Volkswagen is having a rough go of things at the moment. Sales for the first half of the year are down 13 percent versus 2024, with import tariffs wreaking havoc on the German brand’s business model. Though a deal with the EU to lower tariffs is on the horizon, customers are still going to be feeling the pain if they want to own anything from VW’s 2026 model line.
The automaker just handed out price increases across the board, according to Automotive News. The Jetta, the Taos, the Atlas, the Atlas Cross Sport, the GTI, and the Golf R are all getting more expensive (the company has yet to release pricing for its best-selling Tiguan or either of its EVs). The prices have gone up 2.9 to 6.5 percent, depending on the car, but one sticks out to me: The Golf R.
The Golf R has, historically, always been one of the priciest cars in the VW lineup. When I started in this business, the top-level hot hatch carried a starting price of $37,415, which, at the time, made it pretty expensive for the segment—around two grand more than the Subaru WRX STI. Now, though, thanks to these latest price bumps, the Golf R is priced from $50,730 including destination. And that hurts my soul a bit.
The $2,405 price increase is a 4.97-percent jump versus the 2025 model, and comes despite no changes to the car itself for 2026. As pleasant as the Golf R is to drive, seeing the number five at the start of a price for a hot hatch—any hot hatch—is jarring. I remember when the Golf R eclipsed the $40,000 mark, thinking to myself, “There’s no way someone would pay 40 grand for a hot hatch, this thing’ll be discontinued in a year!”
Weirdly, though, the Golf R has persevered where its competitors have come and gone, despite its ever-ballooning asking price. The STI is long dead in America, as is the Ford Focus RS, despite those cars being more fun to drive (in this author’s opinion, anyway). The Golf R’s remaining competitors, the Honda Civic Type R and the Toyota GR Corolla, are more fun and cheaper, too—yet considering how long it’s lasted so far, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the humble Golf outlast them both.
But if the Golf R’s price was hard to swallow before, it’ll be doubly so now. As ever, I’d recommend to anyone considering a Golf R to simply buy a GTI instead. It might not have all-wheel drive or the most power, but it’s the purer, more joyful experience of the two. Plus, the GTI is nearly $15,000 cheaper, with an MSRP of $35,865 including destination.
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Wow, that’s completely ridiculous. What a fucking ripoff
Why do people even buy these? My son just bought a C6 Corvette, and if you included what we paid for our 2022 Civic Si, you can have both for $45,500 and they both have manual transmissions and are a blast to autocross and daily drive. I have had a few GTIs and other VDubs and I wouldn’t buy one of these at 1/2 the price. Screens, bings and bongs and more. It’s also very generically boring in MK8 styling.
I’d get more excited about a 1994 Camry wagon with it’s two rear hatch wipers.
2025 Golf R Black Eurotrash Superspec Magnico-Line edition owner here. Traded my 2024 GTI 380 for it. I do hear a lot about how the GTI is the purer driver of the two, and if you got one of the last sticks it certainly is fun. Now that I finally have the R after all these years though, I can say while the GTI is super fun for the money, the R is just more fun to drive, even with flappy paddles and no third pedal.
When I bought my Focus RS back in 2018, I thought that was stupidly expensive for a hatch (fun though), but I made it back on the resale. I expect I wont lose much reselling the R either, if I ever decide to do so. While these types of cars are way more expensive than they really should be as a hatchback, the built-in nicheness and low quantities seems to have them hold their value more.
All that said, having spent north of it on this blue bomber, 50k for a hatchback is the embodiment of “The rent is too damn high!”
I’ve always wanted a Golf R but it’s always been just slightly out of reach, glad to see that tradition is likely to continue forever.
Welcome to the club! The R has been a $50k car up here for probably 3 years now. If we think after taxes and fees, it’s been well over $50k for at least 5 years. Heck, it’s CAD price for ‘26 will likely have it go past $60k…which is a lot for a Golf.
$50K? Before tax, title, and registration?
I bet the brackets for the power windows are still being made of that brittle white plastic that breaks two months after the warranty expires, dropping the glass into the door.
Nope
Really? You know this from personal experience? The replacement ‘regulator’ part from the dealer parts counter was aluminum, but VW used the white plastic ones in new cars it built for quite a while. To the best of my knowledge, it was used in these Mark 4 VWs: Golf, Jetta, and Passat, as well as in the Mark 5 Jetta and Golf/Rabbit, so roughly from ’99 through ’10/’11. I’m assuming that Mark 4 and 5 GTIs also had the plastic brackets, since they’re Golfs, but am not sure (maybe it’s a build location thing).
Did they start using the metal regulator brackets as of Mark 6? And they’re all metal since then? I’m genuinely curious. Thanks. 🙂
Inflation calculator shows $37k in 2015 as $52k in 2025
I use inflation calculators constantly at work and if anything contained steel or electronics you can easily take the 2016 price and multiply by 2 to get the current ballpark price. Only getting worse with the 7.5-15% price increase emails I get every week.
I always wanted a Golf R but the price is just too much to stomach unless you can truly only have one car at that price point.
