VOLKSWAGEN Jetta Review

Volkswagen's love story with winds started in the 1970s. Coincidentally or not, that's when the Wolfsburg-based car manufacturer transformed from just having its reputation completely based on the success of the Beetle to a real global player in the automotive market. That was also the era when the Vee-Dub company introduced the Golf (named after the Gulf-Stream, ed). Just a few years after that it introduced its second best-seller in the US, the Jetta.

Technically just a Golf with a sedan body, the Jetta was named after a wind. The "jet stream", to be more specific. Although it's a bit weird for the "people's car" manufacturer to name its models after forces of nature, they weren't/aren't the only ones with antithetic marketing ideas.

Generation after generation, Jetta changed its name depending on the market it was sold on - except the United States, where it kept the same moniker. In Europe and a few other markets it went from Jetta to Vento, then to Bora and then to Jetta again. With its production exclusively moved to the Volkswagen plant in Mexico, the latest generation has the same name in every country where it is imported.

We got the chance to get behind the wheel of a 2009 VW Jetta equipped with the new "TDI" of the Volkswagen gasoline engine range, a 1.4 TSI. Not the most powerful, nor the least economical, the Jetta we tested came with the 122 horsepower version of the highly-acclaimed TSI engine.

Sadly, our car had to settle with "just" a turbocharger, instead of the supercharger AND turbocharger setup of its bigger TSI brothers. This means that our car had "only" 88 horsepower per liter, which everybody knows is something extremely "shameful" for a family car in the XXI century, right?

Sadly, we only had a few hours at our disposal to experiment the qualities and the downsides of the Jetta 1.4 TSI, something that will translate in a bit fewer pictures than usual and more basic explanations in each test drive chapter. Plus, to make everything sound even worse, our test car had non-functional ABS sensors, which basically means we had no ABS and no ESP system. This in turn means we had to be a bit more careful driving it to the limit, which we were.

Comparing the Golf V with the latest Jetta in terms of styling would be like comparing the Jennifer Lopez from 1995 to Jennifer Lopez from 2009: basically they look the same, with the exception that the latter has a much bigger trunk. No offense to J Lo fans, but that's pretty much the truth.

The Jetta's frontal design is over 99% identical to that of the Golf V, with a single major exception – the addition of an exaggerate amount of "plastic chrome" on the grille. Apart from differentiating the two models, this "addition" was most likely included to both please the "chrome friendly" Americans and displease most of the "Q-car-loving" Europeans", which don't appreciate "bling" that much.

Unfortunately for some, our test-driving team mostly consists of the second type of potential customers. In other words, apart from looking a bit boring (as most of the pre-De'Silva Volkswagens looked), the Jetta's front also looks unnecessarily bling-bling.

Going to the side of the car we find some classic four-door sedan proportions and lines. This is not necessarily a downside, since the Jetta proves to be one of the rare sedan models derived from a hatchback which don't look like a weird mix of different types of design. The boring factor is deducting some points from the whole package though.

As for the design of the rear, designers apparently tried too much to make the Jetta integrate in the Volkswagen sedan model range and the result isn't exactly pretty. The taillights and overall rear-design look almost identical to that of the Passat, but every detail is morphed to fit on the car's smaller height and width. This odd combination makes it look like the Passat's uglier, smaller and most of all chubbier brother. Not exactly a pretty sight.

Apart from some tiny fit and finish details, talking about the Jetta's interior compared with that of the Golf V is pretty much the same deal. The design and interior layout are the same, the overall passenger space is identical and the materials used are almost indistinguishable. We don't know if it's because the car is assembled in Mexico (although that might be a good reason) or because our test car wasn't exactly at its first journalistic driving abuse, but some of the fit and finish wasn't perfect.

The center console's layout is an example of Teutonic efficiency. Every button and knob is right where you'd expect it to be, while not over-clogging the rather decent number of storage spaces. What we particularly liked was the fact that when the gear shifter is positioned in first, third or fifth gear it doesn't get in the way of the air conditioning controls, like in many other cars. This happens because the center console per se is sitting higher than in other cars.

Speaking of the air conditioning unit, our test car didn't have an automatic dual zone system, but the very cost-effective Climatic standard unit. Technically, the Climatic air-con is a manual AC system with dual-zone capabilities and LCD displays for the temperature. Funny thing about it is that the units used for expressing the temperature were in Fahrenheit, although our test car was the European version of the Jetta.

The overall legroom and headroom are above average for a sedan a little bit longer than the VW Golf but with almost the same interior, and are adequate even for more extended periods of driving. As for the quality of materials, you can tell even from the pictures that this is no Rolls-Royce, although they're not exactly cheap either. On the plus side, the luggage compartment is gigantic for a sedan this size, delivering almost 530 liters (18.7 cubic feet) of storage space, albeit at the cost of a worse entry.

Compared (again) with its hatchback counterpart - the Golf - the Volkswagen Jetta is obviously less prone to handle great in the city, especially in one with killer traffic. This is of course happening because of the car's sedan shape, since when driver is looking behind him there's another meter or so of car behind the rear window. That, along with the fact that the Jetta we drove wasn't equipped with front or rear parking sensors, can't make driving in the city any easier.

Still, overall visibility isn't that bad, it's just a little bit worse than that of the Volkswagen Golf. The exterior rearview mirrors are nicely-shaped and have a decent size, thus giving a lot of information of what is going on behind you.

As far as the fuel economy goes, despite the fact that the 1.4 TSI engine is quite a bit more voracious than its TDI brothers, things aren't going as bad as you might think. Remember, although it provides a decent amount of power (122 HP) for its minimal displacement (only 1390 cc), the 1.4 TSI we drove brought between 10 and 12 liters per 100 kilometers (US 19.6-23.5 mpg) of fuel economy while being engulfed in heavy stop-and-go traffic.

Compared to the official numbers, our measured fuel consumption is about 20-25% higher, but considering the circumstances (heavy traffic, heavy right foot) we won't give any negative points for it. The rather high torque figures for such a small engine are available from under 2000 rpm, just like in a diesel, which means you can get a much lower fuel consumption if you use the power band a bit wiser than we did.

Considering our test car was sadly equipped with malfunctioning ABS and ESP units, we didn't exactly drive it to the limit, so we can't give a fully objective opinion on the vehicle's handling. During the few hours we got the chance to experience the Jetta 1.4 TSI, most of the driving was done in the city, but we also put a few miles on the open road. That - plus the fact that we've also experienced the car's hatchback brother – means we will try to offer some opinion anyway.

Just like on the Golf, the suspension setup is a bit on the sporty side, except it will handle a bit different than its tailless sibling because of the extra weight. The feel of the steering on tight turns is invigorating, while the way the suspension acts during cornering or hard(ish) braking provide a nice and safe modus operandi for the driver.

As far as performance goes, we failed to get any highway time with our test car because of the short window in which we had the car, but we can tell you it should be much more than what someone would expect from a 1.4-liter four banger. The naught to 100 km/h (62 mph) acceleration sits just under the round 10-seconds figure, while the 200 Nm (147.5 lb ft) of torque are more than helpful when passing long lines of cars.

The acoustic comfort at speeds averaging 90-100 km/h (55-62 mph) is adequate as long as you keep the engine rev until 2500-3000 rpm, since after those figure it begins to enter the cockpit via sound waves. Not to say it sounds bad, since it actually provides a nice deep growl at low revs and has a pretty good pitch at higher rpm. We didn't perceive any bad aerodynamic noises at those speeds though, which was to be expected from a sedan (when compared to a hatchback, ed).