To put it simply. DO YOURSELF A BIG FAVOR AND DON’T BUY A VW!!! Especially not a Jetta!

I bought this 01 Jetta brand new and have had nothing but constant problems.

Bolts all over the car are loose and falling out, all of the screws around the air filter fell out, the 3 bolts holding the ignition coil fell out. The bolts holding the windshield wipers on fell off so the wipers fell off in the middle of a downpour! Main bolts holing the frame together are not tight.

Ignition coil failed at 30,000 and was not covered under warranty

Cat converter needed replacing at 40,000 (covered under warranty)

Turn signals randomly don’t work

Airbag light is on at 40,000 can’t make it go away

Headlights are very poor, I just drive around with the high beams on all the time and nobody ever flashes at me cuz even the high beams stink.

The way the oil filter attaches to the car, it’s kind of upside down so when the oil is changed the oil runs all over the engine and burns on it so the whole car always stinks of burning oil.

EPC light is now on, the car left me stranded cuz it wouldn’t shift out of park because of this. I figured it was the brake light switch so I walked to an auto place, bought a new one and installed it myself but it didn’t fix the problem. Had a toe truck guy show me the trick to get it in gear (obviously this happens allot!!) drove it home but the car wouldn’t shift out of 2nd gear for some reason!

VW finally recalled the car for the brake light switch, now that its already been sitting in my driveway unusable for months. We'll see what they do with it.

When the car was shifting, it shifted VERY poorly, abrupt jarring shifts, sometimes takes very long to shift (revs for long periods before upshifting) sometimes downshifts for no reason (no change in demand on engine) and then shifts back again almost immediately.

Stroke to bore ratio and gears seem to be set so the car has good getup and go from 0-30 and then nothing after that, can barely pass people that are going 40 mph.

Overall car has fairly poor performance and gas mileage.