I remember when the 2004 R32, the predecessor of the R, only cost $28,000. And compared to the WRX, RSX Type-S, and the Focus SVT it was the most expensive then. The WRX and RSX were both $23,000, and the Focus was $19,000.
For reference a Chevrolet Trailblazer LT cost $31,000 in 2004 and the RS costs $31,500 now. Same segment, same target audience for features, and continuity with the original Trailblazer that debuted in 2003.
Subaru WRX now? $37,750. And while the RSX isn’t around anymore, the new Integra Type-S is $54,000. So some other cars have also gone nuts, and some have stayed relatively in line with inflation.
I used the most expensive trim of each car for the given year. The Golf R’s ridiculously overpriced.
Inflation-adjusted, all of those cars would be far more expensive today than they were back in 2004.
But people’s incomes did not increase with the inflation and fewer young people have access to these sorts of “affordable” performance cars than ever before.
If your income hasn’t kept pace, that’s a you problem, IMHO.
VERY few “young” people ever bought this sort of car anyway. Insurance costs alone made sure of that. Hyper-hatches are long the domain of middle-age duffers like me.
I’m not sure comparing the 04 Trailblazer to the current one is fair. They’re not the same segment- 04 was a BOF mid-size with an inline 6, the current one is a tall hatchback. A comparable version of the 04 Trailblazer would be over $50k, based on what a ZR2 Colorado sells for.
Yeah, they are very different vehicles and nowhere near the same segment. Sizewise today’s CUV Blazer and Traverse are closer to the regular and EXT models. A base ’04 EXT was just over $30k back then and over $50k today, a Traverse now is around $38k to start.
Today’s Trailblazer has more in common with a Tracker – $20-23k range in 2004, basically the spread between Trax and Trailblazer now.
It’s one of the only things I could think of that was around in 2004 and still is around with equivalent trim levels and features that was “kinda expensive.”
I went looking for other sedans and hatchbacks and… Well…
The STi and Focus RS lose a lot of buyers on interior design, quality and comfort. Shoppers looking for an exciting driving experience without regard for those things are more likely to spring for a rear-drive 2-door. If I had to pick a place to be on my daily commute between a Golf, a Focus and an Impreza, the choice is very easy.
I suspect the GRC and CTR will be a similar story to the Focus RS: A more extreme, more focused version of the economy car, with the same economy interiors plus heavily-bolstered seats and substantially worse NVH than their one-step-down counterparts. They’re awesome, but not smashing best-sellers.
The Golf R uses the Piech “more is more” Phaeton approach to smooth out all the wrinkles of the GTI. Where the less powerful FWD car had to stretch its performance envelope, the R takes advantage of its greater capability and expanded bag of tricks to relax a bit, with softer suspension, quieter exhaust and more gentle suspension tuning, all compensated for by the extra horsepower and rear differential.
In apples-to-oranges 911 terms, every other superhatch is a GT3, while the Golf R is a Turbo S.
I have one, a ’25 in Lapiz Blue with the Black Ed. Package. Mine came out about $1,500 cheaper than it should have after a snafu that the dealership made right. It’s a lovely car, and it’s about the only thing that I would consider driving in this segment of transverse performance cars. I love how gentlemanly and subtle it looks compared to everything else. The Si and Type R are too boy-racer-y, the GR Corolla is crude, the WRX is hideous, and I categorically refuse to drive a Hyundai after all the issues my family has had with them.
The other thing I would have considered is an Integra Type S, which isn’t much pricier and which gets the benefit of a 6MT.
FWIW, the Golf R comes fully loaded, and is equivalent in features to the Golf GTI Autobahn. That one will run you $42,105 with destination and no options. And since the cheapest Golf R is $48,325 with destination, it’s more like a $6,000 delta. Not terrible.
Finally, yes to what everyone else is saying about the Golf R not really being more expensive in 2025-inflation dollars than it was ten years ago (although incomes have stagnated). It’s also not all that expensive in absolute dollars for a new car today. It’s just very pricey for such a compact vehicle; most people would need to spend that sort of coin on a pickup truck or a three-row crossover, or something with far more utility and space…or to get a luxury badge for their money.
The looks is the thing that has always made the Golf R appealing to me over the competitors. There was a time, when my automotive needs were different, when I was seriously shopping for a hot hatch. I really liked the Civic Type-R performance, but it looked ridiculous. I was a Subaru guy for a while, so the STi was appealing, but it too was getting severely overstyled. Then there was a Golf R, looking subdued and classy, even if not as fast. I think that still sells a lot of the cars, as despite some of the poor choices VW has made about buttons and whatnot, it still looks and feels a cohesive, premium package unlike so many of the competitors.
Yes to all of this.
These days, I think that Honda makes the best interiors in the non-luxury segment. They are elegant, handsome, pleasing and dead-simple to interact with. And, fortunately, the Integra borrows most of the Civic dashboard, so it gets that benefit as well. The Civic and Integra definitely feel premium…as do the Accord, CR-V, Passport, Pilot, etc.
