engine, price, fuel efficiency.

Engine too noisy, overall soundproofness of the car, monsoon stereo system, placement of cup holders.

Bought the car a bit over a month ago and already thinking about getting something else. It handles very nice in the city, VR6 engine offers plenty of power and fairly good fuel efficiency but has many weaknesses on the highway. My VW is stick shift and at 80 mph the engine is running at over 3,000 rpm which makes it fairly noisy. Just got back from 3-hour drive and have a pretty bad headache from all that noise. It seems that the car lacks some serious sound proofing. Even the fan runs pretty loud at the lowest speed. I had 95 SAAB and really miss it now. I wish I could take VR6 engine and put it into my old SAAB. Will be selling my VW soon.

Looks nice, and has nice features like seat warmers and pretty dash. Unfortunately, looks are about all it is good for.

Complete lack of power until turbo kicks in... which lags and takes a while. Cornering is very weak, I feel like I'm about to fly off the road and the wheels squeel taking sharp turns. The car is too heavy and tall, even with 17inch rims and fat tires this car cannot take turns. Clutch broke after 1 year! Be prepared to sink a ton of money in repairs on this car. Car started rattling around 20K miles.

Do not buy a Jetta. The clutch broke after 18,000 miles and less than year. I have driven manuals for 10 years, and this is the first time I have had a broken clutch. (My last car was at 130,000 miles original clutch!). I did some research on the net and found lots of other people with broken clutches after 1-2 years! It's definitely a defect in the car, but I ended up paying for 1/2 the repairs! Now, even with the new clutch it smells funny after normal driving. My car has also started rattling, which tells me poor construction. After readng all the reviews here, I will be selling my Jetta in the next year before all the other problems come up. Stay away from VW!! If you look at the reviews here, most VW cars are below a 4 rating! I'll stick to Honda which is my other car. 50K miles and not a single problem, rattle, or squeak. The turbo also lags a lot, there is absolutely no power up till 3K RPM and it's tough going up hills in San Francisco. The seat tilts are these strange dials. They are horrid to use.

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I have a Honda Prelude and my girl uses the Jetta. The Honda is older with 50K miles and it hasn't had a single problem. Buy a Honda or Toyota, every consumer report and review site will say that VWs are poor quality compared to those.

Nice handling at almost any speed Blue dash lights Saves $$$ on gas 97k miles on original tires, so far Monsoon sound system.

Drivers door mirror became loose, dealer tightned Mirror came loose again, had piece of material keeping if from tightening down properly Bad Brake light relay, replaced Seat material pills up, looks like cats live in it Heat system always has to be adjusted on cold days, AC works great. 97,775m The timing belt went out. The Jetta has been serviced by VW since bought

I drive around 10K a month and have had the Jetta for about 13 months. Most driving is highway with some city. With only a few minor problems until now at 97,754 miles, it had been a NICE car. It felt dependable, economic, and OK to drive. The original dealer the car was bought from never could get the car in fast enough for sevice with oil changes and 10k mile maitenance sevice intervals, so another dealerships sevice was used. Very nice and professional with every service. At first I was doing the 5k mile oil change so I was at the dealer every other week. Then switched to 10k since the synthetic oil was used. Last check was done at 90k and all was OK. Now the timing belt went bad. The maint. interval for replacement is 105K, so it broke eary. Now the company boss is on the phone with VW seeing why it wasn't noticed, or inspected and replaced. If the car had every scheduled maintenace performed and by a dealer, why did this happen? Well, not sure how it's going to turn out but the company has some other VW's which may give them a bit more pull. To all others, change the timing belt early, maybe 80k. I've read others have had it go around 90k .

great ride, comfy, turbo picks up nicely, enough room in the trunk for my JL audio 13W6 and luggage.

not big enough for my needs but thats my lack of fore site

still love to drive this car even in crappy winter weather. not a very roomy cabin for a big guy like me but it is ok as long as there is nobody in the back seat. great car for running around town or commuting. bought it used and had to replace the clutch right away, ripped the front bumper off cause i'm not use to driving such a low veichle (backing off of curbs that i get to close to), wipers just stopped working one day for no reasone. nobody will work on this car in my town, i have to drive 400Km to get anything done to it. I would love this as a daily driver car to complement having a truck or SUV. stay away from it if you don't have a vw dealer or garage where you live, its not a chev or a ford that anyone can work on.

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2004 lancer, wasn't impressed.

Not much of anything except the big trunk.

Just about every thing.

Three words...Worst Car Ever. I should have known something. After driving the car for 3 days I realized that it didn't handle like a VW should. I have driven Golfs, Passats, Jettas and GTIs. They all held the road and had little or no body roll. This one always felt like it was about to give up and skip off the road. Besides that disappointment. A Yugo or Trabby would be more reliable. The long list follows. Seat material pills up. VW's fix, I got a lint brush. Lose Heat Shield. Battery has minute draw on it. Battery dies, and is replaced, and dies and is recharged and dies. 2 Months latter VW takes my advice and uses an Amp meter to diagnous the draw. Draw fixed. I return rental car that VW pays for. Then there was the whole Ignition Coil thing. Had two replaced before the recall by the newer part. Then had to have the other two replaced a month later. Called VW of America. They don't want the car back, they will fix it to factory specification. "JOY" Next up, at 20,000 miles the transmission goes. VW rents me a car again and I wait a week to fix it. VW of A still doesn't want the car back. They want to fix it. After I got the car back the coolant light goes on when I first start the car up, usually on cold days. I bring it in and the technicians can not recreate the issue. This goes on for a month. Finally the light goes on for them and they replace the sensor for the coolant level. Finally after 46,000 miles I am driving along and the coolant light goes on. Stop check coolant. Everything looks Okay. Get back in. Start it up and drive off. Light does not come back on...Until all of a sudden. Every dummy light goes off and the car starts jerking and bucking. The car is with my mechanic. Why? Donaldson's repair folks told me it was my fault the car was broken this time. Wonder of Wonders. Thank the maker this is a lease and it goes back to VW next month.

