VW Golf TSI vs Mitsubishi Lancer VRX

That's an attractive entry price on the sticker, but the twin clutch auto immediately adds $2500 and VW don't miss on options. But if the TSI's standard kit is adequate rather than lavish, it's the running and service costs that concern. The TSI will go on 95 RON but needs exxy 98 for optimum performance and economy. VW charge European prices for genuine parts and service.

That price applies to the old hat five-speed manual: it's another $2500 for the continuously variable auto, but i-Pod and Bluetooth set up are standard, as are attractive 18-inch alloys. Mitsubishi's five year/130,000km warranty and 10-year drivetrain warranty put paid not only to the Golf, but it's Japanese rivals. And it runs on basic unleaded.

VW's not about to change a perennially successful formula. If the exterior is rather dull, it affords class-leading leg and head room for rear seat passengers matched in the Mark VI by materials of quality. A bit gloomy in there, though.

The Lancer sedan is an unavoidable sight. They're everywhere. The sportback accented five door is less common, though it has the obvious advantage of rear accessibility and folding seats. Lancer's interior plastics aren't of the highest order though.

A seven-speed twin clutch auto and 118kW/240Nm direct injection engine that's both supercharged and turbo-charged for maximum efficiency would until recently have seemed the stuff of high-end prestige cars. Class leading, but horrifically expensive if it went wrong out of warranty.

In VRX trim that CVT transmission is happily married to a 2.4-litre naturally aspirated four cylinder engine, whose 125kW/224Nm provide an appreciable lift over the 2.0-litre unit of lesser Lancers. If not on the technological cutting edge, it some way more than adequate in terms of performance, though its 8.3L/100km use of juice can't approach the Golf's 6.2 of pricier 98RON.

Unimpeachable. So readily did the Mark VI Golf secure five crash safety stars from NCAP that a case is being made to increase the degree of difficulty. All the passive and safety measures plus a sense of hewn quality.

Seven airbags, including one for the driver's knee is at the fore of the small-medium segment. These, with the full outfit of safety acronyms standard across the range earn the Lancer five ANCAP stars.

Less really can be more as all that clever charging and injection belies the TSI's meagre 1.4-litre capacity. So solid and composed is it that only the keenest driver would regret not reaching further financially for the GTI. Manages the rear trick of being an entertaining drive and entirely sensible family transport.

Very decent, very tidy handling, though not if you try to push as hard as that Evo echoing body kit suggests is possible an activity to flare the hyper-vigilant stabuility control program. Dynamcially, it's a question of resounding adequacy, of being enough for most people most of the time.