But it used to be Volkswagen doing that, as recently as 2020 or so with the Mk. 7.5 Golf and other contemporary Volkswagen products. I do wish Volkswagen would find the budget to put physical switches and knobs back into its cars.
As for the Golf R, I had a 2024, and the system in that was pretty buggy. Still, I loved the car and after I sold it–for more than I paid–I instantly regretted it and resolved to get a 2025. The system in the 2025 is much improved. The screen is bigger, it’s better laid-out, the sliders on the center stack now light up (though I never use them), it doesn’t freeze ever, the voice controls are great, and things like the auto stop/start disable button are always on the screen and accessible…even when using the reversing camera.
Good points. My neighbor’s Integra Type-S is nice, and you are right about the interior being clean but nice. That is one of the reasons my spouse has been driving Hondas exclusively for the last decade.
I am glad to hear that the 2025 Golf R fixed a lot of the issues with the infotainment. I probably won’t get back into the hot hatch segment until I get a few kids out of the house, but the Golf R is still on my lookout list if a good deal comes my way.
I haven’t paid attention lately but traditionally, Golf Rs were not discounted but regular GTIs were, so the real-world delta was considerably more. Not a GTI but I got out the door with my ’19 Sportwagen for just over 1/2 Golf R MSRP at the time. I threw a bunch of parts at it and now its … well not an R, but it’s still pretty fun and I can fit a lot of junk in it.
It wasn’t long ago when we were complaining about a $40,000 Golf R.
(tinny voice from the back of the theater) I’m still here complaining about a $40,000 Golf R!
I owned both a 2017 R and GTI and completely agree that the GTI is a much better value. Unless you really, really need AWD to deal with snow, the GTI is more fun to drive and a lot less expensive.
Huh, I had the opposite experience. The GTI may be a more fun quick fling, but road tripping them sucks. On my crappy local freeways, the difference in build quality and sound damping is readily apparent.
Like, there is certainly a choice to be made about what you are looking for in a car, but I’ve always found it obvious where the extra money in the R goes.
For a brief moment I thought VW had brought out a 2 door Golf/GTI again.
Alas – I’m getting too old for this.
I know it seems like a lot of money, but I’m sure Jason can defend it
I’m a bit boggled by how expensive the R is compared to in Canada.
US R $50,730 US$
Canada R. $53,690CAD = $38,863 US$
It continues with the GTI
US GTI $35,865 US$
Canada GTI $39,190CAD = $28,363 US$
Canada VW is actually doing really well with 2025 sales and gaining market share.
VW USA pricing for the R and GTI seems completely cray-cray. That would be fine if VW USA sales were good – they are having a horrible year and are losing market share.
I feel if the R and GTI were priced like in Canada they would be very popular.
Yeah I’ve noticed this in several reviews where Canadian pricing is mentioned.
It’s not just VW, and it pre-dates tariffs, so neither of those is a sufficient explanation.
For the longest time, cars in Canada were more expensive than American equivalents. (We are talking for decades here.) Heck, there used to be a huge flow of used American cars into Canada. They bought cheap in the US and sold at inflated Canadian prices. It was a very big business. It does not exist anymore.
The GTI and R are only made in Germany right now. So landed costs to Canada vs USA will be nearly identical. The US cars now get hit with tariffs, but the huge price disparity was still there before tariffs.
I plugged $50k into an inflation calculator, and $50k in 2025 dollars equals $36.5k in 2015, and $37k in 2018 dollars. So… actually the Golf R is a good deal? Basically anytime I look at a new car price I need to use an inflation calculator for 2018 dollars, which is when last I feel like I had a grip of what something cost.
Sadly our incomes have not kept up with inflation.
In 2018 I was making $70,000 and felt rich. Right now I’m making almost 120 and it feels…fine, I guess? To be fair I have more expenses now but I swear six figures is the new 60k. Thanks, capitalism….
We have a combined household income of $200k with kids and dogs, and I have to shop at Aldi because thats the only reasonable grocery store price wise left in this country.
Imagine the new college grads when all the entry level job in their fields start at $22/hr. That is what my kid is seeing for jobs that require a college degree.
It’s not even about salary for new grads. They also have to find available jobs in the first place. And AI is coming for some of those entry-level positions.
Then on top of that, it is almost impossible to purchase a house if you don’t have one to sell, so they are locked in to renting and losing the opportunity to build equity like those of us who graduated in the aughts did.
They really are screwed.
This genXer feels lucky to have bought a house back when that was possible.
This, been blessed financially as a late Gen-X engineer. Far from rich, and I do drive older cars. But we have our own home and have been able to travel and save for the future. On one primary income.
We’re at around 300 with one kid and one dog, but unfortunately we live in DC so everything is ludicrously expensive. Between the mortgage, day care for the 15 month old, and student loans we’re not really saving any liquid right now. We aren’t paycheck to paycheck, and we do contribute a lot to retirement and a college fund for the little guy, but woof.
