.
I respect a point of view about residuals, Andrew, but I think that many of us choose a car simply because it's love at first sight. Just like choosing girlfriends/wives/partners, our choices aren't cold and rational.
(Sent from my iPad @ JKM)
Why i respect your outlook and the stage of your life (no offence of course RR) we are not all in a similar position to you. Many of us use our cars as a primary means of transport to and from work.
We have to simply factor in things such as milage/usage/maintenence/running cost etc and part of that means knowing that your newly purchased asset will not depreciate like a vauxhall/alfa etc. While these brands tend to cushion the blow somewhat by fancy looking finance deals... for those paying cash its important to keep an eye on these things. With a Golf you know your money is safe.
Which is why despite some people considering the other brands 'better value' the golf still outsells them all.
This is an excellent point; as a family we tend to keep our cars for longer than 3 years, anyway (except for my brother, whose Mini Cooper and Mk5 GTi had reliability issues), so maybe my viewpoint is skewed. In the longer run, it works out better financially, and with the build quality of VW not being what it once was, I just think that should also be taken into account when comparing.
What I was mainly comparing the Golf to wasn't the Alfa (that was merely the subject of a post or two), but the premium German cars which are closer to the Golf than one might hope for, or expect, and in almost every field you mentioned, they're safer bets if you are buying a well-specified car (sensors, sat nav, leather).
We've been looking at the market so we can buy a car for my sister, and she will need those three options, and wants 17" wheels.
The extra £800 or so is a bargain for what is a gorgeous car with the nicest interior in the class. At that price differential, we immediately discarded the Mk6 Golf.
