jww
01-06-2006, 04:37 AM
In the quest to find our next vehicle, we test drove a 5-spd manual Jetta TDI with the leather luxury package. I had been purposely avoiding the Jetta at the advise of a good friend who is a former Jetta owner. He loved to drive the car, but had some issues with longer-term reliability and ball joints. He told me that if I drove a Jetta I would fall in love with the driving aspects of the car and tend to put aside reliability issues for the heat of the moment. Well, I am sorry to say that I did indeed succomb to the tempation and found that he was dead to rights.
I found the Jetta to be one of the most exciting vehicles I have ever driven. It sticks to the road like glue, and with the TDI has tons of low-end torque for passing and acceleration. I found it easy to throw around corners without tossing my occupants around in the back seat. The controls are a bit confusing at first and I couldn't reallly get the knack of the cruise control stalk placed in a funny location behind the steering wheel and to the lower left. I imagine that I could get used to that over time.
In essentials, the Jetta is typically european in feel. People more desirous of being insulated from the road should not drive this car. It is very tightly sprung, and you do tend to feel many of the bumps you wouldn't in most japanese or north american cars. However, with the taughtness of the drive came a wonderful feeling of being inextricably connected with the road. You felt like the car was an extension of your driving - kind of like wearing a pair of great fitting running shoes. Shifts were a bit notchy, but the throws were short and sure. Shifting quickly on a winding road, I had no trouble at all finding the right gear. In fact, after a few minutes, I found the notchiness to the shifter to be a rather confidence boosting thing - confirming each and every shift as I rowed from gear to gear.
The TDI has such good get-up-and-go. It has become a legendary engine which gets better and better with age. I have never driven a diesel before, and found it's throaty sound to be somewhat reassuring as I revved the engine up towards the redline. I plan to drive a petrol version this weekend to compare the two.
It was a chilly and damp day yesterday with light snow falling. I found that the 5-stage heated leather seats were the best I have experienced in any car which I have driven. You set them on high for a few minutes to cut the chill, then lower the setting for general comfort during normal driving. Very nice indeed.
The steering wheel felt a bit thick at first. It is padded leather affair, which I found my hands kind of sinking into over time. It was actually quite a nice feel once I got used to it.
A couple of negatives - when you adjust the arm rest in the centre console, it covers the emergency brake. This means that in order to engage the brake when I parked, I had to move the arm rest out of the way by either lifting it up or pushing it back entirely. My 15 yr old daughter didn't find the back seat as comfortable as she would like. Having said this, we had just test driven an Acura CSX, which has just about cornered the market in rear seat comfort levels. One can see the issue when looking at the profile of the car itself. The rear is raised considerably, and as a result the back seats sit up a little more straighter than other cars. However, the bigger side bolsters on the rear seat meant that she wasn't tossing around either. Also - there is something of a blind-spot directly behind the left shoulder due to the placement of the driver's seat and B pillar. This would take some cautious getting used to indeed.
I really like the interior - and while not quite as fully ergonmic as the Acrura CSX, it is still a typical VW work of art. Materials are of very high quality, with marvelous fit and finish throughout the cabin. The middle console and glove compartment both boast AC cooling which means when the AC is on, they direct cooled air around these storage areas. This is similar to a feature of the Nissan X-Trail, but has yet to be proven to be of any real value (besides, it's winter now, who cares about cooling storage bins at this time of year?). The general level of convenience kit is very high including rolling door locks that are dealer programmable for on or off, as well as auto-up/down front windows controlled from the key fob. And speaking of the key fob, it really isn't a fob at all - it's a large key that retracts back into the fob. Quite gimmicky and quite useful - no more will the end of a car key put "...a hole in my pocket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza" when shoved in.
I fear that by driving the Jetta I have been tempted to pass over into the Dark Side. Yes, I am tempted to buy one very much from this experience reliability history notwithstanding.
What a to-do. Do I follow my driving heart and lay caution to the wind or do I come back down to earth and shake my head to remind myself that there are reliability risks.
