2002 Volkswagen Jetta GLS review from North America

My current car is a silver Jetta 2002 GLS with a 1.8T engine. It is a lot of fun to drive, good acceleration, great gas economy and the shifting is smooth. Unfortunately there are a few kinks in this car that make me feel that it was not a good buy.

It started right away with the back seat passenger side window having a mind of its own. I can’t ever predict if it will go up and stay up when activated. I am single so it is not such a big deal except that the dealer has never acknowledged the problem or found a fix for it.

I always have some kind of warning light on my dashboard (EPC). I was at first very concerned, but the dealer told me that the problem was the way that I secured my gas cap after filling up? Apparently I am some kind of moron who can’t secure a threaded gas cap correctly.

I had to replace the suspension at 50,000 miles at a cost of $850.00. This was closely followed by a boot replacement since a rock had apparently penetrated the boot and created a small hole. I was told that I should replaced my oil pan that the oil plug had been destroyed by the people that changed my oil, but after taking the car back to the place where my oil is changed they showed me (visual inspection under the car) that it was in great shape and that there was no need to replace it. I must say that I park indoors and never saw evidence of an oil leak.

My back lights have not worked for months. I paid a hefty price to have the car hooked up to the diagnostic computer to find the problem, but the dealer can’t seem to fix it even though I have told him that people are stopping me at lights and tell me that I have no back lights, he maintains that it was working when I left his shop.

They did a multi-point inspection and managed to flush my brakes- what a joke, which was $89.50 and did an Induction and injector cleaning $129.90-charged me $73.00 to replaced a center bracket (holding the exhaust) and eventually replaced the 02 sensor and charged me $102.25 plus the diagnostic of $75.00. I now have to go back to the dealership since I am still driving without back lights and I must admit I am apprehensive. I am so mad that I needed to prepare myself mentally so I made an appointment to have a few days to cool off.

I suspect that the car is now a lemon and I will never buy a VW again even though I love the way they drive. They are too costly to repair and the customer service is awful.

Driving is fun, manual transmission one of the best!

Very good safety feature for a turbo.

Expensive to maintain if you use synthetic oil, but since VW burn higher it is probably a good preventive habit.

Repairs are expensive, the electronics are unpredictable and there is a ghost in my fuse boxe activating warning lights with unexplainable causes.

Back lights are on perpetual sabbatical.