Volkswagen Golf vs BMW 530E

What's the difference?

While some Golf enthusiasts will prefer the lighter, more nimble, front-wheel drive GTI, this Golf R is now an even more serious machine. 

It’s a great touring car, super-sharp in the corners and good value in the context of its competitive set. Cars like Toyota’s GR Corolla and Honda’s Civic Type-R are on notice.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

The G30 5 Series is an excellent car and unless you're looking for the serious punch of the V8 M550i, or want to run with the cops in the diesel, the 530e is a great option. No slower than the 530i, well-equipped and that rarest of things, a truly elegant BMW. Nobody buys a BMW with an eye on the budget, so at this level, the $3000 gap is nothing to worry too much about. For EV-sceptics, the range anxious or just for someone who just can't take the full EV plunge now, a PHEV is a great bridge between the two worlds.

And if nothing else, it's not a giant SUV.

In terms of exterior design, at the front there’s a relatively mild cosmetic makeover with some changes to the headlights and the bumper as well as a horizontal line across the grille, which, along with the VW roundel, is illuminated.

From the side the ride height is 20mm lower, and cosmetically there are matt silver housings on the exterior mirrors, blue calipers behind new design 19-inch rims and in the centre of the wheel there’s an R logo rather than the traditional VW branding.

At the back, you’ve got new customisable LED tail-light clusters with welcome and goodbye effects, which can be programmed via the vehicle settings in the multimedia system, as well as a larger spoiler at the back of the roof on top of the tailgate.

Inside, the ‘big’ change is an appreciably larger central multimedia screen running new program software. It has physical touch bars along its lower edge for audio volume and climate control adjustment.

The driver’s display now includes a G-meter and GPS lap timing. The steering wheel has its own look and feel and the sports seats feature integrated headrests. There are alloy covers on the pedals and ‘Carbon Grey’ decorative inlays around the dash and doors.

It’s a classically restrained and subtly sporty design treatment inside and out.

The G30 5 Series dates back to a time when people thought the grille on this was A Bit Much. How wrong they were. The 5, like the 3, used to be part of a clutch of executive sedans that formed the backbone of the company's expansion and success from the 1980s onwards. That means the styling is never too adventurous and even Chris Bangle's E60 5 Series, while striking, was not particularly controversial.

The only problem with the G30 is that it's hard to distinguish from its predecessor, but that's not a real issue when you see how elegant this car is. Easy on the chrome, proportional grille, big wheels, it's a proper smooth operator, visually speaking.

The cabin is holding up nicely and fits with the rest of the BMW range. It's impeccably well built, full of nice materials and even the wood trim is all right. The black Nappa leather is quite lovely but I can't tell you what the standard stuff is like, so you'll have to work that one out for yourself. It's very calm in here, with a good balance of buttons and screens with which to operate the car and while it doesn't have the you-beaut wow of its E Class rival, with its two massive slabs of screen in front of you, it has plenty to offer.

For reference, the Golf R is just under 4.3m long, close to 1.8m wide and a bit less than 1.5m tall with a 2630mm wheelbase. Right in the middle of the medium hatch footprint.

In the front there’s plenty of breathing room for the driver and co-pilot. And in terms of practicality, you’ve got big bins in the doors with room for large bottles. There’s also a box between the seats with a lid that doubles as an armrest, which also adjusts for height and length, which is nice.

If you need more, there are two cupholders in the centre console, one of which is adjustable for smaller cups, plus a long oddments tray as well as a more powerful ventilated wireless device charging tray at the front end of the console.

There’s also a decent glove box and two USB-C ports for power and connectivity.

In the back, sitting behind the driver’s seat set for my 183cm position, I have ample headroom, legroom and more than enough foot room.

That said, three abreast for full-size adults would be very squeezy. Even a trio of middle teenagers might find it a bit tight. Best as a two-seater in the rear.

Then for storage, you’ve got big bins with room for bottles. Fold down the armrest and you’ve got not one, not two, but three different size cupholders in it.

There’s a nifty double pocket set-up on the front seatbacks, each just right for a phone or hand-held game console, as well as a more conventional map pocket lower down.

There are individual ventilation outlets as well as climate control for the rear section, plus two USB-C outlets.

