In my driving career, I’ve driven a handful of cars; a Toyota Camry, Volkswagen Golf, Dodge Neon, and two Volkswagen Jettas. The Camry was my mother’s car, and the Golf was my brothers. But my first car, was a 1996 Dodge Neon, decent car, not terrible on fuel, and it got me from point A to point B. Unfortunately, due to mechanical problems, poor Eleanor hit a tree. After that, I had a 2002 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, excellent car, great on fuel, and I loved it. But, a Chevrolet Venture didn’t, and as a result it took out poor Veronica while she was parked on the street. Now however, I have a 2001 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, same as my old car, one-year difference, and about a good 100,000 plus kilometers older. As you can imagine, I like Volkswagens, more specifically Jettas. But they aren’t made like they used to.
Back a decade ago when Volkswagen made the Jetta in the years of 2000-2006, they were brilliant. They had a squared off look to them, a curved antenna in the back, heated folding mirrors, heated seats, and pretty much everything Volkswagen had to put in a car. You could have had a single DIN deck, which allowed you to have a small shelf above it, or a double DIN deck that had more buttons on it, minus the shelf. A sunroof was optional, as well as the many choices of trim you wanted for your car. What made the Jetta brilliant was the attention to detail. You could spend a lifetime in the car, and still manage to find new and exciting features you didn’t think anyone would have come up with.
So moving with the times, Volkswagen ditched the squared off look and introduced the bigger rounder version of its predecessor in the years 2006-2010. Yes, they did look nice, but I wasn’t really a fan of the new style, even though they still kept with the same attention to detail, the new style had a body that I could never love.
Then, 2011 came along and the style changed completely. Volkswagen introduced a semi-squared look again, and ditched the curved antenna for a fish fin antenna like you would find on cars like Lexus and Mercedes. When the new Jettas came out, I was excited; thrilled that Volkswagen ditched the rounded look. And if you didn’t know any better, you would think it was an Audi A4 at first glance. Partly because the tail lights on the new Jetta look very similar to its cousin from Audi.
The thing is though, somewhere down the line Volkswagen decided it would try to compete with the ever so popular Honda Civic, and sadly the attention to detail was gone. So, we ended up with hard fake leather dashboards, unlike the Jettas of old. Cloth interior that wasn’t the softest, and build quality that looked like they stuck panels together without bothering to hide the seems. Putting those small nitpicks aside; the new Jetta is still a great car. It still gets great fuel mileage diesel wise, the ride is comfortable, and they fitted a sixth gear into the car thus giving you better fuel mileage, as apposed to older Jettas that only had five.
In the end, I will probably buy the new Jetta. Though I’m not sure which year it will be because my old Jetta is still going strong even at almost 400,000 kilometers. And even though I will buy a new Jetta, in my mind the early 2000’s models were fantastic. And to know that going forward in the future makes me a little sad.
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