2012 Jetta 2.5
 

Drove one today and while it was an automatic, it is set up to shift early at light throttle. It would shift at 1400 rpm and the motor made sufficient torque to pull well even in 6th gear at 1000.

The tranny was not eager to downshift either unless you gave it some peddle, so you could lug around town all day at speeds of 45 mph or less and stay under 1500 rpm.

And when you did give it the berries she would sure scoot. The much more massive bottom end torque would let it eat my Sonata in a race, and the top end pull was good too.

I can honestly say I have never driven a 2.5l gasser that would rip like this.
A manual would be pretty sweet.

Brakes and handling were very nice, typical German stuff.

Overall a nice car...

Nooooooo ! Run away, run away !
For the love of _________ get the TDI

What kind of MPG did you get out of it then ?

BMW has a 2.0L twin-turbo with 245 HP and massive torque from only 1250rpm that officially gets 6.8 L/100km or 35.6mpg in a Z4 on the unrealistic NEDC.
It would do better in a smaller, lighter car.

New jetta is a made in mexico POS. What kind of build quality do u expect with $2/hr labor? Drum brakes an 2.0 8 valve motor with 115hp in 2012! How pathetic do they have to make it? The diesel especially has stupid written all over it. Why cant vw offer an efficient gasoline engine like normal cars? Why pay $4+ per gallon when gasoline is $3?

I'd never buy another VW, I just got the chance to drive it.
The only VW I ever owned was the REAL Jetta Diesel from 1985 that had a whopping 40 HP but gave 60+ mpg easy!

Once drove it from ATL to Mt.Airy NC, drove around all week, AND drove home and still had fuel left!

I would love to find a 1998/1999 TDI Wagon manual............
Distributor pump
Change to a VNT turbo
.205 injectors

Alas, I think around 30-40 made it to the USA each year........... back to reality :(

There's plenty of them here, but you'd have to pay our prices and shipping.

If VW officially brought them over, getting one registered shouldn't be much of a problem.

I'm partial to VW's and Nissans personally. Why all the Disgust with VW's?