With the 60/40 split-folding rear seat upright the 8.5 Golf R boasts 341 litres (VDA) of boot volume, which is decent, and that number expands to nearly 1197 litres with the seat down. 

There’s a load-through hatch, tie-down anchors, a 12-volt outlet, multiple bag hooks, specific lighting and storage compartments to the side.

No spare of any description, however, with a repair/inflator kit your only option.

The 5 is almost five metres long, so as you might expect, it's big inside. Back-seat passengers have a ton of space to play with and even three across back there is doable for a distance. The outboard seats have some nice shapes to them, too, so they hold rear passengers in if the driver gets a bit ambitious. Loads of legroom, good headroom and very importantly, a good view out through the big side windows. Properly comfortable, then.

Front and rear passengers each score a pair of cupholders for a total of four as well as the same number of bottle holders. The centre-console bin is long and shallow, but does feature a USB-C port. The wireless-charging pad also has a USB-A port for those without the functionality and/or a phone too big to fit. Both the cupholders and charging pad have a sliding cover.

The boot is smaller than the standard car's as there is a lithium-ion battery hidden underneath the now-sloping floor. With 410 litres, it's smaller than a 3 Series' but it doesn't look that small. There is also a spot for the charging cable and its bag behind the left wheel arch.

The 530e sits almost smack-bang in the middle of a still reasonably extensive 5 Series range. While you can have an "entry" level 520i for $99,900 (before on-roads), the 530e lands at $122,900 (before on roads), which itself is $3000 more than the 530i, and the same amount less than the NSW cops' favourite, the 530d.

Given the price, you'd expect some gear and boy howdy does BMW deliver. You get 19-inch alloys, a 16-speaker stereo, multi-zone climate control, ambient LED lighting, reversing camera to go with the front and side cameras, keyless entry and start, electronic dampers, active cruise control, electric and heated front seats, sat nav, auto LED headlights, heat-insulated glass, head-up display, a mostly real leather interior, auto parking, auto wipers, digital dashboard, wireless charging and run-flat tyres.

The huge touchscreen on the dash runs BMW OS7, which accepts inputs via touch, the console-mounted rotary dial and (optional) various hand wavey-movements. The speakers have harmon/kardon badges on them and there is DAB digital radio and wireless connectivity for both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

In something of a classic BMW own-goal, the wireless charge pad that is designed to keep your phone snug is too snug for bigger phones like my over-compensatory iPhone. Even with the cover off, it just won't fit. Thankfully there's also a USB-C port in the centre-console bin.

The 520e I had for the week also had the $5900 Enhance package (20-inch M alloy wheels, glass sunroof and the excellent BMW Laserlight headlights), $2300 Nappa Black leather package, comfort front seats ($500) and a built-in dash cam ($390) called BMW Drive Recorder. This brought the price up to $131,990 before on-roads. Just so you know, the Laserlights are $2400 on their own.

This updated Golf R is powered by a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine VW enthusiasts around the world know by its ‘EA888’ code name.

In this guise it now produces close to 245kW (+10kW) and 420Nm (+20Nm) with the maximum available across a broad plateau from 2100 to 5500rpm.

The 2.0L EA888 features a cast iron block and alloy head, with direct-injection, water-cooled exhaust gas routing to the turbo (in the cylinder head) and variable valve timing with double camshaft control.

Power goes to all four wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch auto transmission and an all-wheel-drive system using a twin-clutch pack to manage front-to-rear drive distribution as well as torque across the rear axle.

The 530e comes with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine developing 135kW and 290Nm, with the eight-speed ZF automatic sending power to the rear wheels. The electric motor spins up 83kW and 230Nm, also driving the rear wheels. When everything is working together, the combined output is 185kW and 420Nm, which delivers a quick 6.1-second dash to 100km/h, which isn't mucking about.

You can choose four drive modes. EV will (mostly) drain the battery, Hybrid will keep the two working together and Sport will deliver the most power. And drain the battery, albeit more slowly. Adaptive works the averages and decides what you need or want by how frisky you're being with your driving style.

VW is proud to point out that thanks to an electronic coolant regulator unit, the Golf R’s 2.0L engine “features very efficient thermal management with a short warm-up phase” which it says reduces friction losses for better fuel consumption.

