Fronts do about 70% of the breaking.
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I have the 90 in manual... best car I've owned... No major issues to report from me
TDI is great too... it was the model I was looking at first but by mid 2011 VW stopped selling them in manual (transmission was a deal breaker for me at the time)
I'd suggest driving both on the same day if you can... good luck mate!
I've been running my Golf and Forester (and a Forester before that) at the same time - in both cars nearly every day and doing way above the average distance. One of the cars just keeps growing and growing in my estimation (and it isn't the Golf) because of its completely trouble free and almost maintainance free behaviour. It doesn't have that very special tasteful design of the Golf but when you experience the oil use, turbo water pump replacements and then the rear pads and rotors wearing out by 60,000km, that "specialness" fades rapidly. Then I look at my brother's 118 TSI DSG and see similar problems plus the 2 engine replacements and gearbox problems and see his rear pads and rotors only lasting 45,000km and I wonder if VW really know how to design and build cars that can make customers happy. I've had too much experience with reliable, durable Jap cars that are still great to drive now to put up with VW's problems crap. There seem to be plenty of Golf owners who think it is normal to experience what I have experienced but then they have probably come from some other European brand where they have also had the same experiences and take that as being the norm.
I have just got back from a work trip in my 90TSI. 500km round trip from Brisbane, up the Toowoomba Range, out to Dalby and back.
Average fuel consumption for the trip 5.1L/100km.....that's almost diesel consumption.....
My wife or I are doing that sort of running in our Golf almost every day and we always get in the very low 5's but have never got to 5 or below. It is almost as good as a friends Mk5 1.9 TDI manual that I drive a bit. Our Forester XT gets down to 7.8 under the same conditions, which I find almost as remarkable considering its weight, aerodynamics and performance.
My 90TSI havne't missed a beat. However reports of problems does worry me.