Prius over Golf TDI? Mixed feelings

^^^Prius_06 and Sagebrush, You should get the recalls done if you haven't already.

 

To the people who think the prius is fun to drive...man you have to get out more, hands down the worse handling car i've ever owned. The longer I own my prius the more I hate it, the rattles are driving me crazy. It is the first and last Toyota I will ever own, I don't see the quality over any of the other brands. Get the Golf if you enjoy driving even in the least way. Get the Prius if all you care about is getting the best gas mileage.

 

Sorry to hear about Walter592's experience. Further to Prius 06--and despite me maintaining it's an appliance--the handling actually is not bad at all, it doesn't feel wobbly around corners, certainly no more than one would expect in a midsize of this price. But that's "for what it is". It is a utilitarian car first so it will never handle like a Miata. Or a Civic SI or M3, etc.

 

no way I'd buy the Golf TDI

Buy a VW or cars from brands and/or models w/poor long-term reliability in Consumer Reports. That'll change your tune.

To the OP, VW's poor track record of building consistently reliable cars is what would rule out the Golf immediately for me. The worse mileage in all measures of the Golf TDI coupled w/diesel being more expensive much of the year will make the Golf TDI much more expensive to fuel.

You can see current averages at Daily Fuel Gauge Report--national, state and local average prices for gasoline, diesel and E-85.. http://www.eia.doe.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=9&t=5 add says:

Since someone mentioned Toyota's 2 years (or 25K miles) of "free" maintenance, it's not a regional thing. See http://www.toyota.com/toyota-care/?srchid=K610_p339335858.

The OP mentioned lifetime oil changes for the VW... even though they're "free" at service time, you're paying for it in the price of the car. The money has to come from somewhere.

 

I had a 2002 Golf TDI with a 5 speed manual, I had it about 3 years and averaged about 40 mpg around town and 48-50 mpg highway regardless of the season. there is FAR MORE maintenance to the VW, and TDI in particular than a Prius.

One thing that several TDI'ers did was after 3 years 50,000 miles they would pull the heads covers off the motor and scrape out the build up of carbon inside the heads.

the Golf TDI is a fun car to drive with tons of torque, I never noticed when the a/c kicked on. There is one area where the TDI will never equal or surpass the Prius is in being eco-friendly.

 

We also had an 02 TDI. Loved that car. Despite having much faster cars it never failed to put a smile on my face. Maintenance was not too bad but I suspect the Prius will be considerably less costly. My current Prius is a company car. It replaced a SRT8 Cherokee. I like fun cars and up until I had the opportunity to drive a Prius I was a loyal TDI Club Prius hater. In the last couple of weeks the Prius has done nothing but grow on me. I look forward to driving it every day. We’re even considering replacing my wife’s Mercedes with a Prius. The caveat is we have a tweaked Miata to drive to get our manual transmission speed thrills. As much as I have grown to love the Prius, if you can only have one car, and want it to be a driver’s car, get the TDI.

 

No thanks.

 

No, fair point. The car did have a steering column recall performed, I think in 2005. I ignored the silly mat and fuel pedal recalls.

 

I'll address just one issue that others are not mentioning:

How did you get this to be a major difference? I'm seeing the two choices as having similar enough highway range that it is a very minor factor. From fueleconomy.gov:

Golf: 14.5 gallons * 42 mpg highway = 609 miles
Prius: 11.9 gallons * 48 mpg highway = 571 miles.

All-highway, as you are planning, Prius' range is only 6% shorter. Mix in 20% city driving and Golf's range advantage is gone.

Otherwise, it seems that the intended market audiences are so different that relatively few buyers will be cross-shopping these choices.

 

I would figure the intended market audiences are pretty similar. Both are fuel efficient hatchbacks. Main differences are the Golf is sportier while the Prius is more fuel efficient.

 

I owned one VW in my life...that was enough.

Great cars to drive, fun as all get out, nice well built interiors, very expensive feeling without being expensive to buy. The maintenance and repairs though...unbelievable. Totally not worth it IMHO.

I bought tires online one time and had them put on at a local VW/Audi specific mechanic. I was talking to him about his shop and he said he chose VW because they needed so much maintenance and repair yet still had a loyal following, and the dealers were luxury-car expensive (they are) so he could charge more and still be cheaper. He told me to never buy one...I told him I had already had the pleasure and once was enough.

 

Interesting to see more than one person go from a monster to a Prius.

A guy at work as a VW Golf, has had it a few years with 40k. He's had no problems, loves it. But I know others do have problems and in a general sense the reliability of VW IS lower than a Prius, period point blank. This is very fairly represented in all of the larger statistical analysis (CR, JD Powers, truedelta).

Anecdotes are always fun. I knew a guy with a couple of old Audis and did all the work on them himself, still drives one and it's 20 years old as a daily driver. His wife had a Passat from the early 2000s and he says it's the worst vehicle they ever owned, could absolutely not say enough bad about it. On the other hand, I had a friend with an early GTI and that thing handled like it was on rails, it was a seriously tight drive.

 

I actually considered the VW vs. Prius as well. In my mind a lot depends on if you want to own or lease, if you intend to keep the car in the long run, reliability (and the cost and hassle of having to fix the car) starts to matter a lot. I tend to keep cars forever and the aggravation of the reliability issues matters a lot.. but if you're thinking about a lease for 2 or 3 years, who cares about long term reliability.. VW's are statistically less reliable, no doubt.

If you want a Golf .. get it now before they "de-content" (i.e. cheapen) it in the next generation (MY2012 I think). Unfortunately the US market generally drives OEMs to take out expensive features our of small cars that the majority of buyers don't notice. Honda took out the MacPherson out of the Civic. VW now makes a special "cheap" (hard plastic/non independent rear suspension) Jetta for the US market and the Golf is next to get this "treatment"

 

But even in 2,3 years...yeah you don't care about the cost of repairs but the hassle is still there.

The highlight to me was the time the 12V battery exploded because it was not a maintenance free battery (this was a 2000), and the dealer who had done all the service never added electrolytes to it...and I had never even seen a modern car without a maintenance free battery...and never thought to check the electrolytes myself.

Electrical gremlins (window switches that operated the door locks, gauges that would go crazy)...a gas tank that started to leak, all this with a dealer that charged what a BMW dealer charges for maintenance on a $20,000 car. Warranty was only 2 years 24k back then too, and it was a struggle to get things covered during that...

Never again.

 

FWIW, even though I recall older GM cars we had came w/maintenance free batteries, my 04 Nissan 350Z came w/a battery where you had to add water. I think my 02 Maxima also was that way but I don't have the car anymore and the original 12 volt went bad somewhere between the 1.5 and 3 year mark.

 

^^ if you drive 55-60 mph, you'll probably average closer to 55-60 MPG in the Prius. I've experienced this a few times on drives of 50 miles and I even went through major Thunderstorms once and maintained that. The drive is relatively flat and even includes a few stop lights along the way.

Even in the winter with snow tires, I'm averaging over 40 MPG and my typical drive is under 5 miles. I have the entire lower grille blocked and rarely turn on the heater. I think with your mostly highway drives and the speeds you mention, you won't lose nearly as much MPG as I do in winter.

Considering the MPG on both cars on the highway, the distance per tank shouldn't matter too much. So you might have to put fuel into the Prius a little more frequently, but in the end, that may cost you about 5 mins (time to stop the car, swipe card, leave). Either way, you still gotta pump fuel, and essentially the time required to do that is still the same regardless of how often you stop.