Volkswagen Golf GTD: month four

Summary

On fleet since: March 2012
Total mileage: 4,820 miles
Official combined mpg/CO2: 55.4mpg/134g/km
Actual mpg: 42.3mpg
Costs: One replacement windscreen

Read Volkswagen car reviews
First Drive: Volkswagen Golf GTD

Pros: Diesel muscle, uncomplicated practicality, standing up well to hard use
Cons: Diesel does sometimes make you long for higher-revving petrol performance

Where have I been?

It's a recurring concern that my monthly motoring life has been so terrifyingly dull that anyone reading the resulting long-term test report might be liable to sew themselves into a duvet cover and go for a hop along the M1 in desperate search of excitement. Not this month! It's all been going on.

Things got off to a bad start when the Golf GTD picked up a stone chip slap bang in the middle of its windscreen. It happened on the M25 on the way to Heathrow and it immediately didn't look like the kind of damage that was going to be easily shrugged off. Three tiny cracks began edging their way out from stone chip ground zero and by the time I was at Terminal 5 Business Parking, two of them had grown to a good 3cm.

Worse was to come. I was at the car park the next day and one crack was getting on for 10cm. Must have been the vibrations from all those 747s taking off. I managed to get the car home without further growth and Volkswagen arranged for a replacement screen. The man with the van who arrived showed me how to wire up the GTD's rain-sensor and pointed out how much lighter the windscreens are on modern cars. An old Vauxhall Vectra screen he had on the van must have been more than twice the weight.

Stone chip solved, the Golf was fit to act as camera car on our meeting between the Toyota GT-86 coupe and its 1980s forebear, the Toyota Corolla AE86 coupe (coming soon on MSN Cars). Both the Toyotas were live wires on the track but the Golf was the car being fought over for the drive home. It was camera carrying duties again on our Mercedes-Benz SLS Roadster shoot, but this time the £200k supercar's were the keys in demand.

Finally, Volkswagen's diesel hot hatch got its chance to step into the limelight. Our extreme fuel economy test set out to show how much difference how you drive and what you carry can make to fuel economy. The Golf GTD was the guinea pig. Like I said, it's been busy.

What do I like?

I liked the 62.8mpg that the GTD averaged over 53 miles of mixed driving on our extreme fuel economy test. Granted, I was taking it extremely smoothly to get the best possible returns, and could easily have been mistaken for a member of the clergy on that particular run, but it shows what you can do when you try.

We've also been appreciating the Golf's practical strengths in its role as camera car. It's not one of those family cars that shows off with its ingenious storage solutions or seats that twirl this way and that, but the boot can swallow a lot of kit and the rear seat backs fold down with reassuring solidity. Rear legroom is OK too and the interior isn't showing the kind of scuffs and scrapes that can accumulate with hard use. It just needs a bit of a hoover.

The GTD seems to shoulder heavy loads with some style. We crammed the boot and added a roof box but the car still behaved well on the road with only mild traces of stodginess, probably aided by its firm-ish suspension and all that torque.

What don't I like?

The 30.2mpg economy that the car returned on our 53-mile mixed driving route when heavily loaded and driven in the 'wrong' way wasn't great. Other than that, there aren't too many complaints.

There are still times when you wish for the higher-revving acceleration that's the norm with a petrol powered hot hatch but the GTD's all-round advantages usually shuffle such thoughts to the back of your mind. It might be a notch down the sporty scale but as an everyday proposition it ticks more boxes.

What's next for the Volkswagen Golf GTD?

We're rapidly haring towards the end of our time with the Volkswagen Golf GTD and that's a real shame. There's still space for a few more tests of its mettle though, and hopefully the next four weeks will be as action-packed as the last. It does make my job easier.

Need to know

Engine: 2.0 TDI common-rail turbodiesel
Trim: GT
Performance: 0-62 in 8.1 seconds/ 138mph top speed
Power/torque: 168hp @ 4,200/268 lb ft @ 1,750-2,500 rpm
Insurance group: 30E
List price: £25,235
Options fitted: Touchscreen navigation/stereo system with integrated voice control (£1,770), Parking Assist including rear-view camera (£685)
Price as tested: £27,690

Volkswagen Golf GTD: final report
Volkswagen Golf GTD: month four(this review)
Volkswagen Golf GTD: month three
Volkswagen Golf GTD: month two
Volkswagen Golf GTD: month one
Volkswagen Golf GTD: arrival
Read Volkswagen car reviews
First Drive: Volkswagen Golf GTD
Read more long-term test reports
Follow Steve Walker on Twitter
Follow MSN Cars on Twitter
Join MSN Cars on Facebook