2012-2013 VW Jetta Base and 2.5L

Once again, I apologize for a ridiculously slow update. Its been nearly half a year since I updated this blog and fortunately I have more entries. New to my reviews is my personal conclusion. Anyways here's some new cars to enter.

Introduction: The Volkswagen Jetta was introduced shortly after the introduction of the Volkswagen Golf/Rabbit. The Jetta became the compact car in VW's lineup, bigger than the Golf but smaller than the Passat. One of the few things that has differentiated the Jetta over other vehicles is the always available option of having a diesel even though many North American vehicles dropped or never introduced diesel as an option. After seeing disappointing sales for the 5th generation Jetta, VW has decided to build its 6th generation with a new direction. Seeing modest success from the City Jetta line from both Canada and 2nd/3rd world countries, VW has opted to go the route of lowering the base price of the car.

Now, whenever I hear of an automaker going the route of cheaper cars I worry greatly. The problem being is something good might actually be cut and reduced to mediocrity or worse something mediocre becomes bad. I do not have many positive things to say about VW's City line so I was not entirely eager about this car in this form.

Performance: Apart from the TDI Jetta which is a diesel, the other two petrol options are the 2.0L and the 2.5L. I'm going to pretty blunt here, the engine to choose is the 2.5L. The reason being is the 2.0L is an awful engine, this is a now 22 year old engine design which has not seen many updates and is still lacking things like multi-valve heads which was standard in a Kia Rio 10 years ago. The result is you get 22 year old power and fuel economy, and the 2.0L only produces 115 hp. By choosing the 2.0L you're driving the slowest car for 2013. The Smart fortwo in perspective is 11.3 seconds to 100 km/h, this Jetta is capable of 12+ seconds. Now as for the 2.5L, you're now dealing with a 5-cylinder so expect worse fuel economy over the competition but sadly this is still better than the 2.0L base engine. It outputs 170 hp and 177 lb.ft of torque which is better than previous versions. Acceleration, expect the 2.5L to take the Jetta up to 9 seconds with the automatic, the manual is faster. Case in point, if you're buying a Jetta totally skip the 2.0L and go straight for the 2.5L.

My Score(Base): 0/10 - This engine was outdated 15 years ago, VW doesn't seem to care, inferior in all aspects. It shouldn't exist.

My Score(2.5L): 6/10 - A mild improvement over the previous iteration but still not outright impressive.

Handling: When you take the Jetta around a corner you can expect the Jetta to actually handle most corners with some confidence. Any difficult corners will of course be meet with understeer as is usual with VWs. On the fun factor, I'm not inclined to say its all that fun, while the steering has enough weight to it...it doesn't have much feel either. Every time I took either versions of the Jetta while cornering it performed like any other car which doesn't make it special in any way. In some ways, this car is actually kind of boring where its alright but its neither good nor bad. VW definitely intended you treat this as an appliance as simply an item to be used and disposed of.

My Score(Both): 5/10 - Nothing impressive, nothing horrible, pretty boring.

Interior: This is one of the areas where you'd expect to see some cuts on a downgraded version of a car and the Jetta is no different. I didn't find the previous Jetta to be all that nice inside, unfortunately that interior was actually more colourful than this one is. This interior is very bland and uninteresting, no special features and on base models the wing mirrors are actually still manually operated. If you come into this car from any previous Jetta you can definitely see this interior is more barren and less substantial than before. In this case newer is definitely not better. Visibility wise the only issue is the rear windscreen being small, which is a problem on modern sedans as of late. Build quality is not great, you're not getting German build quality meaning seeing misaligned panels or loose trim is something to expect. The Jetta is built in Puebla, Mexico.

My Score(Both): 2/10 - Less colourful, less content, same disappointing build quality and lesser materials compared to a mediocre interior from before.

Styling: As always this is subjective, however in the case of the VWs my score is pretty easy. I consider these designs as a fail, not because they're hideous but because they're so blatantly lazy. Confusing a Jetta for a Passat is so freaking easy, the moment the car loses its visual identity is the moment in my mind it ceases to exist.

My Score(Both): 0/10 - Blends in so much that its unidentifiable.

Value for money: The base Jetta does bring out an attractive price of $15K, but when you find out what 16K gets you...you'll be sorely disappointed. Truthfully the base Jetta is only worth its price if you can find it for 10K new, compared to even base model subcompacts its awful. Now as for the 2.5L you have bring the price up to $23K...again not a good price considering you have to buy this one to not get shafted with the worst engine of 2013. When a Hyundai Elantra gets a decent engine and decent equipment at base spec for $16K why would you spend $7K more on a lesser car for a VW badge?

