Old Man's Car?
 

This week I sold the Golf Cabriolet I had been fixing up as well as the '07 Mercedes which was needing work. My guy had a Golf with a manual transmission I wanted to check out and, while I was at it, I also tried a Jetta Highline with the same drivetrain as my wife's Golf wagon, the 1.8 turbo mated to a 6 speed automatic. To my surprise, after driving both cars back to back over some interesting roads, I bought the Jetta. I had really anticipated bringing home the car with the manual transmission, but realized the automatic was better than I was. I also tell myself the Jetta has more room and will probably get a bit better mileage.
I guess my needs have overwhelmed my ego. Why not?

Best
Les

Maybe it's a Chicago thing, but the Jetta has always been a "female recent college-grad" car, not an old man's car.

try a GTI DSG.

Nice looking car Les! Enjoy.

That was true of Mrs. Noah. (Well, before she was Mrs. Noah.)

I had a 96 Jetta VR6, definitely NOT an old mans car !

I just did 745 km (about 460 miles) in the Jetta yesterday to see family and was pleased with the car. It has the comfort of the C280 and moves like the Golf. The 17 inch wheels seemed to help through the corners, but I think the rear shocks were overwhelmed on some of the frost heaved sections of our Nova Scotia secondary roads. Drove it like I was in a hurry and it used 6.5 liters/ 100 km (somewhere over 30 mpg). It threw a code when I dropped 3 gears to overtake another car on one stretch, so I'll have to find out what that was about. Other than that I am happy. I left home at 7:30 in the morning and got back at 7:40 the same day and felt like the car had looked after me.
I had driven the base Jetta with the 1.4 l turbo a few years ago and was saddened by how the model had been de-contented. Putting the Golf bits back into the car makes a world of difference.
One oddity: the odometer is accurate given I have driven this route hundreds of times in the past 48 years, but the speedometer is reading high by about 8%, measured against two of those "Your speed is..." units. Both the needle and the digital reading. WTF?

Old man's car is a good label, as I'll be 69 next month.
Best
Les

I've only owned one Jetta and it was a black 1980 two-door with a 5 speed.

I only remember two things about it....it was a very reliable car and the seating position was very high and comfortable.

NICE! Great score, Les. Just a little early for your birthday, but that's OK. :)

Happy early Birthday, Les!

Glad it was a comfy cruiser.

When I was a teen, I had a 1965 Chevy Impala. I used to think "when I'm older, I want 2. I want one with the 425hp 396 and a 4speed, and I want one with a 327 and an auto." Even then, I saw that there might be times when you'd just want to cruise without having to worry about shifting. I've pretty much always had manual trans cars (except a few years here and there when I was really poor and took what I could get) and can't see a time when I wouldn't have a manual trans car. But I definitely see the appeal of an auto under certain circumstances.

Yep, as you get older, the actual day, and the surprise of gifts gets less and less important.

Thanks guys! I seldom get a surprise that I like. (Especially a check engine light) I did a bit of poking around and it seems: a/ the engine oil level is high. Not enough to trigger a warning light, but too high on the dipstick. b/ at high rpm, the pcv valve may not be able to do its job if the oil level is too high, resulting in a misfire. My current plan is to extract the excess oil and have the code reset. The car worked well on the was home, but I was careful not to exceed 3000 rpm.
I haven't seen any sign of coolant or gasoline getting into the crankcase, so am guessing it was a "mechanic's error".

Best
Les

Hopefully, it's as simple as that.

A Matter of Degrees
 

Even simpler. Turns out when I dropped those gears and revved to 6000, the waste gate controller was being asked to do something it hadn't done in some time. Freeing it up was a simple job. I can assure you I will not allow the waste gate controller to lie idle while I have the car. :D.

Something else which struck my curiosity is the relative position of the gas pedal in the Jetta and my wife's Golf. My comfort level is the Jetta is greater. I can go for hours without aggravating my sciatica. My limit in the Golf is about an hour. The cars are both 2016s. The seats feel about the same in shape and I have my driving position dialed in in both cars. The big difference seems to be the angle of the gas pedal. The usual position of the gas pedal in the Jetta finds it in almost exactly the same plane as the dead pedal so my feet are at a comfortable position. In the Golf, under the same conditions, the gas pedal seems to be about 10 degrees closer to vertical, resulting in an awkward angle for my foot. I never noticed this until I drove the cars back to back. I'm going to have to see if there is a way to adjust that. Either that or I will just have to drive a lot faster in the Golf.
"Honest Officer, I was just trying to relieve my sciatica!" I'm willing to bet the cop hadn't heard that one before.

Best
Les

I will always have one car with a stickshift, but I no longer want manual in my daily drivers. Traffic sux.

Today, the manual transmission serves well as an anti theft device. No real advantage otherwise...

Not true. For me it is MORE FUN to drive.

Shoulda posted "No real performance advantage...

I dated some pretty hot women with Jettas

Not sure how this fact is relevant, other than to belie the old man car thing.

An old man's car That would be a Camry or a Lexus ES.

Update on the old man's car:
In the last 52 weeks I have racked up just over 23,000 km (14,000 miles) in the Jetta. Why? Because it gets the same fuel economy as the wife's Golf wagon and it has more passenger room. I like the seats better too. So if we go to the city or to visit friends, we take the Jetta.
I mentioned in another thread I put a set of Continentals on it a couple of months ago. The car loves them. Cornering speeds are up almost 10% before the tires start complaining. ;)
So now that the car has passed 230,000 km, we'll see how the journey goes.
If I was foolish enough to drive cross the continent I wouldn't hesitate to take this car.
Best
Les

Here in SWF, the Buick Invista seems to be the old man car of choice.

