Volkswagen Jetta 1.4 TSI (DSG) 2009

The Review

Celebrated my Jetta’s first birthday recently, no cake but taken a nice Sunday morning drive to the airport for breakfast. Having clocked just over 15000km, my car is considered a relatively low-mileage used vehicle. It could fetch me some good $ if I were to sell it in the current inflated COE market (omg! 30K now!). Well, only if I give up driving. :-P Driving experience My year-old Jetta has matured into a reliable and stable companion wherever I go. Every morning it wakes up with the familiar half-minute grunt, much like the groan my son gives me when I wake him up for school. After which the engine readily picks up with the 200 kicking horses and nippily runs up the 7-stage gears. However, acceleration from stationary usually hesitates between the “ultra-short” gear 1 & more powerful gear 2, or the car jerks if the driver tries to be a bit more enthusiastic. Given that it is a pretty heavy 1.4L car, labouring at low rpm is expected before turbo kicks in. Acceleration performance is still the strongest in the mid-range. When it comes to gear shift pattern, it is known that in “S” mode, each gear pulls to higher rpm (typically >3000) than in “D” mode (typically ~2000 region) before shifting up to the next one. If I tried to be a little more heavy-footed in “D” mode, the car will complain with “tick-tick-tick” sound and refuse to up the gear. I have to let go of the pedal and gently tap on it again to regain some composure. Probably that tells me I should have set to “S” mode instead. I seldom play with the paddle shifters, partly due to laziness and largely due to the heavy roads that I travelled daily. Kick-down lethargy is still annoying at times, especially from gear 7 down to 6 / 5, unless with manual intervention. On a brighter note, handling of the car has slowly grown into me as I can now effortlessly manoeuvre it, be it in heavy traffic or tight corners, with the car responding readily and precisely to the way I want to. As for FC, the following pattern has been observed: - 8~10km/L for short journey (<5km) with frequent stops - 10~12km/L for moderately heavy city driving - 12~15km/L for highway travel, including peak hours but no massive jam - 15~18km/L ultimate for smooth highway travel, average speed 80~90km/h Growing-up year While the engine is getting smoother, around the engine compartment starts to get a little more vocal, especially before the engine is warmed. The side mirrors sometimes make noise when turned, probably due to trapped dirt in the gaps. Rear tyre got punctured once, luckily was able to be patched, and it’s running well so far. Dents and scratches begin to appear, thanks to your neighbours’ slamming doors, a typical “ritual” in Singapore’s tightly-spaced carparks. Otherwise Jetta’s sturdy body remains pretty much unfazed. A year on, more of my car’s “brothers” are seen on the road. Apparently Jetta’s popularity has picked up. While its exterior design has never been its trump card, some say dated, masculinity in other departments still attracts a family man like me. It is still exciting to sit in a well sculpted seat, close the door with a solid thump, hold onto the comfortable leather-wrapped steering, tap on the pedal, and hear the melodic baritone of the turbo engine as the car ups its gears smoothly…well, almost. Sometimes I just don’t want to switch on the radio to enjoy those sounds – my lovely wife will ask if the radio is spoiled (:-P). Reliability is bound to degrade as the car ages. Recent news about Polo’s jammed windows and a damaged Jetta gear-box in the middle of the road unavoidably raised my eyebrows a little (:-D), but touch-wood mine is still alive and kickin’! Long live, my Jet!

The Review

This is when the Jetta’s huge boot is most useful. Took my family (of 5) on a road trip to Malacca over the weekend with load-full of luggage – the boot just gobbled up everything without breaking sweat! Tired? Put down the rear seat backrest and one could lie down in the boot and stretch out comfortably... a bit exaggerated lah. Great opportunity also to set the car “running” along NS-HW. It was really about letting out my pent-up desire after months of driving through daily crawling traffic. While keeping an eye on safety (TP & cameras as well :-P), I managed to climb the rpm scale from 2000 (speed ~100km/h) until 3700 (speed ~180km/h) on gear 7. I did not try top speed of 199 km/h as I was approaching vehicles ahead on the stretch of road that I did the speed test (ok, I admit was also hesitant to hit the limit ;-)). I thought, “Wonderful! Is that all the rpm the car needs?” On the other hand, that means the car’s maximum power is not utilized, unless I ram it from standstill to 5000 rpm (but heart-pain to do that leh…). During high-speed run I was hearing more road noise rather than the sound of engine / turbo. At some stretches of the highway noise could get very intrusive. I’m wondering if I should now go and sound-proof the wheel arches. Wind-noise is low, with only the occasional “whoosh-whoosh” heard from turbulence gushing past the wing mirrors. The body was extremely stable, even at 180 km/h I could feel that the tyres were firmly on the ground with no hint of vibration or wobble on the steering wheel. And the car always felt like it still had enough lung power to push further. Great stuff! At the end of the day, average FC registered in the car now stands at 8.8 litres/100km. Of course the relatively high FC may also be due to my not so “law-abiding” drive along the way. At this point, it’s probably the last time I’m going to track my FC as the constant monitoring can get quite a bit obsessive and tiring, which took away some fun from driving the car. It’s not like I’m going to drain fuel like nobody’s business but if I’m so conscious, I might as well change my car to a bicycle :-D One thing I still don’t quite fancy is the response to kick-down in D-mode during overtaking (yes I know, S-mode or manual shift is a better choice…). The car requires me to step really hard on the accelerator to invoke a kick-down, and that could take 1~2 seconds depends on how hard I stepped. The engine then runs up to very high rpm which consumes a lot of fuel. With such time delay during lane change, a car coming right behind might kiss or swear (a.k.a. horn loudly) at my car’s pretty butt. Worst still after that only to find the butt of a “crawling snail” smacking right in front of my face. And I’ve to step on the brake pedal again right away, and hear the “vvroom” turns to “meeooowww”... really feels deflating… During the journey, I saw a convoy of Lambo’s (all S-plates) passed by. Quite a sight, wondering if that was one of their regular ventures up North. Not long after another convoy of Celica’s, Type R’s followed. Reminded me of “Hua Shan Lun Jian” in Louis Cha’s martial arts novels, perhaps they were all converging at Sepang for some track fun. All in all it was an enjoyable drive, thanks also to the checkpoints on both sides which were surprisingly not crowded (wonder why?). I'm already looking forward to another trip even though I've just returned. Ha!

