What Car? Q&A - Which should I choose: Golf or Astra?

Q: I have £8800 to spend and have my eye on a five-door 54-reg Astra Sport 1.7 CDTi diesel with 10,500 miles on the clock or a three-door 53-reg Golf 1.4 Match petrol with 20,000 miles under its belt.

Both have all the equipment I need and it doesn’t matter if it’s a three- or a five-door. I cover around 25,000 miles a year, largely on a 200-mile motorway commute, and want to keep the car for at least four years.

Should I go for the petrol or the diesel? Is the Astra better because it’s newer, or would the Volkswagen better?
Phil Hartley

A: As the cars are the same price, the diesel looks like the better option for you. Its improved economy (57mpg on the combined cycle compared with 40mpg) means you can expect to save around £645 over your 25,000-mile year. This will help to offset the Golf’s superior resale values.

With more pulling power, the diesel should also be better suited to life on the motorway, requiring less frequent gearshifts.

The difference in age and mileage isn’t really that great, so probably won’t have any significant impact on likely future reliability. Without inspecting a car, it’s impossible to say if there might be problems, so have it professionally inspected by someone such as the RAC if you’re worried (020 8917 2601).

Vauxhall doesn’t tend to do as well as Volkswagen in reliability reports but there’s not a great deal in it.

Also, there’s little between the cars in JD Power’s customer satisfaction surveys, published exclusively in the UK by Whatcar.com. You can see how both models fared in the small cars section of the report.