LOL not a Chicago thing - never heard of it. About 12 years ago I owned a CLK500. Loved this car because of the 5L V8. It got totaled, and I just needed a car. I bought a used 2003 Passat with a manual trans. I ran this into the ground. I was close to retirement and bought a MB C class sedan, thinking it would be one of the last vehicles I would own. Unfortunately, within 3 months, that got totaled as well. Hit/run while the car was parked. In my mind, that is the universe telling me not to own another Benz.

I'm not a truck/SUV guy, I'm a car guy so I bought a new 2019 Jetta. Not a Benz, hadn't had a car payment in who knows how long. Looked at a manual trans version of the car but decided on the automatic. After almost 5 years, it is an ok car, roomy, good gas millage, practical, I guess: an appliance. BTW, I put a set of run flat Centinentals on it and it is a big difference from the originals tires. My passion for cars has shifted from owning to just looking.

I own a Porsche 944 original owner and as I have gotten older, this is becoming a PITA to drive. And you get spoiled too: no shifting, power steering and back up cameras.

So, a car passion evolves - there is no right or wrong.

I have driven my wife's Macan in Arkansas on some fun roads. It is nice to put it in sport mode, and let shift with no further input from me. It is damn near physic in knowing when o downshift coming into a corner.

I still prefer my 911 on those roads.

Great review...thanks. A recommendation can't get much better than that.

Oh, I think a Jetta is definitely a Chad & Tracy kind of car (Lakeview), or at least it was for a long time (think Mk IV). Now they're buying SUVs like the rest of the universe.

I was in a base model Jetta in 2020 and my lasting impression was that the interior was terribly cheap. I hope they're better now. I recall that back then the GLI got a nice interior and IRS.

My ex-gf used to tease me that my 2013 TDI Sportwagen was a German grandpa wagon. She wasn't wrong.

VW seems to have an annoying tendency in the last two iterations of the Jetta to de-content the car ( hard plastic dash old style twist beam rear axle) in the first years after a body change, then they add the good stuff back in after a few years. I remember driving a loner 2011 Jetta one day and it did not compare favorably with my 2006 TDi Jetta at all. It was sad to see what they had done with the car to meet a price point.
Re: the GLi, it is an Audi A3 clone under the sheet metal. I'm told the drive train is the same.
Years ago I would have been tempted, but not so much any more.

Best
Les

I thought gold Camry....

Just curious if the speedo error might be due to the previous owner putting different size tires on it.
Have you checked what size the car came with when new?
Also if You're in the market for a scan tool the Ross-Tech one is awesome.

Ah, so you have been to new Zealand.

Plenty in the greater Seattle area.

So if one is an old man and owns a car --is that car actually an "old mans" car?

If you like it-- you like it --I had a Miata -big block Corvette- C10 - PT Cruiser stick- etc..

Pete,
Tire sizes are correct. The sizes for 16 &17" are both on the sticker on the B pillar. I have talked to a number of folks ( other VW and BMW owners as well as service people) about this. One theory goes something like: the speedo reads high so you have a tendency to keep close to the actual speed limit. I find that to be unlikely, as one tends to drive where it seems comfortable. As I think I mentioned in my O/P, the odometer is accurate. They have to be by law. I use a rough 8 -10% fudge factor based upon speed check radars when entering local towns and the flow of traffic.
If that is my biggest problem, I don't have any problems.
Monoflo, I also had a NA Miata for 6 years. Enjoyed it, but it was time to move on. I got a C280 MB after that and was amused to note it got the same gas mileage as the Miata and got me to my destination as quickly and in a lot more comfort.

Best
Les

Otter - the dash looks cheap. I have the SEL trim on my Jetta. The dash quality is nowhere near the Benz I had or the 2006 Passat I owned. The same goes for the seats. I so struggled to find a vehicle that I wanted to own. I like German cars but these get costly over time. I honestly settled on the Jetta. It has a large trunk, there is ample seating in the rear. it's not fast but gets great highway millage - it's just ok. If I had to buy today, I don't know what I would own -

Tell me about it. I love my 2013 JSW but on the other hand it has begun to bend me over with **** breaking starting 6 months after the CPO warranty ran out (it only has 70k on it), like the heater core first and now the clutch slave and/or master. And this is the car I bought so that I had one modern car that didn't require any fixing! So I love it but also hate it and it gives me thoughts of combining {modern car}+{practical fun old car} and getting a 90s Volvo 700/900 wagon or something.

I think my '16 Jetta is finally broken in! I had been experiencing milage figures of 6.2 liters per 100km ( about 38mpg if my calculations are on). This past weekend, I did the trip to visit siblings and saw that number on the way there. With mixed driving on winding two lanes and some limited access highway, I covered the 220 miles in 3 1/2 hours.
On the way home, I wasn't in a hurry, so I backed it off a point or two and saw my average consumption drop as I went. Eventually I was looking around 5.7 liters per 100 km or about 42 mpg. That is getting close to the figures my last turbo diesel Jetta was giving on trips. Oh yes, the trip took about 10 minutes longer. Also cruise was set on the bigger highways at the same speed both going and returning.
I don't anticipate driving like that all the time, but it is interesting what a boring old sedan can do.

Best
Les