2000 Volkswagen Jetta GL review from North America

Front spoiler and bumper scrapes many common driveway and parking surfaces and has actually resulted in the entire bumper pulling loose on both sides. Has been repaired TWICE and the third time I just left it. It's still flopping around.

Lights in dash burned out very early. Repaired under warranty, but went out again.

Rattling noise from rear of car at high speed, dealer cannot find it.

ANYTHING small and light, like a tissue or plastic bag laying on the passenger floorboard can get sucked into the fan/blower assembly for the A/C. A simple grille over the air intake would have solved this.

Electrical problems from day one. Sometimes the interior lights stay on after you are moving, you have to stop, turn off the engine and restart or flip ALL the interior lights off manually. Difficult to reach the rear ones when driving.

The doors re-lock after accelerating from a stop when no event (like a door open) has occurred. This is intermittent.

The drivers door does NOT lock when pressing the lock button on the remote. The light blinks to warn that the alarm is armed, but the lock is clearly unlocked. If I open the door it opens and the alarm of course, goes off.

And the real kicker: Sometimes, on a whim, it just refuses to start. Nothing, nada, zip. I wait a little while and when the computer is in a better mood, it starts like a champ.

Oh and this is petty, but the cup holder is cheap and broke in 3 months. Actually both are broken front and rear.

The car sits too low in the front and is not durable enough to endure REASONABLE abuse that other cars suffer as well, but don't fall apart.

The car is PLASTIC. When the bumper fell off the first time, I heard a noise from the fender well. I pulled over and saw the wheel well was scraping the tire. I pulled a pair of scissors from my bag (I sew) and simply cut the wheel well away. WITH COMMON SCISSORS.

It's NOT durable. If you can drive it like a cream puff and never touch anything even a large puddle of water will knock the plastic off the bottom of the engine, then this car is fine.

Mechanically, it's solid. But electrically and body-wise, lemon-city. This is my 4th and last VW.