If you would’ve told me I’d be in this situation a decade ago I would’ve been euphoric. But actually living it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for what I have, and we do have pleasant lives. It’s not like we’re roughing it out there. But it sure seems like this much money went a hell of a lot further not that long ago…
We’re in a similar boat and I feel like 10 years ago we’d be taking vacations to Europe or at least a 5 night cruise once a year, but now? Absolutely out of the question. Pretty much everything over what we need to live is saved or invested somehow because the future will probably suck even more than the present.
We booked a Viking cruise through Scandinavia for next spring. You have to pay everything upfront and it was the largest sum of money I’ve ever spent in a single day since we bought our house. I went back and forth on whether or not I wanted to do it but I haven’t been out of the country since 2018, have always wanted to go to the region, and traveling is super important to my wife/it was eating her up that we’d never traveled internationally together.
But man…eating that cost has been brutal and several months after writing the check I don’t think either of us would want to do it again.
I hope you have a great time and make some memories with that money 🙂
My income has gone from 95k pre-pandemic to 150k today.
And I feel poorer.
F*ck these tarrifs.
In 2023 I was making 120k, now I make 36k (and for 2024, 0k).
I feel poorer, too.
That’s rough, friend. I’ve heard a lot of stories like yours.
Even in my family, my wife had to close up her photography business this year because AI editing has driven prices literally into the ground. My brother has taken a similar hit to you as his industry is very closely tied to tarrifs, and uncertainty is decimating it.
2026 will be an important time to vote.
2024 was an important time to vote.
Given all the redistricting going on, I’m not all that sure 2026 is going to matter.
That makes it even MORE important to vote. Redistricting is not magic. And in the case of Texas, may even be counterproductive because they are being stupid about it. LOTS of people who voted for Trump last time, or didn’t vote at all, are plenty pissed off at the moment.
True. But I won’t be at all surprised if there’s some sort of national emergency that pops up, or some problem with the redistricting (legal challenges or “finished to late to print valid ballots” stunts) that’s going to result in a strong push to either not hold the midterms at all, or disqualify the results if things don’t go “their way”.
I hope I’m wrong, but there’s a lot of smoke & fog in the crystal ball right now.
Similar boat
I feel this.
Speak for yourself.
IMHO, if your income is not keeping pace or exceeding inflation, that is a YOU problem. What are you doing to make yourself more valuable in the workplace besides whining about it on the Internet? And/or how much effort are you putting into getting a higher paying job if you are topped out in your current position?
edit: not worth it
I got laid off, have been training for jobs in my sector, been turned down for dozens of positions, and am using my body to and past its limits in 40 and 50 hours weeks as a mechanic in a shitty old un-air-conditioned shop in the American South, and still make the shop-minimum guarantee time because I’m not beating the Mitchell-specified 18 minutes they say it takes to inspect a vehicle, rack it, change the oil, and roll it back out the door.
By the neo-puritanical/conservative “work harder/nobody owes you shit” work-shaming assholes, I should be a goddamn millionaire. I’ve got the literal scars and time clock punches to prove it. Instead I’m getting heat stroke and take home less than $400 a week.
Edit: fixed bad auto correct
Thank you for posting this!
I can relate, Mechjaz. I’ve gone through similar to that twice in my career.
The first time involved getting laid off right when a major PC manufacturer pulled out of town, and the jobs I was applying for were getting hundreds of applicants for positions one of the hiring managers told me normally got about a half a dozen. After being out of work for over a third of the year and no prospects on the horizon due to the flood of techies, I went back to school for a Master’s. Took years to pay the student loans off, but it kept us afloat. Barely.
Round two involved getting pushed out of a quasi-startup by the new guy they slotted into the org chart just above me. A totally BS non-compete kept me from applying at two dozen of the most likely employers in the area, and after nine months I finally landed at a small mom & pop place with a huge pay cut. Stayed there way too long before finally finding the courage to try job searching again.
Now I’m doing okay (pay doubled when I finally landed the new gig), but both of the jobless periods were brutal on the retirement and bank accounts. And the marriage.
Hang in there. It will get better.
That sucks. Bad things happen to good people. But your experience is not the universal experience.
Why are you even posting this, does telling other people how great and perfect you are and how they are not living up to your god like ways of living make you feel good? FFS is is not the 1950s. wages are down, hiring is down. union membership is down. pensions are gone. I am fine I was expressing empathy for young people who are having a hard time finding good jobs and affordable housing. Stop being a pedantic PIA, telling everyone to they need to grind themselves in the capitalist war machine and IF IT BOTHERS YOU IGNORE THE “WINING”
Wages are not down, and reading a thread full of people complaining about how hard it is to survive on $150K, $200K, $300K etc is grating.
There was no magical time when life was easier for everyone.
The bootstraps rhetoric is a little tiresome, but so is the “woe is me, everything is awful in my upper middle class existence”.
Social media has ruined expectations for what life is supposed to be like. If you own a home, contribute to retirement, provide a good life for your kids, drive a decent car, and so on, you are doing better than almost everyone in American history.