My Score(Base): 0/10 - Worthless.

My Score(2.5L): 3/10 - Ok handling and so-so power for a lot of money is a rip off.

Conclusion: Taking into account the price and how in general the car is mostly awful I can't in good faith recommend this car to anyone. I particularly hate when a company decides to stick it to their consumers with a relic of an engine just because they bought the base car. To me its assuming the consumer is too stupid to research and find out the 2.0L was a brand new design in 1991, if you had a 1994 Jetta for instance this was the engine you had and it was slow back then. The fewer people blindly buy a car for its badge, the less likely companies like VW can screw you over with an inferior car.

Overall(Base): 7/50 - Utter rubbish

Overall(2.5L): 16/60 - An overpriced, boring car.

2007 Volkswagen Jetta

Today I'll be reviewing a car from a German auto maker, honestly I don't really consider it anything that special. I'm actually more interested in driving French and Italian cars to see if they bring anything to the European experience of cars.


Introduction: The Volkswagen Jetta was introduced shortly after the introduction of the Volkswagen Golf/Rabbit. The Jetta became the compact car in VW's lineup, bigger than the Golf but smaller than the Passat. One of the few things that has differentiated the Jetta over other vehicles is the always available option of having a diesel even though many North American vehicles dropped or never introduced diesel as an option.

When I first got the opportunity to drive a new model of Volkswagen, I was curious about whether there was any real difference between German cars and all the other makes since people always seem to place German stuff higher than everybody else. Is German engineering really worth the money you essentially pay extra for literally anything? Considering the Jetta is not the cheapest vehicle in the lineup I would think it would give a good indication of what at least VW is capable of.


Performance: This is a surprisingly different engine since unlike other car makers, VW actually uses a 5-cylinder and this Jetta uses a 2.5L 5-cylinder engine that produces 150 hp and 170 lb.ft of torque. Despite the odd number of cylinders this engine is actually reasonably smooth. Its not the most powerful engine, despite its displacement its actually not nearly as strong as 4-cylinders the same size. There was some noise but nothing really that memorable.

My Score: 6/10 - Neat cylinder configuration...but otherwise nothing special.

Handling: I heard this is where VW is supposed to shine. Due to its size the Jetta competes with cars like the Honda Civic and the Mazda 3. The Jetta actually does pretty well in this department. The steering wheel is reasonably well weighted, but it doesn't feel quite as right. When taking the corners the Jetta is actually quite stable and doesn't have the same amount of roll you expect from cars like the Corolla. Still...my problem with the Jetta this way is the Mazda 3 is a much better handling car. That car had pretty much everything to seem like the best handling car in the world, the Jetta is missing some of the feel.

My Score: 8/10 - The Jetta is very capable here...just not nearly as good as a Mazda


Interior: The Jetta has a pretty standard interior as far as styling is concerned. Most Jettas have a black interior which doesn't make it nearly as pleasent as it could be. The quality of the materials however are not all that great. This is not what I expected even from a company called "the people's car". The build quality in this car is not very good, the car is built in Mexico which might explain why trim is loose or sometimes flat out fails. I would hope that a car built in Germany would not have the same build quality issues I saw here.

My Score: 4/10 - An average interior but lacking in material quality and build quality.

Styling: The styling of this version of the Jetta is nothing special, the grille is a bit different but all it really is just a grille with larger amounts of chrome. The rest of the car is not nearly as exciting or beautiful. The Jetta really just looks pretty generic if it weren't for the grille.

My Score: 6/10 - A generic car with really mild differences

Value for money: The Jetta has not convinced me this car is worth $21,000. I thought the Honda Civic was expensive and that car does use 1st world country labour rates...the Jetta however uses 3rd world labour rates and still charges a fortune. The disappointing generic interior and the ho hum styling do not help. Last but not least, the item the car actually does well in that is handling is beaten by the very Japanese Mazda 3...which is built better, handles better, moves just as quick and most importantly several thousands cheaper. In this case being German meant you get overcharged for a product not nearly as good as a cheaper Japanese one.

My Score: 2/10 - The car is several thousands too expensive. 3rd world labour rates, not very good materials and doesn't exceed all expectations yet is nearly as expensive as a next level car is just too much.

Overall: 26/50 - I don't get why people think German items are better.