What can you guys tell me about the Jetta TDI
 

Yes I know I can go to VWvortex but I prefer hearing stuff from you guys because I know how people here think.

I am considering a new car.

The irresponsible 24 year old in me is saying "fuck it, buy a sporty car". The responsible 24 year old in me is saying "you have to consider the future and why you really need a car".

Sadly, or not sadly, I am leaning toward responsibility, and deciding I need a ultra reliable, good gas mileage, totally practical utilitarian mode of transport.

I really like the Jetta. I played around with TonyV's Jetta and thought it was pretty awesome, especially the front leg room which is easily the most important factor for when buying a car because of my shoddy knees(yes I drive a miata, funny how that happened).

I am also highly considering spending just a bit more and going with the TDI Sport Wagon. Diesel fuel economy, wagon practicality. Kinda torn between the DSG and the 6spd.

However. I dont know much about the VW diesel, or how the current generation Jetta is as a car especially if I plan to keep it for a while.

What can you guys tell me that I should know and consider? Im also open to other suggestions for a similar car in a similar price range that offers similar benefits.

Your watching to much tv....... or maybe I am. Either way I like them a lot. Living here Id for sure get the manual trany, however your in NY so Id probably opt for the auto.







Love this commercial. :giggle:
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The miata is a stick, its fine in the city. However, I am most likely going to move out to Jersey which makes the stick/auto decision from a driving standpoint, moot. I am more concerned about everything beyond that.

I don't know anything about them other than what I've read in magazines.

First Drive: 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI
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I don't know much about it, if I had a diesel I'd make it into a greasecar though.

I was told by my VW tech brother-in-law that the injectors are mechanical and that modulation is achieved by varying the rail pressure. Has nothing to do with anything, I just thought that was interesting.

Are the injectors mechanical? A friend of mine bought a used Jetta TDI recently and I'm 98% sure the injectors are electric. In fact I think they're piezoelectric, so maybe there is some mechanical actuation. I'm more familiar with older diesels.

Anyhoo my thoughts:

1. Auto/manual is your decision and I can offer no advice. Either has advantages/disadvantages.

2. Diesels are cool.

3. No, really, diesels are cool. Old mechanical injection units are cool for their simplicity and reliability, and the fact that you can take them off road and not have to worry about an ignition system or any electronics getting messed up with the injection system. And old indirect injection units are cool for the fact that they can burn almost anything pretty easily. Modern direct injection, variable geometry turbo'd units are cool for the amount of tech that's crammed into them.

4. The fuel cost savings of a diesel depend heavily upon the price of diesel. Now it's cheaper than premium in my area, but more expensive than regular. The "dollars per mile" figure currently favors diesels. But over the summer regular gasoline could return significantly lower MPG figures and still ultimately be the same price/cheaper than diesel, because of the price difference.

Of course trying to forecast these things will drive you insane. So you'll likely consider veggie oil. Which brings us to...

5. Some cars take to veggie oil better than others. Remember the indirect injection I mentioned earlier? That's what makes old Benz models and pickups from the pre-90s more attractive to the veggie oil burning community.

You're in NY, so you have a pretty cold winter to deal with. And in the city, with short trips, you need to give serious consideration to whether you'd actually heat the veggie oil up enough to get it flowing. Trying to run too cold veggie oil is a great way to blow up a diesel, the oil doesn't spray but streams out of the injectors, and you start burning holes in pistons and whatnot. It's kind of cool to tear down these fubar'd motors, less fun to be the one with the fubar'd motor. This is all the more critical with direct injection units.

Filtration, and, most importantly, dewatering, of veggie oil, is critical. The tolerances in an injection pump are ridiculously tiny, and reliant upon a very, very, very, very, very, very thin layer of fuel for lubrication. Water would instantly turn to steam, and metal would meet metal, and the injection pump would be destroyed in short order. And injection pumps are expensive. Really expensive.

Of course, there are plenty of ways to get veggie oil filtered and dewatered, but the only one I'd trust is a centrifuge. Not cheap, but not expensive, at least compared to a new injection pump. You also need a way to haul and a place to process the oil.

Then there's the option of just buying the damn oil at Costco in bulk and burning it. I've heard that this can bring the price down to $2-$3 per gallon, the cost effectiveness of which obviously depends upon the price of diesel.

