No, you only read about half of what I said.
Might as well be, you know. Jetta sales are barely a blip on the radar elsewhere (particularly compared to the Golf), but it’s by far the best-selling VW model in the US.
And 100,000 isn’t high for any car sold in the US, American or not. All my cars (US and Foreign) hit 150K and were running fine when I sold them. Yes, there are maintenance costs on cars with over 100K but that’s true for any make.
It’s probably the 1.8T, which was the base model and far more common.
That generation of the VW/Audi 1.8T is probably the most unreliable and trouble prone engine made by anyone in the last 20 years. There are no less than 3 class action lawsuits against VW/Audi on that engine.
- VW Audi either misprinted the timing belt change interval in the service manual, or used defective timing belts that didn’t last nearly as long as they were supposed to. The result is catastrophic destruction of the engine. Class action lawsuit here:
http://www.timingbeltsettlement.com/
The details of the suite only mentions Audi models and the VW Passat, but the Jetta/Golf are identical in that respect and it is quite common to hear about their timing belts failing as well. If you were to buy the car, you would want to change the timing belt and water pump right away, probably costs around $1k at the dealer.
- VW apparently used defective coilpacks on the earlier engines resulting in multiple failures and expensive repairs. There was eventually a recall on this at some point after a class action lawsuit was launched:
- VW Audi either didn’t design the engine correctly, or specified incorrect oil weights in their service manual, and the 1.8T engine suffers from an oil sludging issue which results in catastrophic destruction of the engine. Class action lawsuit here:
http://www.shulaw.com/unfair/vw-audi.asp
Note that this lawsuit does specifically apply to only the VW Passat and Audi A4, which have longitudinally mounted engines, and not the jetta/Golf/TT which have transverse engines with a different, bigger oilpan. But still, given that the rest of the engine is the same, you must be very wary that oil changes on this vehicle have been done correctly and ONLY with VW/Audi specified synthetic oil.
There are, as previous posters have said, a huge number of electrical problems with this car. The most prominent being a defective window regulator that results in the window randomly falling into the door and leaving the occupants cold. This is a multi-thousand dollar repair from the dealer.
No lawsuit on that one, but be prepared for basically everything electric to fail multiple times. This applies to the VR5 models as well, of course.
To quote my mechanic: Are you married to an unemployed VW/Audi mechanic with a lot of time on his hands? If not then it’s probably not the car for you.
But hey, you say it’s a sweet Jetta? I say go ahead and buy it.
No, you misinterpreted. She’s saying “it’s (worrisomely) high mileage for an American car, but what about a VW in comparison - is it worrisomely high mileage for it?”
Another vote for “You’re fine as long as you dodge the electrical bullets.” My friend has a ~1998 Jetta and the factory alarm decides to arm itself and go off, then the car is immobolized and can’t be started. It’s also gone through several starters. Mechanically it’s fine though.
The platform change for the Jetta occured in 1999 for the North American market. 1998 would have been a Mk3, which did not have the 1.8T engine, while the OP is looking at a MY 2000 MK4.
My experience is, if you’re going to get a high mileage car, stick with Honda, Toyota or Nissan. If you’re going to buy American, stick with low mileage. Any car is going to begin to need repairs as the mileage increases but Japanese cars tend to go to the 150K mark before burning through alternators and the like where American cars begin to shit the bed somewhere between 60K and 80K… But I’m a girl, what do I know??
We always buy used cars as my husband is able to do a lot of work himself, and we don’t mind a few issues for the large amount of money we save. That said, we had a VW (Passat, but similar in many ways) with high miles a few years ago and I wouldn’t buy a VW again. We never had issues with the engine, but there were so many little things that would go wrong, and even little repairs were a pain and more expensive than most cars. I was disappointed because I really liked it in many ways, it was a fun car to drive and I just liked the look and feel of it. But I wouldn’t go there again.
I like Hondas for their ease of fixing and reliability. They seem to go forever, too. I have a CR-V with almost 200,000 miles on it and it runs great.
My Ford Focus with 130k miles on it says otherwise.
I think most cars these days, American or not, are fine up to 150,000+ miles. But I’d rather have a high-mileage Focus than a high-mileage Jetta. Cheaper to fix overall. If you want a 200,000+ mile car that you can mostly afford to fix, get Toyota, Nissan, or Honda.
2000 is not a good year for VW. They recently have apparently got back into the idea of reliability and quality, but for the last decade or so, they have been doing pretty crappy.
For 2000 I’d want Honda or Toyota.
The 2.Slow would be the default (base level) engine in that car, I believe, not the 1.8T or the VR6.
Hmm. So it is.
I had a Jetta and never had a problem with the engine. I think it had about 186,000 on it when it was totaled by a semi. However, At least one window was broken almost the whole time I had it. I would get one fixed, and another one would break within a week. I hated those windows so very much. I would drive around for months with a broken window before I could save up the money to fix it. Let me tell you, that was cold and wet during the winter. Everything else about the car was great. I liked the way it looked and the way it drove, but because of the huge pain in the ass that was those windows, I will never buy another VW. Also, when I first bought the car and was looking to get it checked out by my usual mechanic, he wouldn’t look at it. He said he “didn’t do VW’s.” So that is something else to think about, whether or not your current mechanic, if you are tied to one, will even work on it if need be.
I have a 2006 diesel with 112K miles on it and it is running just fine. Only problem it has is a couple window dings that a windshield repair garage did whatever they do to repair the dings. Although it could use a good carpet cleaning. We have fairly sandy ground in our driveway and it tracks onto the car floor despite the additional carpet swatches.
Mileage this past weekend headed to western NY to visit my mum was 44 mpg both ways. Normal stop and go mileage for mrAru commuting is 41/42 MPG as it is a mix of highway and city. No electrical troubles, starts just fine.
My 98 Escort with 202k on it would disagree with the above assessment, as would the 92 Explorer with 220k. A well maintained vehicle, of any make, should last forever.
I have an 89 Jetta with close to 151k on it. It runs well and I don’t have a lot of issues with it. I expect (and hope) that it’ll last several more years. It’s a dependable car.