VOLKSWAGEN is really two car companies – one offering quality Euro-focussed products like the Polo, Golf, Passat, Eos, Tiguan and Touareg, and the other selling more price-sensitive fare for the Americas such as the Beetle, Golf wagon and Jetta.
And that’s OK, for the Jetta under scrutiny here is a small/medium in-between model with sights on unseating the dominating Toyota Camry and Honda Accord in the US.
But, while it may look like a (slightly) shrunken Passat, it neither feels nor pleases quite like one.
Jetta
Released: February 2006
Ended: July 2011
Family Tree: JettaBASED on the all-new fifth-generation Golf, the corresponding Jetta was built on a slightly longer wheelbase and featured a different body from the B-pillar back, incorporating a massive boot.
Unexpectedly after the failure of the preceding (Golf IV-derived) Bora, Aussies flocked to the Jetta.
Until early 2009, the Mexican-made Jetta offered a 110kW/200Nn 2.0-litre FSI petrol engine mated to either a six-speed manual or six-speed Tiptronic auto, a 103kW/320Nm 2.0 TDI turbo-diesel with six-speed manual or six-speed dual-clutch DSG, and a 147kW/280Nm 2.0 Turbo from the Golf GTI with the same transmission choices as the TDI.
A mild facelift emerged in early ’09, adding a new common-rail 103TDI diesel later that year, a 118kW/240Nm 1.4 turbo/supercharged ‘Twincharge’ unit with a seven-speed DSG, a 125kW/350Nm version of the 2.0TDI known as the 125TDI, and a new entry-level diesel known as the 77TDI (77kW/250Nm, five-speed manual or seven-speed DSG, while the Jetta Turbo was rechristened 147TSI.
Road Test
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