1997 Volkswagen Jetta Trek review from North America

- Whole exhaust system required replacing.

- Timing belt at 100000 Km.

- Rust has started to appear... even though the overall paint looked really nice. It appears like little pimples all over the car.

- Normal tear and wear: Disk Brakes, Handbrake wire, etc.

Before bying my Jetta, I had a Saturn Sl1 1994. The Jetta is better in almost all aspects.

Engine:

The performance of this car is simply surprising! Even though it has a 115 hp engine, it really pulls. Beside the Jetta, I have a Honda accord EX-R 1995 and it has 150 hp. I actually beat it on a corner with the Jetta (friend was driving oviously). I must say the accord has a automatic transmission. The torque is incredible!!! When you get to 2500rpm, it pulls really good right up to about 5800. The transmission has a bit of a loose feeling (not like japanese cars) But this car is probably the easiest in terms of shifting to drive. This is a very fun car to drive, it's looks are deceving.

Handling:

The suspension is a bit buickish but when you start taking corners, it still manages to keep the car well glued to the road. The steering is reasonably responsive, you get maybe 7 or 8 degrees of deadzone and then it responds very well, perfect for relaxed drving and fun for taking some corners hard. Has a bit to much body roll but that can be fixed by a good suspension upgrade and anti-sway bars if you want to invest in it. One word of advice, don't run on overused tires, I made that mistake only once...

Interiour:

My jetta is a Trek edition and it comes with ricaro seats. They arevery confortable and have good lateral support. In my Saturn, I used to get a sore back after more than 2 hours of driving, not with the Jetta. The Factory soundsystem came with 8 speakers, four tweeters and four 6 1/2 drivers. The sound in this car is extremely good and has a suprising amount of bass and very good overall sound quality. The CD Changer is not very good though, it jams and skips, but that could be a specific problem with my unit. I have had no rpoblems like the other Jetta owners such as windows falling into the door and Sunroof malfunctioning; maybe I'm just lucky. The interiour hasn't worn like the others, I guess I am just careful.

Running costs:

Here comes the only bad aspect of the car, it doesn't break often but when it does, it will cost you a lot! But still, my experience is that even though the dealers are expensive, they get the job done in one shot unlike independent repair shops were you have to go back to get the service that was done, redone.