When my work arrangements changed, I needed to find a sensible car to do 25,000 miles a year which needed to be practical, comfortable and economical. I also needed it to be a good drive, since it was following Mazda RX8 and MX5 sports cars. I've been driving for 30 years, and have been an IAM member for about 6 years, so enjoy my driving.
I tried the Golf GTD, but it seemed wooden to drive compared to the Mazda, and cost about £8k more for the same specification! The Mazda dealer also seemed to value my business, where VW appeared to think they were doing me a favour by taking my money!
I went for the top of the range, including the leather option, which brought with it electric adjustment for the seats (which I always think allows more precise adjustment) and memory settings (which helps when my wife drives the car).

The good bits:
- Total reliability in over 25,000 miles (this is no different from my previous Mazda's)
- The 185ps engine has excellent levels of power and flexibility for real world driving - this is a fast car.
- I've had no DPF problems at all - every now and again I have noticed a perhaps 20% drop in the fuel economy for 25 miles or so, which I presume is when the system is regenerating.
- The car is comfortable, and the sports seats I find very supportive (I'm 5'8", with a bad back)
- I enjoy the handling and steering - particularly the steering, which I think gives the car a sports car feel.
- It's not too big, and easy to park (with useful parking sensors). I originally wondered whether I would have preferred a Mondeo size car, but this has been perfectly comfortable, and I don't think I would have gained enough to compensate for the loss of wieldiness.
- I find the auto wipers very useful - I would have considered them an unnecessary extra before - they are very useful on a wet miserable day on a dual carriageway, when they speed up as you need them, or a day with just drizzle, where you don't need to be continually adjusting the intermittent setting.
- The bluetooth phone connection works well, although I am not a regular user. For me, I find it useful that the connection signal tells me that I haven't left my phone behind!
- Controls on the steering wheel are very good - I can reject that phone call, change the radio station and volume, and shut up the sat nav, all without taking my hands off the wheel!
- The front wheel drive, combined with some Kleber winter tyres, have made the car a very useful tool in the bad weather - I cannot recommend winter tyres enough.
- The hatchback made it a very useful small van when we moved house last year.
- Although the interior plastics probably aren't quite as expensive as the VW, I think the actual engineering and build quality is at least as good - everything feels very solid and together.
- My best ever mpg recorded for my regular 200 mile trip is 60.3mpg! More normally its about 52/3mpg. Town driving will drop to about 45, and my overall average is about 51mpg. I like to think I am a smooth driver who achieves good mpg, but I am not a slow driver.
- Keyless entry - I spend a lot less time looking for my car keys - I just put them in my pocket at the start of the day and forget about them.
- Heated front screen - why don't all cars have this? Excellent.
- A great accessory was the boot shelf - this provides a removable tray underneath the boot cover which is very useful for all those things which are good to keep in the boot, but don't want to be rolling around on the boot floor.
- Its smart but not flashy - which suits me (I will probably never drive a BMW with a private number plate!).

Could be improved/things I don't find useful:
- The silver bits in the interior trim can creak when its cold - this disappears when it warms up, and I note that the 2012 changes got rid of the silver bits - a pretty minor issue.
- The sat nav is a bit small (although its well placed in the top of the dash - much better than the lower position in later cars), and like all sat navs sometimes gives ridiculous routes - don't throw away the map. I haven't worked out how to update it yet.
- Like many hatches, the bootlid does get dirty very quickly in poor weather.
- Although the leather has worn very well (and still looks very smart), its clearly not from the same cows as the leather in my wife's Jaguar.
- The controls for the MP3 system etc are confusing, and the large circular control in the centre dominates that area of the dashboard - I've never used it (but then I do still listen to LP's)!

In summary, I've been very pleased with it. I originally bought it under a 2 year agreement, but at the moment I think I'm going to keep it for longer. When I look at what else is available in terms of a small, comfortable, fast diesel, I don't come up with anything (except that expensive VW) which seems better than my Mazda.