“The bootstraps rhetoric is a little tiresome, but so is the “woe is me, everything is awful in my upper middle class existence”. ” I agree.
Wages are down (or rather haven’t kept up), when accounting for inflation. The dollar just doesn’t have the buying power it used to.
Granted, the economists say wages have been closing the gap over the last couple of years, but mind you these are also the same folks that just said there were almost a million fewer people employed last year than they thought there were.
Personally, I’d take their claims about wage growth with a heavy amount of salt.
This is simply wrong. Inflation adjusted wages are higher than at any point in history, outside of a pandemic-affected spike.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Preemptively addressing common responses when I post this chart:
“This isn’t adjusted for inflation!!!”
-“Real wages” means adjusted for inflation.
“Wages are lower than in 2020!!!”
-Median wages spiked higher in 2020-21 because low paid workers were disproportionately laid off, which had the effect of raising the median for the group that was left. The trend for the last 10 years has been on average a steady increase.
“Poorer workers are left behind!”
-No, the opposite is true:
https://www.epi.org/publication/strong-wage-growth-for-low-wage-workers-bucks-the-historic-trend/
“I haven’t gotten a raise in years!!!”
-I’ve never disputed the fact that people have different outcomes. No economy is perfect for everyone. But the majority of workers have more spending money now than they did in 2023, in 2019, in 2015, in 1980, in whatever year you want to use.
“You’re using this chart to support the current administration’s policies!!!”
-I don’t support most of those policies. I have been posting this chart in these comments for years now pushing back against the doomer narrative regardless of the party in power.
Be careful. Using facts and proper statistics is dangerous. After all if your statistics don’t match a person narrative / world view / opinion you are in for a world of hurt. The Internet has created a world where people invent and rant about things that are factually wrong. But hey, it gets clicks and traction so that’s all that matters.
/sarcasm in case that was not clear
I’m not sure median income is an appropriate barometer, given the well documented hollowing of the middle class. It can mask a lot of underlying issues. Perhaps like while yes a lot of people are making more, a lot of people are also making less – potentially a lot less. The guy in the middle may have a lot fewer close neighbors than he used to, especially towards the lower side, but that’s just how the mathematical concept of “median” works. He’s just at the 50th percentile – half are in front of him and half behind, but that chart presents no information about how far ahead or how far behind everybody else is.
Average can also be heavily skewed thanks to a relatively small population of outliers, so it isn’t a good measure either.
What I’d love to see that population broken out into thirds (low, middle & high earners) or quarters, and have the mean, median, mode and averages for each group. Those details would be a lot more telling.
“Well documented hollowing of the middle class”
Please provide some documentation for this claim.
A quick Google search got me to a Pew Research Center article titled “The State of the American Middle Class”, published in May of 2024. One of the first charts showed the fall in share of the middle class population between 1971 and 2023.
In ’71, 61% of the population was in the “middle class”. In 2023, it was 51%.
Upper class grew from 11% to 19%, and lower class grew from 27% to 30%.
On the whole, the overall population is shifting away from the center and to high and low ends – more to the higher, so good for you if you’re one of those fortunate souls, and bad for you if you’re in the other group.
Regardless, that represents a 16% change in the percentage of members of the middle class over the 52 year span.
I don’t know anything about the particulars of this specific analysis, but it is consistent with much of what I’ve read on the subject over the last decade or so, if that personal anecdote is of any worth to you.
I guess we could argue over what constitutes “hollowing” if you want to, but as long term socioeconomic trends go, I’d say it qualifies.
“Hollowing” to me seems to have a negative connotation, whereas the analysis you posted seems to say that nearly 3X as many people left the middle class for the upper class as for the lower, which to me seems like a clear win.
Somewhere in one of my replies was a link to a paper showing the strongest wage growth post-pandemic being on the low end, which is also kind of at odds with the “everything is getting worse, and also going to the 1%” reflexive mindset.
I agree it has a negative connotation. I’d also argue that shrinking of the middle class IS a negative thing.
You note nearly 3 times as many shifted to the high end than the low end, and to you that’s a win. And it is, for them. (Also note there’s no context here for how “far” that 8% had go to break over the upper class threshold. Were a lot of them close in ’71, or have a lot of them clawed themselves up from the center over those 52 years?)
As for the 3% that joined the 27% already in the lower group, some would note that moved us halfway to having a full third of the population being in the lower class. (And again, there’s no context here for how far that 3% had to fall – and maybe there’s a boatload of people just above that threshold that are going to wind up out of the middle class when they reevaluate things in a couple of years – or maybe things are stacked the other way. Who knows?)
As a friend of mine once commented, perspective is everything.
Also I think it’s important to separate classes from purchasing power. I would expect with the inflation on that side of the pond chew on the middle class purchasing power quite heavily. it does on my side of the pond.
Just to follow up with something that fell into my lap this morning, here’s a detail from an article I just read:
Pew Research Center defines the middle class as a household with income that is at least two-thirds of the U.S. median income to double the median income. This would imply a range of incomes from $56,600 to $169,800, based on government data for 2022.
