2005 VW Jetta TDI

Many large pictures at bottom of page!

March 27, 2005 

We now have 25,000 miles on the Jetta. She is lovingly named Inga after a German exchange student that "Thought you (Noah) were something special" according to the host mother over 12 years later after church while chatting with my wife. Teresa still teases me about this so to remember that uncomfortable situation my wife chose the name.

Inga had a recall on the pump. All service by the book to date.

We took delivery of the Jetta on September 20, 2004.  The first week that we had it we put close over 2000 miles on it. As of today (10-10-04) we have about 4k on it. We drive it on the highway about 200 miles every week day.

What we like:

VW has a winner with the TDI wonderful mix of power and fuel efficiency. You will not notice a lack of power, smoke or the diesel shake that you would expect. It does sound different. We averaged about 48 MPG on the highway except when it was 25 degrees in North Dakota, then we were in the 40-42 area (and it did have some smoke at start up).

The Jetta has good room for the two of us, and the sound system is very good. We had the Phat Noise player installed over the disk changer. We love having music from over 100 CD's saved on the device. For those that are not familiar, the Phat Noise player is like a IPod for VW's. You control it through the stereo.

In the first week we took it on a car ferry across Lake Michigan aboard the Badger. The ferry was great, and it rested us up for a drive to North Dakota. In North Dakota it dipped down to 25 degrees on September 29th! The seat warmers are wonderful!

On the way back we loaded up a 1/4 of a cow at the ranch (also known as a 1/4 beef ) in the trunk. We fit the meat into 3 coolers and it stayed frozen for the entire trip back to Michigan. A 1/4 of cow weighs about 100 pounds just in case you are wondering.

My wife does admire the looks of the Jetta. I have to admit that I am growing very fond of it too. In fact I think that I might buy one too (if I can find that used one that is cherry for cheap).

Our expectations (see bellow) have been satisfied, and our fuel cost has been cut significantly.

What we did not like:

We noticed that it had a shake as soon as we drove the car off the lot. The dealer corrected this by rebalancing the tires-no charge, so this is not much of an issue. I noticed that on the drivers side it does have a fair amount of wind noise and I plan on having the VW dealer check this at the 5000 mile check up.

The car is very solid and does not feel like CPS (cheap plastic stuff) with the exception of the sun visor and the dipstick tube(not a big deal, just a note).I like to feel a solid feel with the dipstick and the dipstick feels mushy when you put it in. I imagine that you are understanding by complaining about these issues I am very happy with the car. 

The only other issue is that my wife will not let me drink coffee or eat in it. But again, she does put up with me, and this is the small amount of restrain that I can conform to.

Why we choose the VW Jetta TDI (history posted before purchase):

We choose a TDI because our fuel expense was way out of control. At this point my daily driver is the 1987 300SD, and my wife is driving the 1991 Jeep Cherokee. We spend $425-500 per month in fuel,  so I decided that we need to cut the fuel expenses. 

My wife has always admired the Jetta. For years I have been casually searching for a TDI at a reasonable price. Finally I decided that I will break the golden rule and buy new. Usually, I make fun of lemmings that shell out tall cash and instead I buy it used for pennies on the original sale price. But it is tough to find a cheap  TDI (under 100k, under 80% of new under 2 years old).

Usually, I do not let my emotions get involved, but my wife allows me to drag many different items home (see list on left), and I guess that it is her turn to fill the driveway with what she wants.

Upon giving the green light my wife went on a quest like I have never seen. She wanted it silver and with seat warmers. After several (and I mean several) calls she found a dealer that will be receiving a 2005 in late September.

We raced over and gave the dealer the deposit to hold the car. Now we are just waiting to save on the fuel expense!

Specs from VW are down page.

ITEMS FOR SALE:

1980 Honda Trail 110*

1972 Jaguar XJ6*

Innervent