There are some uber-awesome veggie oil kits out there for newer cars. Of course you can always DIY, but some of the new ones will heat the oil for you, and automatically switch over when it's sufficiently warmed. The only thing you have to do is manually switch back to diesel to purge the lines for a mile or so before you shut down, so that the next start can be on diesel. Of course this is only really important when you're going to leave the car sitting. If you're just running into a store to pick up something real fast, and the car won't cool down, don't worry about it.

6. Diesels are cool.



I know you didn't ask about veggie oil, but somebody brought it up, so I figured I'd talk about it. Deal with it.

Edit- VWVortex is a cesspool.

Last I heard the Jetta's had some serious quaility issues. This was thier late 90's cars though. I had a couple friends that had them and had a lot of problems. Same thing VW has been fighting since the Mexico and Brazil plants. Not sure if it still holds true.

We keep Volvo's for the family car FWIW.
--Alex

^ Heard about this as well but it was more common with the previous generations.

I know everything there is to know about SVO conversions, I almost went that route before buying the miata. However, I wont be doing that. I need my car to run, period. I dont want to futz around with collecting and processing SVO. One day, but not now.

Isn't the whole point of SVO that it doesn't need processing?

/nitpicking

Yeah, my sister had a Mexican-built '98. The drivetrain was rock-solid, but everything else was shit. The fender liners would literally fall off as you were driving, the interior rattled like hell, the brake calipers all wore out, causing the pistons to seize, causing the rotors to warp, the electronics were flakey as hell, the steering was vague, the power windows locked up and the power locks didn't... It was almost laughable what a horrid car it was.


Are they being built in Germany again now?

No they are not. However their quality has increased some from what I hear.

Ugh. I want to crush that beetle then beat the "voice" actor with a piece of the car..

Oh, c'mon. You gotta love the surfer-dude minibus in the new spots.

"So you mean, like, spiritually we're all the same. I can dig it."

I can dig it. :giggle:


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Gah, the Routan is just a rebadged Chrysler Town & Country. VW is making a major mistake in trying to sell more cars by sacrificing the essence of what makes them unique.

C

Especially if they're using a pile of shit like the Chrysler. :laugh:

Everybody has to have a damn minivan......

SVO = Spent vegetable oil. Its the stuff that comes out of deep friers.

It needs to be heated, then while heated it needs to be sent through numerous filters, and boiled off, and only after like 3 stages of thorough cleaning you can use it in your car.

All to, what? Save a couple hundred bucks a year? I've got better things to do. If the SVO people would spend as much time working for money as they do on SVO, they could afford gas...

Sorry, I just don't get it. But, I drive a 15 mpg truck when I'm not driving the Miata, so what do I know.

If I had a diesel right now, at this very second I'd spend $0.55/gallon for SVO processed Bio Diesel. Very good friend of mine processes and sells BioDiesel on the retail market for $1.25/gallon. His cost, $0.55/gallon. Couple hundred dollars a year? Not even close, when you consider Diesel right now is 2.60/gallon here and last summer was 4.99 - 5.20 most places I went.

Shit, I saw more than one GASOLINE powered old pickup blow $100 on half tanks of fuel.. :vash:

A friend of mine has a 2005 Jetta TDI. It spent over 6 months of the first two years he had it at the dealer for various electronics issues. I had to meet him in busy intersections at least 3 three times to push the damn thing out of traffic. It's been running well for the last year or so, however. And the mileage is amazing.

SVO stands for "straight vegetable oil," "WVO" is the commonly used acronym for "Waste Vegetable Oil."

I'd comment on the part about your "3 stages of cleaning" and "boiling off" and all that, but your knowledge obviously pwns all. :giggle:

Youre the man.

Boo for the ninja edit, I liked your hippie comment better.

C

No point in indulging him, the thread has derailed enough already.

+3 on the electrical probs mentioned previously by others. Power windows fail early and often at ~$300 apiece. CELs aplenty. Switches, relays, etc. And I don't believe that the newer high pressure common rail injection system will let you run the filtered fry oils. That's why the fry oil geeks love the older models with the injection pumps. Regular diesel won't kill you with that kind of mileage.

Why do you want to lose money on a new car anyway? Get something 4 years old at one third the price instead. Let the other guy take it in the shorts so you don't have to.

I want a new car. I have lived with three used cars so far and its time for a change. I don't want to play guessing games with it and I dont want surprises. If something is wrong I take it to the dealer under warranty and they sort out the problems, not me.