It’s interesting (for me anyway) that they are also using median income. At least it is based on household income instead of wages, as wages get skewed by the employment rates (as your source noted, COVID wages spiked – or rather the median did- because a disproportionate number of lower wage earners ended up unemployed).
This is EXACTLY my overwhelming point. Life sucked for pretty much everyone, in every time. It actually sucks a lot less for most people today, but now everybody has a soapbox to whine about their life on.
I’m not on a soapbox, assuming you’re referring to me with the 150k number. Here’s what happened to me:
My story is not unique. I have no debt, own two cars with an average age of 13 years, we have never taken a family vacation, and I haven’t taken my wife out to dinner in over three years because we only eat at home. I am saving less for retirement than I should, and nothing for college for my kids. So yeah, I have it good – much better than 99% of humans on the planet. And I tell my kids that every day.
But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t stressful, and it doesn’t mean that the trajectory going down is OK. There is no solution for this problem so long as cost of living keeps skyrocketing while wages don’t keep up. The only thing I could do to lower my monthly costs would be to sell my home and move into something 20 years older, but even then I’d still be paying nearly as much monthly due to interest rates and be worse off long term.
We have an administration that doesn’t understand basic economic principles, is hell-bent on letting the rich get richer, and a broken economic system that is set up to reward shareholders over workers. Changing those things is the solution.
I think where my disconnect with this type of post comes in is not that your story isn’t legitimate (in fact it’s similar to my life in many ways), but with the idea that this isn’t just how things are.
The implication that there was another time when things were easier or that things are somehow worse now. I just don’t agree that that is true.
Every era has its challenges and opportunities and our parents and grandparents struggled too, working as hard as we do or harder for a lower standard of living.
I think it’s a media portrayal more than anything leading people to feel badly about what is objectively pretty good.
My grandpa and dad were of previous generations. Hard workers who improved their lot. Grandpa immigrated with his parents as a small child. Brought gallons of milk to McDonalds on special treat nights out with the family. I grew up with hand me downs until middle school and we never bought brand name anything. But both previous generations built something more for their kids. Me? It doesnt look like it.
Again, I’m not complaining relative to any one else or any other era. We have it *good* in modern America.
But the trend line is worrisome. Things haven’t just been getting worse, they are getting worse faster, and the actions by our government are all pointing that this will continue for the foreseeable future. Will I lose the ability to put a roof over my family’s head and food on the table? No way. But realistically, we may need to start doing some of the things my grandpa and dad did. And that’s the thing that worries me. I had hoped to pay for my kids college. Buy their first car for them. Not anymore.
So yeah. It’s not the quality of life that im complaining about. It’s the path the economy as a whole is going down. It’s not looking good for me, and I know it’s not good for anyone in the upper middle class and below.
My life is far from perfect. But I am happy with my life as it is. Would I like to make more money without working harder than I already do? Of course I would! I’d like to be better looking and get laid more often too.
I was in the exact same boat as the youth of today 30-odd years ago. What I did not do was whine *incessantly* about it. I had no expectation of the world owing me anything. And I had it easier than either my parents or grandparents or great-grandparents just starting out. I got started in a career (and that took a LONG time, and a lot of underemployment and bad roommates and eating raman noodles and worrying about making rent every month despite having two degrees). And then I worked my way up the ladder, changing jobs a few times along the way. The world owes you nothing, and not everybody is going to make it to easy street (unless you are a Trustafarian, there is no such thing IMHO). Not even me, I just live well below my “means” and try to plan for the worst that could happen. Bad things happen to good people. And I have never said I am all that good a person.
I look around my pretty wide circle of friends and family who are my age and the vast majority of us are doing just fine. Peak of careers, making real money, good living situations. A few are not. My two housemates being excellent examples of that. One is through no fault of his own, he had a medical dilemma that screwed him financially for years. The other, well, he is a smart guy with the ambition of a cat. Happy enough with his lot in life and too lazy to do anything to make it better. Has a corporate McJob that lets him get by – low pay but decent benefits. But he can’t afford solo rent on an apartment, never mind buy a house. And I worry about what he will do if I decide to sell this place. He is in the exact same situation as he was 25 years ago when he first moved in with me, when he should be doing far, far better than that.
I’m glad you did because that was my first thought. VW models have always seemed to scale appropriately with inflation, and even though 50k seems like an insane number today it still checks out with how they were priced in years prior.
Yeah, in 2018 I bought a Camaro SS 1LE for $40k brand new. It sure doesn’t *seem* like it was that long ago…
I bought my ’23 GR Corolla 1 year old from a private sale, Core but loaded, for $36K. I am so $*&*% happy with this thing still.
I got my Kona N new for $36,000 and 2.75% APR financing. It’s about to be paid off too. I’m happy that I jumped on it when I did. It ain’t perfect but it’s cheap, fun, and 3 years in it hasn’t given me much trouble outside of a knock sensor going bad, which is a common failure point on the Hyundai high performance 2 liter. You know, just standard Korean car stuff…
Not too surprising at all. $37,415 in 2015 dollars has the equivalent buying power of $50,942 in 2025 per the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator (https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm). So, if anything, the new R is a better value than it was 10 years ago…
That would be the case if wages have kept pace with inflation but they have not.
