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Our verdict on the 2.5L (gas) Jetta: Decent, well driving car, we’d want our girlfriends to drive one.

There’s something vaguely puzzling about this car. Something about it just feels wrong. I drove this car for more than a week, and it’s taken me longer to put a finger on what exactly bugs me. First off, the dimensions are skewed. Somehow, when you look at a Jetta from the outside: it seems much bigger than you’d think it should be. Then, when you step inside: it seems much smaller than you would expect it to be for a car it’s size. Likewise, somehow the Golf (I refuse to call this car the Rabbit) seems conversely bigger than it actually is. Part of this is because the Jetta adds a sloping, lowered roofline, and the addition of a trunk decreases rear legroom by a few inches. To be fair, the trunk is very generously sized. However, If you were planning on transporting bodies for the mob, this may be the wrong car for the job. Okay, the dimensions are a bit awkward, but it doesn’t quite fully explain my unease about this car. Maybe it’s the transmission? But I’ve driven two cars with the same VW Tiptronic automatic gearbox: a Passat (a much heavier car) equipped with a 1.8T turbo and a Touran (a much heavier Jetta) equipped with the 1.9L TDI diesel engine, both in Germany, both on the autobahn and winding Bavarian/Czech mountain roads. Neither of those cars exhibited the same awkward hesitation that the Jetta has when you press down on the gas pedal. Don’t get me wrong, the car does realizes that you want to go forward when you press your foot down. In fact, it’ll agree vocally with your desire to go forward by loudly growling. However, only after waiting, thinking about it, checking the weather, looking both ways, does it actually get to the business of actually going where you tell it to go. Ah, so it must be the engine then! The numerically hilarious 2.5L FIVE cylinder that has the grunt, noise, and fuel consumption of a V6 with the power and agility of a 4-cylinder. Driving through a set of red lights with this car was enough to make me want to jump out and scream in anger. Pairing a slow acting automatic with an engine that has absolutely no notion of low end torque means you have a throttle delay response of about a second between you putting your foot down and the car reacting. It’s enough to drive you mad. However, in your lunacy you may be comforted by the loud, assertive engine growl coming from the front of the car. It does sound quite good at first in fact, enough to remind you that VW did take make this engine from half a Lamborghini V10. Unfortunately, that nice engine sound is not accompanied by any amount of useful power. You will be certain to hear that “half of a Lambo V10” most of your time in the car: It’ll be with you when you pull out of your parking spot (I was afraid I’d set off car alarms my first day with the car), it’ll be with you when you creep out of your driveway, it’ll be with you as you pass kids on the side of the street eating ice-cream who’ll drop their cones in excitement as you drive by, thinking you’re trying to make “VROOM VROOM” noises at them when you’re actually just cruising at 30. You’ll never stop hearing that engine as long as you own the car. The rest of the car however, is positive and adequate. Take the steering feel, for example: compared to the vague and indirect steering in a Civic or a Corolla, the Jetta feels direct, very German, very precise, very crisp. Therefore, unlike the girls who’ll drive it, the Jetta will actually go where you tell it to. The interior is likewise Germanic, austere, clean. Even though the plastic bits and pieces felt cheaper compared to the softer (although very similar looking) materials in my GTI, it’s still miles ahead of the yards and yards of cheap plastic in the Japanese competitors. I have to admit, after nearly a week of driving the Jetta, it ended up growing on me. I liked how when I pass people, I can rev the engine and growl angrily at how slow they are, without having to worry about accidentally breaking the speed limit. Sure you could buy a Civic instead of this car: you’d have a smoother, more fuel efficient engine and a wackier interior. But honestly given a choice between the two (or, since they’re both quite effeminate cars: two girls who own them) I’d much rather chose the one with the Jetta. Neither car can be called very good, but the Jetta is so much more interesting. And you already have too many opportunities to be boring in life.