Ill pay the depreciation for piece of mind.

P.S. Id also consider leasing.

you can buy used which still have nice fat warranties. that's what i did with my miata.

The difference in money for an 09 TDI that has 10k miles on it vs a new one is not that much over time. It also reduces the guess work about the car you are buying.

The main problem I have noticed from buying used, unless you are buying from a private party, which sometimes can be just as bad, is that people lie about the condition of the car. They lie about the history of the car, and while the car may look mint and have all the signs of being mint, after you buy it you quickly realize that there is something wrong with it.

I just want a new car.

The cheapest new car > the best used car for the same money.

I dunno, man.

I bought a new car once, about nine years ago. My Grand Am had just cracked its third cylinder head, and I'd recently gotten a new job and was rolling in money (relatively speaking). Bought an Integra.

It was a fine car. I mean, it started every morning, never acted up, ran like a champ and got good mileage. And it bored me to tears. The car was just so emotionless, so without character.

Not long thereafter, I bought a complete piece-o-shit, rusted out '87 Celica GT convertible. It ran like hell, you had to double-clutch into second, the A/C didn't work, and it looked like it'd been involved in the beach landing at Normandy. I loved it.

^ We have a saying in Russian, everyone masturbates differently.

The Mk5 Jetta is made in Mexico, unfortunately it has been made there exclusively since '94. Some models are indeed made in Germany, the Golf/Passat/Jetta Wagon for example. If you are unsure, look at the VIN. If the first number is a 'W', it's German or made in Europe at least (the Touaregs are made in Slovakia, along with their cousin the Cayenne, and they have a W), if they have a '9', that is made in Brazil. If it is a '3', it is Hecho en Mexico. If it is a '1', then it is American, and you are looking at an -old- VW (nothing has been made here since '89).

All the issues with VWs mentioned in this thread were with the MkIIIs, and the MkIVs; VW has done a good job improving a lot of quality control issues. Joe Lopez (formerly of GM) went to VW in the '90s, and he -always- pushed for a cheaper product. He got it, and VW got hammered. Also, good notes on TDIs in one of the previous posts, on indirect injection. The Turbo Direct Injection engines began in '94 and are still in production in some markets. VW went to Pumpe Dusse engines in about '03, depending on which model you talk about. These engines use a pump on the end of the camshaft to pump the fuel up to something silly, like 210 bar. These engines have been replaced by common-rail injection, IE electronically injected. I know little about these engines except what I have read, they are more efficient.


I would buy a Jetta Wagon, as AFAIK they are still made in Germany, and the resale on them should be great. Only car that might have better resale might be the Jetta Wagon 1.8T, those are hard to find. Keep in mind, I have never bought a new car, but if I were, I would consider the JW TDI a great idea.


<--- Former VW dealership parts slinger.

New cars are nice to have, I bought my WRX new in 02. 110k mi of no hassle fun.

Back to the subject, my engineer here at work has an 09 TDI Jetta. Paid $24 grand for it, and it's loaded, leather the whole nine yards. He gets 30+mpg around town, and 50mpg hwy. Ive taken a ride in it, and the torque is NICE. Longevity...who knows? He has only had it for 6 months.

Winding Road just did a very complimentary writeup on the TDI wagon.
Winding Road Magazine | Issue 46

C

You mean the Touareg TDI?

Previous TDI Touaregs were V8s, it's interesting they have a V6 now. The V8 had over 500 ft/lb of torque!

Me?

They reviewed both the Touareg TDI and Jetta TDI wagon in the current issue.

V10, not V8.

C

:bowrofl::bowrofl::bowrofl:

Sam; 2 quick comments:

1) I would pass on buying any VW at this particular time. I must say I like the brand but I don't think their quality standards have been up to par for a long time.

2) Going back to your question about automatic or manual transmission: does your GF drive a stick? If I were in your shoes, I'd buy a car with an automatic trans. You already have the Miata to enjoy the feeling of a manual trans car. An automatic will be a good change of pace once in a while.

This reminds me of something I meant to offer before; VW is not known for a robust automatic, I would steer clear of an auto. The DSG is new technology and might be better, but they weren't when they first came out. We had several that had to have the electronic-hydraulic pump bodies replaced, but I think they might have sorted that out...



On the TDI Touareg being a V10, you're right Chris, I forgot.