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1995 Jetta, 1998 GTI, 1991 Passat. No major problems with any of these cars.

Oooh-Blue lights in the dash! Nice handling at almost any speed. Saves $$$ on gas-especially when you aren't driving it!

Well, see my review above for the ridiculously long laundry list!

I can't think of a worse value than the '01 Jetta GLS. To start: the back seat may fit Barbie & Ken-but not their daughter. It creaks, squeaks and feels overall: cheap. It takes what seems to be an eternity to warm up the interior on a cold morning-my '85 was better! But more importantly-I have had nothing but problems with nearly every aspect of this car which I leased brand new. The EPS light has come on 3 times and I have had the car towed for it-you guessed it 3 times! It was a break switch malfunction which was recalled-yet I had no knowledge of it-Hmmmmm. Anyhow, the engine light has now lit up for a 3rd time; the 1st being for a camshaft positioning sensor ($400), the 2nd for an RPM sensor ($300)-and now-who knows? They told me the coil-pack recall was not on my model yet the symptoms are the same as everyone who had that mess. The windows have been a problem since day 1, alright, I am exaggerating-it was day 2! It has continued over the last 3 years and of course is now out of their crummy 2 year warranty. The engine seems to burn up oil quickly, the mats are the cheapest on the market (although you would not know by the price). The engine was always loud, but now their is a lot more noise from the windows which don't seal properly any longer. It is as un-reliable as it could be. My fiancee's Nissan Sentra is now our reliable car (for an amazing $8000 less). I only drive my Jetta to work. We take her $14K car everywhere else. That is sad. I have to say, the service people have at least been nice. Of course, when they are making tons of money off me-why wouldn't they? I wish to tell everyone out there, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BUY A JETTA. I don't care if I was given a brand new one absolutely free-I would not drive it. It's only a matter of time (a short one at that) before it starts falling to pieces and causing you to hesitate using it for any distance over 10 miles! I tell no lies on this one. I have never had a car other than a Jetta. I started with an '85, then a '98 and now this '01 and I preached how great they were to my friends and family. 2 friends and my own Mother have since gotten Jettas and the 2 friends have already dumped theirs and I wish I knew what I know now before I suggested it to my mom. Take it from a driver who has only driven VW's: They are terriblly unreliable, very expensive to fix and they do not make up for these shortcomings by having a sleek look, blue dashboard lights or nice handling. The gas mileage isn't bad at all but it also fails to make up for the thousands of dollars I've spent repairing it. If I could go back in time, I would never have put my John Hancock on that last lease. Instead, I would have researched it better and would have realized what a bomb that car is and saved a lot of my own time. I have lost a lot of my own time which VW can't make up for....

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I know my Jettas: '85 Jetta '98 Jetta

Sturdy engines, easy to mod, classy stylings in the interior and exterior, excellent fuel economy for any engine the VW offers.

High price, expensive parts factory and after market

I have a 2003 Jetta 1.8t. i simply love it. I've put quite a few miles since I bought it and it hasn't even had a hick-up yet and I don't expect it to. You see everyone that has posted a negitive review on this fine web site. Probably would know how to properly care for a car if their life depended on it. You see with vehicals like VW's you have to take a littl more pride in you investment and spend a littl more money on maintaining you "ride". I mean sure if you want to save some pennies and use Wal-mart brand oil. VW's require more TLC. The great thing about the 1.8t its cheap to mod. Chip, intake, exaust and you have a pretty mean machine. My car is living proof. In conclusion if you don't know how to or don't want to take care of your car then don't get a Jetta. If you want a fast tunner that looks pretty classy. VW's are the way to go.

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why use anything besides a VW

hem.................it's cute?????

The entire POS. VW of America is terrible, as are dealerships for maintenance. VW should start taking some pride in their products and send manufacturing back to Germany.

I'm on the every other month repair plan. Last night my blinkers started shorting out. After doing some research, I see this is yet another common malfunction of the poorly manufactured VW Jetta's. Again, listing of problems - wiring harness, window mechanism, O2 sensor, temp. sensor, self-locking at will, passenger side window raises and lowers at will, plastic covering of indoor handles coming off, seats squeak, moaning when I turn or idle and psychotic turn signals. Please buyers, be very wary. You are throwing your money out the window.

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Acura Integra Toyota Corolla

- powerful and smooth - handles tightly - near perfect ergonomics - best auto ac/heat system I've ever seen

- very poor manufacturing of non-key mechanical elements - very little room in backseat

This has been, by far, the worst car owning experience of my adult life. The list of necessary repairs would force me over the word limit. Sad too, for the car has several strengths that I will miss. Overall, it IS a drivers' car. I have a VR6 with a manual and this car flies. It begs to be at 90. And the ergonomics are better than most out there. Everything is logically designed. The problem is, a lot of them stop working. Here's a partial list of failures prior to 60K: - CD player 2x - window lifters 2x - glove box hinge - seat memory - cruise control - central computer - alternator - alarm system - cup holder

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Mazda Protege Acura Integra Honda Accord BMW 325

great car, i have driven nissans and hondas and GMCs ect. of simmilar size and the jetta beats them all

clutch wears out pretty fast.

I love it, great ride. has good pick up with the turbo kicked in. lots of aftermarket and sounds way better than an american car with a huge sub in the trunk.

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lots of american midsize / compacts.