The Review

Amidst busy launches of new VW models in SGP (Passat CC, Golf VI, Scirocco) in the last half year or so, the introduction of the 2009 Jetta TSI in April was relatively muted in the media. Given that not much has changed in the car from 1yr ago, I probably understood why it was so. Maybe you think Jetta is just a Golf + boot, with Golf being reviewed umpteen times, so why bother? Well, here I am looking at some of Jetta’s lesser-noticed features and not-so-perfect characteristics instead of the well-publicised “oohs!” and “wows!” of its hot-hatch sibling. Compared to the 2008 Jetta Sport, this 122bhp turbo-only version is an added "entry level" that now comes with 7-speed DSG, plus some other small changes (audio head-unit, “hidden” exhaust pipes, etc.). Exterior of the car has the look of a normal family sedan, nothing flashy. To me, the car does look "manly" when I see it at an angle somewhere between the front and side. Maybe the back juts out a bit too much creating a longer overhang from the back wheels (reminds me of the older Camry). If you noticed, this car does not have an antenna sticking out of the roof which is quite rare for a European car. The “night-lamp” beneath each of the wing mirrors is a nice little assistant especially when I parked the car at a dark place. The only grouse I have is the “half-hearted” folding of the wing mirrors, which stops at about 60 degrees from the opened position. The pivot of rotation is too close to the door. The grey-black themed cabin exudes a typical Euro-feel: mature, classy and purposeful. Some may call it dull (compared to the brighter and curvy Japs). But I like it, especially the blue-red lighting of the instrument when it's switched on at night. The seats are comfy and nicely cushioned, at least all my passengers so far have no complaints. The driver is sensed if the seat belt is fastened, so is the front passenger which is not common in many of the sedans I knew. The central armrest’s height and reach are nicely adjustable but the storage compartment beneath it is a little too small for putting CD casings without compromising the height-adjustment ratchet (doesn’t work if the armrest is not fully closed). It would be nice if the compartment is a bit deeper and longer. Oh, but I can plug in my MP3 player via the 3.5mm audio socket in the compartment which probably will become a standard feature in all future new cars. The front seats are somehow oddly biased towards the centre of the car, typically felt by the closeness of my left leg to the sideboard of the central console, thereby creating relatively bigger gap between the front seats and the door panels. I thought the good width of the car could have been better used by having wider front seats. Cabin space is ok, given that my family members are all typical Asian-sized, but I thought as a European-designed car it could have been bigger. There is no flat floor at the rear middle seat and the middle passenger needs to open his legs (definitely not for “hers”!), although rear passengers are “compensated” with twin rear aircon vents – a touch of class but air-flow is too weak. The boot is humongous for a car like this, good for family road trips but I would trade it for bigger legroom in the cabin. I mean how often do you go on a road trip? As expected, without the supercharger, turbo lag is present in the drive. However once turbo sets in, the drive has more oomph and is much more satisfying. I wouldn’t say it flies, but the 200Nm that comes in as early as 1500rpm made cars in the rear-view mirror shrink pretty quickly. Not to mention the pleasant and not overly-intrusive bassy grunt of the engine coming thru the cabin. I’m still adapting to it because I have never driven a turbocharged car before. The 7-speed DSG is wonderfully smooth, but I don’t quite fancy the approx. 1-second response lag in manual shift mode. Perhaps I’m being unfair because my last ride was a manual car. In terms of fuel consumption, currently at 9.5L/100km after having travelled just over 2300km, it is still quite a distance away from the specifications. Yes, it depends on driving style, load, road conditions and what-have-you. Driving thru daily heavy traffic didn’t help, but I also wonder how “gentle” must I drive in order to achieve the rated consumption figures… Overall the Jetta TSI is a good family sedan for everyday use, although so far not yet a fuel-sipper as I expected it to be. It also has a number of features that enhance driver’s convenience and safety. But many new higher-end mid-size car are beginning to add in similar or even more features at a lower price. Yes, some Japs 2.0L are cheaper than the Jetta TSI by >S$10K, not to mention the Koreans which you can trade in a Jetta for 2. So after VW pocketed its profit margins, Jetta has to prove its worth in terms of quality (of build and service) and reliability. That’s what I have invested in. Hopefully I will be proven right in the years to come with my ride.