Its official combined cycle (urban/extra-urban) fuel economy figure is 8.3L/100km, which isn’t out of order for a hot rod hatch with this much performance potential.

Over the course of a 200km-plus road drive on the launch program, covering mainly twisting B-road and highway sections, we saw a dash-indicated average of 9.9L/100km.

With a 55-litre tank those figures translate to a theoretical range of around 660km, and a real-world number closer to 550km between fills.

The 12kWh battery takes up the same amount of space as the old one, but has more capacity, extending its EV range. The claimed EV range is 57km on the WLTP standard. 

The iDrive system has a bunch of settings that you can play with to squeeze more out of the silent-running mode and there's also a battery-charging mode button to force the ICE to charge the battery while you're on the move. Also useful is a timing system, so you can schedule when the car charges to take advantage of the cheap power available in the dead of night.

Recharging is easy but sadly a bit slow off a domestic power point. Having said that, if you plug it in after a day's commuting, you'll be topped up to 100 percent overnight. It's a long charge, but it's not as if you'll be stranded if you forget. You can get a wallbox, but there's not much point.

The fuel tank is just 46 litres. The WLTP combined cycle figure is a laughable 2.3L/100km. On that official figure, you'll cover an unlikely 2000km. My week with the car, which included 70km on EV-only power with one charge off my solar panels, got me an indicated 6.1L/100km in a mostly suburban week of driving. So based off that, you'll get about 530km from one full charge and a full tank, which is a bit confusing. Keep charging and, if you're an average Australian who travels little more than 30km per day, you won't use much petrol at all.

Having said all of that, out on the freeway, you'll probably slide towards that 2.3L/100km and make it from Sydney and Melbourne on a single tank. Just.

The Golf R weighs in at 1517kg and Volkswagen says it will accelerate from 0-100km/h in 4.6sec, which is quick, and the car’s broad torque band makes it super-usable. The maximum 420Nm is available from 2100rpm all the way to 5500rpm. 

A blue ‘R’ button on the steering wheel is your short-cut access point to various modes - ‘Eco’, ‘Comfort’, ‘Sport’, ‘Sport+’ and ‘Race’ - and in the racier settings what VW calls ‘Turbo Pre-load’ steps in. More or less an anti-lag set-up for smoother power delivery.

Even from low revs in a (manually-selected) high gear, squeeze the throttle and it quickly builds up a head of steam. Power delivery is impressively linear.

The transmission is super slick and manual shifts are rapid. Refreshingly, manual mode is exactly what it says on the tin. Select a gear with the wheel-mounted paddles and it will stay in that ratio until the rev limiter makes its stuttering presence felt.

And if you’re going into a corner under brakes just keep the left-hand paddle pulled in and the transmission will automatically cycle down to the lowest ratio available, which is handy if you’ve really got the bit between your teeth.

Even with the standard exhaust, once you’ve dialled up the sporty modes, you get that snap, crackle and pop on full-bore upshifts and on the over-run, which also enhances the experience.

Suspension is by struts at the front and multi-links at the rear, and the ‘Adaptive Chassis Control’ system monitors acceleration, braking and steering to fine-tune the set-up.

We drove on some rough B-road sections, in the wet, and the R remained surprisingly refined. Given how hard it grips and how much it communicates back through the seat of the pants it is a comfortable touring car. It’s like a GT in hatch form, eating up the kilometres without fuss or putting too much stress on the driver.

Worth noting we spent much of our time in ‘Nürburgring’ mode, accessed through the Race menu, which, no surprise, was developed on the famous Nordschleife. It’s tuned to optimise dynamic performance on undulating patchy surfaces and is a superb set-up sweet spot for the road and track.

Progressive ratio steering delivers good road feel without too many jitters coming up to your hands. And turn-in is precise without being jagged. Just point the car and it goes exactly where you want it to.

The drive system splits torque between the front and rear axles and across the rear. If, for example, it senses the car wants to turn more but might push into understeer, it calmly manages drive distribution to keep everything under control.

Tyres are Bridgestone Potenza S005 (235/35) and over even coarse chip surfaces they remain quiet and grip with admirable determination.

Braking is by ventilated discs all around and on twisting backroads we occasionally leant on them hard and they were well up to the task. A firm pedal with progressive application when getting on or easing off the brakes. 

