Volkswagen Golf 2017 to 2021 Petrol & Diesel

Repair and maintain one of the world's most enduring family hatchbacks Few cars have shaped the modern world quite like the Volkswagen Golf. First rolling off the production line in Wolfsburg in March 1974 as a front-wheel-drive replacement for the Beetle, it gave its name to an entire vehicle class and has since sold more than 37 million examples worldwide. The seventh generation, launched in 2013 on Volkswagen's flexible MQB platform, was a critical success from the outset; the Mk7 won the European Car of the Year award in 2013 and was lauded by Top Gear as the car of the year for 2012. The cars covered by this manual are the facelifted Mk7.5, which Volkswagen revealed in November 2016 and brought to UK showrooms from early 2017, and which remained on sale until the Mk8 arrived at the end of 2019. The Mk7.5 update was far more than cosmetic. Alongside revised LED lighting front and rear and a subtly sharpened front bumper, it introduced upgraded infotainment across the entire range, including an available 9.2-inch Discover Pro touchscreen with gesture control. Most significantly, it brought a brand-new engine: the 1.5-litre TSI EVO four-cylinder petrol, which replaced the older 1.4-litre unit and offered either 130 PS or 150 PS, the latter with Active Cylinder Management that shuts down two cylinders under light loads to reduce fuel consumption. Alongside that newcomer, the range retained the 1.6-litre TDI diesel and the 2.0-litre TDI diesel, as well as the 2.0-litre TSI petrol that powered the GTI in 230 PS standard tune. We cover all of these engines, along with the hatchback and estate body styles in which they were offered. Performance outliers such as the GTI Performance, GTI TCR and Golf R fall outside the scope of this manual, as do the GTE plug-in hybrid and AllTrack estate. Common problems we address include diesel particulate filter blockages on the 1.6 TDI and 2.0 TDI, water pump failures that can trigger limp-home mode, DSG gearbox shudder caused by mechatronic unit wear, high oil consumption on GTI 2.0 TSI engines, and the cold-start hesitation issue affecting early 1.5 TSI models that was ultimately resolved by a Volkswagen software fix in 2020. We also detail the preventative maintenance that can head off these faults before they become expensive.

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