unless you had maintenance records, I'd probably stay away from one that had over 100k

 

Tx, my wife drives her 06, pkg1, 5spd strickly city style (running kids) and gets 34 to 36 during the summer. She gets 45+ hwy when she goes to the in-laws with kids. We have had ours for 14 months and have a shade over 23,000 miles.

The Texas heat kills the around town MPG. I stop by Freds TDI page and will consistently see people who live in hot humid climates getting 3 to 5 mpg less on city driving. Our city milage goes up to 38,40 mpg in the spring and fall (all of a month). We have done all of our oil changes at the dealer (Houston area). A little pricey, but with them doing it and documenting it, VW has no one to blame but themselves it an oil related issue arises.

Jim

 

My wife has an 06 TDI, Pkg 1, auto, with about 19k on it. She loves it, I despise it, but mostly because of the stealerships tainting of the situation.

The maintenance on the car is kind of a pain, but my dad reminded me that it IS a VW, and he had the same problems on his early-80s Rabbit diesel. VW has a habit of changing things mid-model year, not keeping fasteners in the same area the same size, etc.

For instance, the skid plate that was mentioned above, is rather strange. There are probably 8 or 10 Torx bolts holding it on, 2 different sizes...the 6 or 8 going up the sides are like a T15, and the 2 at the rear are T20 or T25. Go figure. And, of course, I'm spoiled by the ground clearance of the CTD ...I can almost sit up under the stock CTD, but the Jetta's only got 6 or 8 inches of clearance.

As was also stated above, if you do get one and do the maintenance yourself, keep the receipts. While we were deciding on whether to get it, I had called the saleswoman about something, and mentioned to her that I was weighing the financial side of it...had a paid-off Durango, and trading that in and getting the Jetta would set me back about $10k. She brought up the 10k OCI, even though it is with the more expensive oil. I stated that I do all the work on the vehicles myself, and she said that would "save me even more money."

Well, when the 2 cars that the dealership had on order came in, my wife went over to test drive one, liked it, and decided to get it. So, the saleswoman was showing her everything about the car, and got to the OCI/maintenance timer, and stated that the dealership will have to reset that when they do the maintenance. So, she gets home, is telling me about the car, brings up the timer, and I ask her if the woman told her how to reset it, she said no. So, I look at the manual, and it does not mention it. My wife calls the saleswoman, and she darn near flipped out, stating that we could NOT do the maint ourselves, it HAD to be done at the dealer.

Through various calls to other dealers, I found this to NOT be true, so I called the Service Manager to find out why they are misinforming their customers, etc, and he proceeded to tell me that he has plenty of customers that do it themselves. So, I had to call the saleswoman at that point, and inform her of my opinion of her (liar, cheat, insert a few expletives).

So, other than the fact that the car has averaged 41.24 (hand-calc), I'm not too keen on the car, but most of that is because of the small things such as the skid plate bolts, and the dealership.

Had it not been for the dealership, I would be able to overlook the small things, and actually like the car.

 

Which time? The first time that you have it done or the second time you bring it to them on a flat bed. My experiance with VW dealers is that the techs for some reason dont believe in Torque to Yield one time use bolts. If you need to get it done check out tdiclub.com for a local TDI Guru to do the work for you instead.

 

It is 2003 and earlier that you can run Mobil 1 or Delvac 1. I have an 04 and MUST run 505.01. You would be best with a Non-PD (ENGINE CODE: ALH NOT BEW) a 5spd manual transmission.

I had a ALH 5spd golf, and it literally got no worse than 50 MPG. The jetta is an auto BEW and we pretty much see 39 mpg all the time, but never better. Oh well.

 

I have a 2002 Jetta TDI with 115,000 miles on it and a 2001 Golf TDI with 105,000 miles on it. Both have absolutely no problems and get around 38-46 MPG. They also run B100 all of the time. They are really great cars.

 

I have a 2001 that we have 160K on we bought it used with 40K. I had to replace the fan control unit, and replaced the timing belt myself. That's it other than normal maintenance. The bottom skid plate is such a pain I've had it off for the last year or 2.

Hey JCJones how do you reset it when you do the maintenance?

 

As for VW durability, I got 295,000 miles on my old 86 golf diesel. It's slow and no turbo but gets 45-55 MPG and runs like new, it's easy to work on and parts are cheep. I would a buy a 03 TDI with over 100,000 in a heartbeat for a decent price. Seems those are getting hard to find, everyone wants to keep them.
Cant say I blame them.

 

i have a 2000 jetta with 311,000 miles as of today.since i've got it i have a lifetime average of just over 49 mpg,thats city,highway,winter etc.i'll agree with(tmleadr03)that the vw dealers do not believe in replacing the tty bolts.go over to freds and you'll see for yourself all the people that have had t-belt jobs at the dealer and 10,000 miles later the engine falls out,taking the new belt with it.if you do buy one that is questionable on the t-belt milage,freds has a list of t-belt guru's all over the country that can do the job right.fred's is THEE place to check out if your interested in a tdi.

 

I asked the same question, my dealer has a TDI coming in with 490K miles for service. I'd be careful unless you know the service records. See my sig my TDI is doing good.

 

We are looking at one for my wife to drive for our 4 months of summer, then back to her J$$p for the winter months. How would the TDI handle sitting for 8 months out of the year? I know my 12V would be absolutely hateful to start after sitting that long. And before I get flamed for parking it for our 8months of winter in order to get up the hill to our house 4WD and chains are required, I wear out 4 chains per year on my truck alone.

 

I just sold our Beetle with 146K on it. It was my wife's car and she wanted to go back to a minivan. The good part is that I sold it for $500 more than I paid for it two years and 25K miles ago.
It did start to nickle and dime us in the end. Driver's window and turn signals quit, MAF quit, and the shade over the sunroof went off track and got all jammed up. Motor and trans were good and reliable.

My Jetta has been a good car with almost 100K on it. The mileage averages high 30's with the best being 43MPG.

 

I've got an '06 TDI and love it. I did borrow a VAGCOM and turn off the daytime running lights and enable the keyfob to open and close the windows remotely; while unlocking or locking the car.

I let the dealer do the oil changes on this car - 10k intervals. I can't lay underneath and remove the under belly (if you're so inclined to drain it out of the pan), nor do I have a vacuum system to suck the oil out of the dipstick (the preferred method). Its no biggie to me.

After 26k miles, its averaging (hand calculated) 42.5 mpg commuting back and forth in DC rush hour traffic. Thats better mileage than I get from my motorcycle - and it doesn't have AC for those melting hot days.

BTW, you can reset the maintanence timer on the dashboard if you don't like looking at the little "wrench" that is illuminated as a reminder.

 

I shoud say my friend's car is fully loaded, with auto also. She went from a Caddy to the Jetta. She says she gets 49 MPG highway if she slows down. (Usual drives 80-90, slow is 70.) She does alot of long distance driving ( commuting to work and picking up the grand kids. )

 

Our first was a 2003 with no complaints at 50,000 miles. Then traded in to upgrade to leather and nicer trim. Fuel mileage went down from 46-50mpg on the 2003 to 42-46 with the 2005. The 2005 has 78,000 miles with no complaints. Both cars are 5 speeds. The 2005 seems to have alot more power and does smoke just a little when it is shifted. Good luck, I would defintely recommend them.