Good car the VW Golf. Very solid.
I personally have a Nissan Sunny 1994. I know it's a daft name, but no mechanical or electrical failures in 8-and-a-half years and 100K town miles speaks volumes about Japanese reliability

and it's very solid, every bit as good as a VW.
And yes, I am aware of what French company now part-owns Nissan

Hopefully the partnership between the two will lead to an improvement at Renault rather than a deterioration at Nissan
As for safety, that's all well and good, but if the damn thing is in the garage 10 times in the first year (I kid you not, that is a typical figure for Renault these days) it's pretty pointless.