2003 Volkswagen Jetta Highline review from South Africa

It is very difficult to know where the nose of the car ends because of the sloping bonnet and its also difficult so fathom where the rear end of the car is because of the high boot. This has caused my mother to reverse into my dad's car and also to scratch the nose of the car against the garage door!

Creaking noise from front suspension. Sound like something rubbery rubbing against metal. Had our mechanic spray everything with silicone spray which helped a little, but it still creaks sometimes.

Nothing else has gone wrong!

My mom bought a 2003 Jetta (Bora) 2.0 Highline Auto in Feb 2006.

I was a bit concerned about performance at first because this is the old, non FSI 2.0 engine with only 85kw (114bhp) and the auto is only 4-speed.

I was, however pleasantly surprised with the performance, which in town is actually quite quick. When pulling away from a red light, the throttle response is instantaneous! On long journeys, overtaking is a breeze as well, because kick down on the auto box is very quick and the small engine musters the power from somewhere to make sure you stay out of harm's way.

Fuel economy isn't great with the 4-speed auto. In town with my mom driving you get about 10L/100km and on long journeys driving at 140km/h we get about 8.8L/100km that about 23mpg and 27mpg respectively.

I agree that the driving position is great, even on long journeys although the highly bolstered seats tend to be a little narrow for my big frame. For some reason the design of the glove box on our right hand drive car slopes to the right which causes the front passenger to have less room for his right leg than his left! This necessitates the front passenger seat to be moved even further back.

For such a relatively large car the rear passenger room is dismal! Rear passengers almost always complain about the lack of leg room and the lack of thigh support from the relatively short seat cushions.

The boot is gigantic! A lot larger than our previous Merc E-class! The balance between boot space and rear passenger space is a delicate one. And this time VW did not get it right!

Our car came with the 16" alloy wheels which is also fitted to the Golf 4 GTI. It looks really nice and the larger (maybe overkill?) wheels and tyres makes the car extremely stable at high speeds. The car came with Bridgestone Turanza tyres fitted and it was clear that they had already done a few thousand km's. However they don't seem to have worn at all since we have had the car. I find that interior noise levels depends largely on the road surface you are driving on.

I find the ride rather harsh over most surfaces with an enormous thump from the rear suspension over all, but the finest cracks in the road. Could this be a problem that can be fixed? Shocks etc. seems to be fine and we inflate the tyres to the absolute minimum required.

The Highline spec comes with walnut wood trim which actually looks like it could be the genuine item! It also has automatic windscreen wipers which I thought would be a gimmick, but to my amazement works incredibly well and I wouldn't do without. Our car was also fitted with a 6X CD front loading shuttle which slots in right above the radio. Sound quality is good and the CD shuttle even plays CD-RW discs!

All in all a good car which we would have kept for a long time, but the lack of passenger space in the rear means that we are now looking for a bigger car.