involvement and communication.

It’s the joy of the GTI. So easy to settle into and so good at its job.

The other stuff surrounding it, like the return of physical buttons on the steering wheel and the attempt to improve the touchscreen, are of secondary importance by comparison.

But at least they are a genuine attempt at improvement, if still complex (haptic sliders are retained, for instance). Happily, there are tutorial pages.

The standard tartan cloth trim is a nice continuation of tradition. You can option leather but I’m unsure why you’d do it.

The downside of sharpening the 2025 Volkswagen Golf GTI is a reduction in ride comfort.

But the GTI has always been one of the most comfortable everyday hot hatches, so even a downgrade in ride quality doesn’t make it bad in comparison with its rivals.

Set in sport mode, it’s notable the adaptive dampers inject a bit more bobbling into the cabin. But that’s okay, you can live with that considering the positive handling trade-off. 

What’s more obvious and less acceptable is the crash and bash through sharp-edged potholes and laterals such as substantial road joins, which inject real shock and noise into the cabin.

The stiffer baseline set-up and the larger wheels probably don’t help here.

The GTI does come with a pretty complex drive mode matrix called a Vehicle Dynamics Manager, which allows 15 tunes of the adaptive dampers. Maybe more tuning using this device would help here.

The GTI is also not friendly to taller passengers in the rear seat. A 180cm passenger sitting behind a 180cm driver is going to be extremely limited for legroom.

There are plenty of small vehicles that do a better job of accommodating rear seat passengers than this.

I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the 2025 Volkswagen Golf GTI 8.5.

A yet more expensive fettling of what has come before didn’t sound inspiring on paper.

But the GTI retains that ability to charm from the moment you slide behind the steering wheel.

Sure, it’s a sharper, tougher and more costly GTI, but it’s also a better GTI – and definitely still worthy of our respect and desire.

2025 Volkswagen Golf GTI at a glance:
Price: $58,990 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol
Output: 195kW/370Nm
Transmission: dual clutch automatic
Fuel: 7.2L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 167g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Five stars (ANCAP 2022)

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