Real wages are significantly higher than 10 years ago.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
My point is that they have not risen in tandem with inflation.
What do you think “real” means on that chart?
You’re right but you’re fighting a losing battle here (or on any online forum).
People whose personal circumstances don’t match the overall numbers aren’t interested in those numbers. For them, it doesn’t matter and it’s nice to think your experience generalizes. Likewise people doing well don’t post at all because it’s seen as rude at best.
Cars are not a driver of inflation and are cheaper/better now than ever.
There’s people farther up the page talking about their incomes going up 50-100% (to double or triple the median US income!!) in the last few years, and yet everything is worse!
That just isn’t supported by reality, it’s all vibes.
I’m not naive enough to believe every single person is better off now, or to ignore some serious warning signs in today’s economy, but it’s pretty clear that at this moment the majority of Americans take home more money, adjusted for inflation, than pretty much ever before in history.
Absolutely agree – and while certainly SOME part of inflation is corporate greed (and Trump’s idiocy at the moment) a LOT of it is that wages ARE rising, especially at the bottom of the job market. Where I live in very suburban Florida, even McD’s pays $18/hr to start. That absolutely trickles up. But the reality of corporate jobs is you often DO have to change jobs to make more money today, and I get that it’s not easy – but very little in life is easy. And you need to get in a career path where you aren’t going to be “outsourced” whether to India or to AI (not actually sweating that as much as many, I work in that field – AI is 90% bullshit currently).
Those people bitching that they can’t get ahead are people who have let their lifestyle increase right along with their wages (and well beyond). They will NEVER get ahead doing that. Live like you make half what you make. I basically live on <1/3rd my take home pay, and have for years. And I am no c-suiter, just a consultant/deployment engineer. I waste some money playing with cars, but otherwise I am a cheap SOB.
I also find that young people today seem to want it all, right now. I didn’t start getting ahead until I was WELL into my 40s. I didn’t have two nickels to rub together when I was in my 20s and 30s – but I didn’t expect any more than that really.
I’m not sure if things have changed all that much? The Golf R has always been something that you had to really want. It’s never been a value proposition. When I bought a MK7.5 GTI in 2020 I test drove a certified MK7 R the same day. While I wasn’t as knowledgeable back then as I am now, I didn’t think the R was worth the premium and actually had more fun in the GTI because the stock tires VW puts on them are awful and I was roasting the tires left and right.
The general consensus is that the MK8 is more worth it than any of the previous generations, and the performance gains are substantial. The numbers VW publishes are ridiculously conservative. If I recall correctly these things are making like 350+ horsepower to the wheels and they’ve been clocked hitting 60 in under 4 seconds stock.
That’s a ridiculous amount of performance for the money and they’ll keep up with stuff that’s over twice the price. They’re also super fast on track if that’s something you care about. That being said, you still have to really want one. For probably 90% of drivers a GTI will be more than adequate as a fun daily and the $15,000ish MSRP price delta is not worth it.
And that’s just the beginning…dealerships fully load and mark up Golf Rs and discount GTIs. Within 100 miles of me in DC you can get a new GTI for $32,600 before you haggle. The cheapest Golf R is a whopping $54,000. For the price of a Golf R you can buy a new GTI and have enough left over for a used ND Miata. Woof.
But anyway, the Golf R has a really loyal following. In my experience people that want a Golf R aren’t cross shopping the CTR or GRC, so Volkswagen can charge whatever they want so long as it doesn’t infringe on RS3 territory. Is it how I would spend my $54,000? No. But I’m not really going to knock someone if it’s what they choose to do. I don’t necessarily think it’s a horrendous value, but like I’ve been saying…it’s something you have to really want and isn’t a decision you make objectively.
That being said bring on the 5 cylinder. As long as that doesn’t push the price up to 60 I think this will make a lot more sense, because the RS3 is a legitimate super car killer.
As an Audi fan, I’ve been looking at if any new RS3s have come stateside, especially with the Audi price increases and tariff issues. There’s two within 500 miles, including one with no picture so that tells me that it’s still on the boat and the dealership is just showing it on their site. Per Audi’s site, it looks like to expect $66,000 to start, and you know that none of them will be that price. There are all kinds of options including an expensive Dynamic Plus package that’s over $5,000. It’s VERY easy to hit $77K-$80K for a new RS3. That’s where the Golf R with that engine is going to fit in. If the buyer just wants the engine, and the hatchback body, stand in line and prepare to pay the I-5 tax at the VW dealer. If VW can hold the line and prevent markups and keep it in the low-60s, they have a chance. Otherwise, that’s too much money for a Golf R with the VW buying/service experience…and that’s where it is probably worth to stash some money aside and reach for the RS3. Besides, it’s going to probably be a year or more before any buyer sees their car at the dealership after ordering it.
