2006 Volkswagen Jetta TDI from North America - Comments

Electrical malfunction with door and trunk sensors.

Windshield leaks.

Clutch worn out at 55000.

Suspension out on front drivers side.

What I believe to be a blown head gasket at 62000.

Throughout the life of the car, the interior design (the plastic and fake leather) is slowly falling apart. Stereo knobs falling off, middle console door broke and various other minor things.

It is a cool looking and semi-fun car (it's a sedan, not too sporty) to drive, but it has been terribly unreliable, and it seems with every mile I drive it, more problems and issues are occurring.

I have right now what I believe to be a blown head gasket. I'm not too knowledgeable in the mechanical field, but from what I have learned from what I have read online and talked about with friends, there was nothing that could have prevented this. I guess you can be the judge of what happened to it me (I drive like a grandma) or the VW factory in Mexico. Same kind of thing with the clutch. Just after the car was out of warranty, the clutch went out. There was a service order on a part in the clutch that would have fixed the problem, but that was only for cars in warranty. It seems VW just wants you to buy a new car every time something happened.

I plan on spending about $2000 to fix this current problem (head gasket) and getting rid of the car. I would like to drive it more, but I have an itch that something else is on the brink of disaster with this car. This car has spent the last 9 of 12 months in the shop getting diagnosed and repaired. It also seems others are displeased with VW. Just look at the ratings Ford and Chevy are getting compared to VW.

Also, there are not many shops that have the correct oil or equipment to properly service the car, which makes it almost mandatory to take it to the dealership.

A clutch will not wear out until about 120,000 miles on ANY car if it is driven properly.

I've got to disagree with the previous poster. There are numerous complaints on this site regarding short-lived clutches, and not just on VWs. Hyundais, Mazdas and others have worn out in as little as 25,000 miles! There are poor clutches out there driven by people who regularly get 100-200,000 out of a clutch. You CAN'T always blame the driver!

I have a 1997 Passat TDI. I rebuilt the clutch on it at about 180K miles. It was the original clutch and it was still 75% good. The only reason I change it was that the synchros went out on the trans, so I had to pull it. So I figured I might as well change the clutch at the same time.

Unfortunately, the trans does not appear to be as durable as the clutch and engine. These are definitely the best attributes of the TDI. The 1997 TDI's were all built in Germany, and I have to agree that the VW does not meet the myth of German Engineering.