There is no way a new golf drives as well as a new focus. It just feels heavier and lazier. There are lots of small roundabouts near me and they show up the limits of grip at a slow speed and the Golf didn’t fare well on them. Scabbly understeer. Not sure about the sporty models with fancy pants diffs, torque vectoring and trick suspension, but in the normal cars the focus is a better drivers car – if that’s important to you. The latest Astra is also very good and probably as good as a focus, but I have an aversion to the Vauxhall brand, don’t know why as I have owned a few over the years and were good cars, but they seemed to lose their way for a while, maybe they’re worth a look again.
I’m sorting the wife out with a car at the mo and like the op avoiding a diesel in favour of an efficient petrol. Fancy something a bit different (for us at least) and looking at a 1.6T 1 Series BMW, about time we popped our BMW cherry to see what all the fuss is about.