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Diesel VW Jetta TDI ~20K mile update -NOW 30,000 MILE UPDATE

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Wow I really love this little car:clap:

Purchased just before Thanksgiving last year, I'm just rolling up to the 20,000 mile mark and will be taking it in for the 20,000 free maintenance/oil change next week. I've have no real problems with this car, there was something early on, can't remember what it was, but the dealer fixed it during one of the FREE regular service check ups. Free maintenance on this car for the first 36,000 miles, which at the rate I am going is less than 2 years of driving. But I don't expect that I'll need much other than oil changes for quite a while.

This little car is still very comfortable, still operating flawlessly, and is still turning in roughly 40mpg during my daily driving.

Did a round trip up to O'Hare airport on Monday to pick up my family as they returned from Albuquerque and despite the 65-70mph travel speeds much of the way, with the air conditioner running, I averaged 44mpg for the whole trip. Daily driving, which is a mix of rural and suburban, yields an average of roughly 39mpg for long term averages. Car starts easily, runs quietly and surprises everyone with its pick-up when you step on the go-pedal.

The bad news is that I doubt my daughter will be getting this car when she gets her drivers license. I like it way too much to give it up. She'll probably get the old Volvo and I'll probably keep this for my toy.
 

Av8r3400

Gone Flyin'
Re: Diesel VW Jetta TDI ~ 20,000 mile update

Care to update this review?

My '01 is about to roll 200k miles. Wear and tear are beginning to take their toll...
 

loboloco

Well-known member
Re: Diesel VW Jetta TDI ~ 20,000 mile update

Care to update this review?

My '01 is about to roll 200k miles. Wear and tear are beginning to take their toll...
Motor or body problems? Or is it mostly the auxiliary junk?
 

Av8r3400

Gone Flyin'
Re: Diesel VW Jetta TDI ~ 20,000 mile update

No, I've kept up on body issues as they happen, motor purrs great, just normal wear and tear of 200k miles (Seats, carpet, general wear). Still gets 45+ mpg even with my un-conservative driving.

I'm just thinking about a new one, maybe, a wagon next time...
 

loboloco

Well-known member
Re: Diesel VW Jetta TDI ~ 20,000 mile update

No, I've kept up on body issues as they happen, motor purrs great, just normal wear and tear of 200k miles (Seats, carpet, general wear). Still gets 45+ mpg even with my un-conservative driving.

I'm just thinking about a new one, maybe, a wagon next time...
As long as the motor and the body is good, I would keep it. But then, my pick-up is an 86.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Rolled over 30,000 miles and I'm still very pleased with this car. I got it in mid-November 2009 so the car is roughly 14 months old. I admit that on the heavy snow days I park it and drive a 4x4 vehicle, its probably been parked about a month a day, two or 3 at a time over the period I've owned it. Sometimes its sits when I need a bigger vehicle for hauling, but for its size it has a remarkable amount of storage space in the trunk, doubly so when the rear seat is folded down.

Now I have to admit its become my "favorite" vehicle to drive, if I'm going anywhere I automatically gravitate to this little car. The seats are very comfortable, offer very good support and adjustability. Even at nearly 31,000 miles they are still nice and firm with good support, no signs of the foam or springs degrading.

Everything still works. I had it in the shop for its 30,000 mile oil change (free service until 36,000 miles from VW) and they performed an update on some sensor that was not a recall but something they called an improvement. Not really sure what that was.

One thing I would love to see improved is more padding in the arm rest on the center console. With as much time as I spend in this car (often 20 minutes per day sitting in a parking lot waiting for my daughter to come out of school in addition to driving hours) I find that my right elbow is often sore and I blame that on the thin armrest padding???

Mileage is simply exceptional. But the driving experience is really what has me sold. This car is just a blast to thrash around on the country roads, its got plenty of zip/pep or whatever you want to call it for setting the pace in traffic; something that most ultra-high mileage economy cars lack!

VW says I'm supposed to get 42 miles per gallon on the highway but to that I have to raise the BS flag. I get far more than that!!! Melen had conference championships yesterday for her fencing team, it was at a school near the IL/WI border, the route to get there/home took me right through the city of Chicago, included interstate expressway miles, rural roads, small town streets. See the photos below for the "average" miles per gallon I achieved on that trip.

The photos were snapped while I was sitting at a stoplight on the south side of Cook County, IL on my way home (about 15+ miles from home). Notice the fuel gauge? I had filled up the tank on Friday, but ran some errands after doing so. Also notice that the time stamp on the clock puts that time in the evening. That said I was clearly on the return trip from the tournament and its over 110 miles each way to/from my house to get to the tournament location. So when that photo was snapped I had gone over 200 miles on what appears to be less than 1/3 of a tank, giving me roughly a 600 mile per tank travel distance.

**** my normal daily driving has me averaging just under 40mpg but that includes lots of stoplights, sitting in the school parking lot with the engine idling to keep the car heater running, etc. But every trip I've taken that includes any amount of highway driving pushes the trip MPG up north of 45mpg ****
 

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Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Pushed over 36,000 miles.

Loving the Jetta Diesel. Drove 128 miles round trip today to our monthly "Meet/Eat & Shoot" event. Averaged 48 miles per gallon on the trip, not following the speed limits + using the air conditioning on the way home. With "Regular" at $4.29 a gallon and "Diesel" running about 5-cents cheaper per gallon, the sporty little diesel Jetta is paying for itself with the added fuel economy that comes with diesel cars. The same car with a gas engine gets only 33mpg on the highway, and less in the city. My driving today was through rural roads, small towns, and included going through a drive through window to pick up a cup of coffee.

GOT TO LOVE the "TDI" engine. Very quick, lots of torque, fun to drive.
 

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Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Loving the VW diesel ... Chicago to St Louis and back to Chicago --589.5 miles-- on 14.02 gallons of fuel at 70mph with the Air Conditioner blasting away the whole trip (it reached 102 degrees and sunny) and averaging 42 miles per gallon.
 

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