There’s not going to be a Golf R with the turbo-5. That was a rumor with no basis, sadly.
Agreed. I haven’t shopped the current gen cars but last time I was in that market I could barely stomach the idea of the Golf R being 40% more expensive than a GTI, but I thought, hey, maybe it’s special enough to consider.
Then I actually shopped around and dealers were offering discounts on GTIs but weren’t willing to budge on Golf R prices, making the R’s price even less of a value in comparison.
Nice car and all, but I couldn’t justify the price tag.
My biggest issue with the current Golf R has always been that the S3 exists. It’s got a more premium interior, I personally think it’s better looking, it comes in way cooler colors than the Golf R, and it’s basically the same price or even cheaper in some cases.
Back when the differential was Golf R only I’d get choosing the Golf R, but now that the S3 gets is standard? I’d go S3 every time. If I’m spending that much money I’d rather have a premium badge and all the pomp that comes with it. There’s plenty to dislike about current Audi, but they can still put an interior together.
The S3 is marginally more expensive when you add in the stuff that comes standard on the Golf R…leather upholstery, driving assistance, etc.
But I dislike subcompact sedans intensely. I just think they look odd. Now, if they’d brought over the S3 Avant…I’d probably have one, instead of the Golf R.
As someone who was in the market for one of these both last October and just last month, I haven’t found dealers marking up the R, but they generally don’t discount it. If anything, you might get them to eat a doc fee or take a nominal amount off the top, but you’re not getting “cash on the hood,” so to speak. As it was, I got my ’25 Black Edition R for the price of a base R (about a $1,500 discount) because the dealer didn’t realize someone else had reserved the base R I was on my way to get until…I was on my way to get it (four hours away).
The fact that they do discount the Golf GTI, yes, can make the real-world price delta larger.
You’re probably also seeing the ones with the Euro Style Package, which is mostly focused on cutting weight. It adds the throatier Akrapovič exhaust, deletes the sunroof, and removes the leather-upholstered, cooled, powered seats for cloth manual ones…for a $3,800 premium. Those ones, yes, are about $54,000. The only thing there worth getting, IMO, is the Akrapovič exhaust, and in other markets–including Canada!–that is a standalone option.
As far as the turbo 5-cylinder from the RS 3, RS Q3 and TT RS going into the Golf R…that’s not happening. It was an unfounded rumor and VW itself has denied it. In fact, the turbo 5-cylinder is going away because VW is hemorrhaging cash, and it’s too much trouble to get such a low-volume, expensive engine through the next round of emissions.
And if it did happen, absolutely they would charge at least a $10K premium for the privilege. You know they would.
Well that sucks. I might’ve bought one with the 5 cylinder, but I can’t justify a regular one at the prices they’re currently charging. You’re correct re: the “pay more for less” Euro style package, but unfortunately every single one near me is ordered with that because of course it is/line go up.
$54,000 is just a ridiculous price for a hot hatch. That’s lightly used Blackwing money….
It’s also Integra Type S money, which–if you can forego AWD–is likelier the better buy. I wouldn’t have bought my Golf R for $54K.
Considering an RS3 starts at over $66K (up from $54K in 2017), no question that would be a $10-15K surcharge for a VW iteration with similar performance and mechanicals.
The Euro Style Package looks like a questionable value. Only 80 pounds of weight savings–you have to really hate sunroofs, I guess. Granted, the exhaust is expensive but the better move might be to buy the regular R, install the Akrapovič, and sell the stock exhaust.
Look at it this way: It being a VW product means there will be a better than average chance its gonna’ start having problems in and around the 50k mark. With that in mind, would you spend $50k on a car that’s going to be a pain in the ass? Seems like the choice becomes easier.
The “people’s car”, indeed.
This shit is just embarrassing at this point.
Ok, I know I’m cheap and old, so modern prices irritate me regardless, but this is nuts. Not sure when it happens, early 20s or teen years, but that’s the amount car prices are in your head. $50k is Porsche money!
At that price I’d look for an old first-gen, incredibly well-sorted GTI or a used R32.
At least throw in the 5 cyl Turbo from the Audis for that price.
It’s really unfortunate imo. Price was already creeping into 5.0 Mustang territory but even more so with the price increases.
The Mustang GT is a pretty expensive proposition itself these days. It used to be that you could get one with the 5.0 for a little over $30K all day long; now it’s $48K to start…and they’ve even discontinued the EcoBoost 6MT, so that $48K is your cheapest way into a manual-transmission Mustang at all.
And it’s not that $48K is all that expensive for a car these days, but fewer people young people have access to that kind of car budget than ever before. And if they do, they generally need to use it on something more practical than what is effectively a two-seater…like a large crossover, a minivan, a truck or an EV.
That said, I doubt the Mustang GT and the Golf R are cross-shopped all that often. I never considered a Mustang GT when I bought either of my Golf Rs, least of all because I hate the Ford dealership experience, but mostly because I wanted something hatchback-shaped and space-efficient.