They even stood up to a race circuit pressure test without raising a sweat, because day two of the launch included a track session at Sydney Motorsport Park. And we can confirm the car is properly fast, balanced and predictable in that environment. 

SMP’s dipping, then uphill, off-camber right-hand turn four highlighted the R’s grip and the sophistication of its torque vectoring set-up. We also went sliding on the skid pan in the car’s Drift mode, which biases the rear axle, and is huge fun.  

In terms of lower speed manoeuvring, you’ve got a 12-metre turning circle, which isn’t vast but isn’t tiny, so be ready for that.  

You’ve also got a 360-degree overhead view, which is very handy in tight spots. And if you want some extra support, ‘Park Assist Plus’ will help you slot the car into the space you’re aiming for.

Under the heading of miscellaneous observations, the sports front seats deliver solid lateral support yet remain comfortable over long periods behind the wheel.

Speaking of the wheel, it’s just the right thickness, with perforated leather at the quarter-to-three positions helping with that lovely connection to the front tyres.

As well, from an ergonomic point-of-view, working through the central multimedia screen and driver’s display is straight-forward, with the latter able to be configured via the steering wheel. 

The reason I like PHEVs as a tool for pushing people towards electrification is about more than the fact that it will likely cure buyers of range anxiety once they're realistic about their actual car usage. I mean it does do that, but it's more about the fact that PHEVs drive like a normal car, with few exceptions.

In EV mode, the acceleration is swift but not that brutal, YouTuber-friendly thrust EV fanboys use as proof that legacy car makers are dead. It's all very serene and very, very quiet as you move from traffic light to traffic light in near silence, while more than keeping up with traffic. The blue of the dashboard indicates your progress and the iDrive screen can keep you updated with power consumption.

The switch between EV and ICE propulsion is very smooth and it's almost like BMW has been doing this forever. You'll also discover an appreciable lift in performance, more in line with the M Sport badges. BMW's engineers have done nothing to make the 2.0-litre petrol sound better than a whirring mixmaster, though.

Slightly less M Sport-ey is the suspension. While there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, the adaptive dampers never dial things up too much for the average motorist. Granted the 5 will leave just about anything this size for dead as far as driver involvement goes, but it certainly keeps the dial closer to comfort than, say, the M550i does. Once again, it's a serene thing to get around in and passengers will love the quietness and easy flow of conversation. Or the lovely sound from the harmon kardon speakers.

You don't have to try too hard to cover a good chunk of the claimed 57km of EV range. Realistically you'll get close to 45km, even after my colleague Matt Campbell drained 20km of charge in a six-kilometre trip that he maintains was driven gently (snigger) and normally (guffaw). Without trying too hard, I managed 41km in pure EV after his attempts to ruin my numbers (not really, but I do enjoy the amusing false narrative).

The big price tag buys you a comprehensive safety package. It has seven airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, blind-spot monitoring, active lane-departure warning, forward AEB, reversing AEB, forward collision warning, front cross traffic alert, reverse cross traffic alert, lane-keep assist, pedestrian alert in EV mode and tyre-pressure sensors.

The forward AEB works at high and low speeds. The pedestrian detection works at urban speeds and there does not appear to be cyclist detection.

There are also two ISOFIX and three top-tether anchors.

The 5 Series was last tested in 2017 and was awarded five ANCAP stars.

The Golf R is covered by Volkswagen Australia’s five-year/unlimited km warranty, which is a match for most mainstream brands, although an increasing number are nudging up to seven and even 10 years.

There’s also a 12-year corrosion perforation warranty, which is a plus, and the recommended maintenance interval is 12 months/15,000km with ‘Assured Service’ pricing averaging $840 per workshop visit over the first five years.

Three- or five-year pre-paid ‘Care Plans’ reduce that number, with the latter working out to an average of $658 per service. Far from over the top for a performance hatch like this one.

BMW really needs to up its game, as do Audi and Porsche (among others). Munich is still sticking with a three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty while German rival Mercedes is up at five years and Japanese competitor Lexus four. You do get three years roadside assist thrown in.

All 5 Series (excluding M5) are eligible for service plans. For $1950, you're covered for five years/80,000km of servicing. As with most BMWs, servicing is based on how you drive but really, if we're being honest, the car will get you into the dealer once every 12 months or 15,000km. Roughly.