Reportedly the reliability issues of the 2000-2003 models had been rectified in 04 models and later. The expectation is that this improvement continues in the new 06, however, J.D. Power still isn't a fan of VW. I have done some significant research with VW owners whom I know and find that the reliability issue is a mixed bag. Some people wouldn't drive anything else, while others love the driving experience but find trips to the dealership a bit too frequent for their liking.
No matter how you cut it - this is one heck of a great car to drive.
jww
I found the Jetta to be one of the most exciting vehicles I have ever driven. It sticks to the road like glue, and with the TDI has tons of low-end torque for passing and acceleration. I found it easy to throw around corners without tossing my occupants around in the back seat. The controls are a bit confusing at first and I couldn't reallly get the knack of the cruise control stalk placed in a funny location behind the steering wheel and to the lower left. I imagine that I could get used to that over time.
In essentials, the Jetta is typically european in feel. People more desirous of being insulated from the road should not drive this car. It is very tightly sprung, and you do tend to feel many of the bumps you wouldn't in most japanese or north american cars. However, with the taughtness of the drive came a wonderful feeling of being inextricably connected with the road. You felt like the car was an extension of your driving - kind of like wearing a pair of great fitting running shoes. Shifts were a bit notchy, but the throws were short and sure. Shifting quickly on a winding road, I had no trouble at all finding the right gear. In fact, after a few minutes, I found the notchiness to the shifter to be a rather confidence boosting thing - confirming each and every shift as I rowed from gear to gear.
The TDI has such good get-up-and-go. It has become a legendary engine which gets better and better with age. I have never driven a diesel before, and found it's throaty sound to be somewhat reassuring as I revved the engine up towards the redline. I plan to drive a petrol version this weekend to compare the two.
It was a chilly and damp day yesterday with light snow falling. I found that the 5-stage heated leather seats were the best I have experienced in any car which I have driven. You set them on high for a few minutes to cut the chill, then lower the setting for general comfort during normal driving. Very nice indeed.
The steering wheel felt a bit thick at first. It is padded leather affair, which I found my hands kind of sinking into over time. It was actually quite a nice feel once I got used to it.
A couple of negatives - when you adjust the arm rest in the centre console, it covers the emergency brake. This means that in order to engage the brake when I parked, I had to move the arm rest out of the way by either lifting it up or pushing it back entirely. My 15 yr old daughter didn't find the back seat as comfortable as she would like. Having said this, we had just test driven an Acura CSX, which has just about cornered the market in rear seat comfort levels. One can see the issue when looking at the profile of the car itself. The rear is raised considerably, and as a result the back seats sit up a little more straighter than other cars. However, the bigger side bolsters on the rear seat meant that she wasn't tossing around either. Also - there is something of a blind-spot directly behind the left shoulder due to the placement of the driver's seat and B pillar. This would take some cautious getting used to indeed.
I really like the interior - and while not quite as fully ergonmic as the Acrura CSX, it is still a typical VW work of art. Materials are of very high quality, with marvelous fit and finish throughout the cabin. The middle console and glove compartment both boast AC cooling which means when the AC is on, they direct cooled air around these storage areas. This is similar to a feature of the Nissan X-Trail, but has yet to be proven to be of any real value (besides, it's winter now, who cares about cooling storage bins at this time of year?). The general level of convenience kit is very high including rolling door locks that are dealer programmable for on or off, as well as auto-up/down front windows controlled from the key fob. And speaking of the key fob, it really isn't a fob at all - it's a large key that retracts back into the fob. Quite gimmicky and quite useful - no more will the end of a car key put "...a hole in my pocket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza" when shoved in.
I fear that by driving the Jetta I have been tempted to pass over into the Dark Side. Yes, I am tempted to buy one very much from this experience reliability history notwithstanding.
What a to-do. Do I follow my driving heart and lay caution to the wind or do I come back down to earth and shake my head to remind myself that there are reliability risks.
Reportedly the reliability issues of the 2000-2003 models had been rectified in 04 models and later. The expectation is that this improvement continues in the new 06, however, J.D. Power still isn't a fan of VW. I have done some significant research with VW owners whom I know and find that the reliability issue is a mixed bag. Some people wouldn't drive anything else, while others love the driving experience but find trips to the dealership a bit too frequent for their liking.
No matter how you cut it - this is one heck of a great car to drive.
jww