Motortrend Car of the Year Announced...

[pimento]

^^^ What's the story on the Jetta ?

Basically..

On the road, the degraded Jetta still handles and rides better than Corolla and Civic. Its European-style suspension tuning leads to good body control and damping. Ride is generally smooth and quiet. However, on poor surfaces the torsion-beam suspension does generate more shocks and noise than the outgoing Jetta (or Golf). The cheap hydraulic power steering delivers little feel on the straight ahead. Furthermore, the electronic stability control is intrusive, and it can't be switched off. Overall, the new Jetta does not deliver the same driving fun as the old car, neither can it match Golf and Mazda 3.

Whereas..

While the American Jetta is made cheap, the European Jetta retains most of the usual classy features to meet the expectation of European customers. All European Jettas get multi-link rear suspensions and electro-mechanical power steering like Golf. Their interior is also made of soft-touch plastics and better trimmings. Engines are the usual small TSI and TDI engines, including 105hp 1.2TSI, 122hp and 160hp 1.4TSI, 200hp 2.0TSI, 105hp 1.6TDI, 140hp and 170hp 2.0TDI. They should be considerably better and cleaner to drive than its American sibling, although no better to look. Production still takes place at the Mexican plant together with the American Jetta.

[Source]

They made the US Jetta cheap so they can sell more, yet kept the Euro Jetta nice so they can sell more. Ought to go a long way in confusing people when they read reviews for the other market's Jetta and think it applies to the one they'll be offered.

[NSXType-R]

About the Jetta- I don't think they designed the rear seats for adults in mind.

I was with a friend to a wedding in Philly once and we went in his Jetta. He was normal sized- a 5' 8"-ish guy. I sat in the back and I still didn't have decent legroom. Keep in mind this was almost 6-8 years ago, and I'm young now. I must have been barely 5' something then.

That was the 4th generation Jetta I believe.

If the back seat doesn't fit children, what the hell is the back seat for then?

[092326001]

In-laws.

[pimento]

The 6th gen is a bunch bigger, so you'd probably fit better now.

[RacingManiac]

I am 6' 0, I fit in the back seat of my friend's 6th gen Golf fine....

I don't think the US VW is that downgraded, there are cheap models, but you can option them out if you want to. The main think US lacks is the smaller engines. I beileve the base model in US is a 2.5 I5. Then the 2.0T, and you can still get the V6. And now they have the new TDI as well...US Jetta had multi-link rear since 5th gen cars...

In Canada you can still get 4th gen cars as "City" Golf or Jetta.

[pimento]

US Jetta had multi-link suspension, yea. Have a look at the source link there. Not sure about the VR6 anymore either.

[Ferrer]

On the other hand though, EDM Civic v USDM.

Wonder why Japanese cars never sell at all here...

[VOGUE_MAN]

Blah, this is just pandering to the masses and following the latest trends. Show me virtually anything the VW Golf TDI doesn't do better and I'll be surprised - and you can also buy a Golf outside of North America.

[Commodore GS/E]

On the other hand though, EDM Civic v USDM.

Wonder why Japanese cars never sell at all here...

Well, because this is Europe. Logically, people will look at domestic brands first, and because this is Europe, there are loads of them which cover nearly all types of cars. The average Joe considers Japanese cars to be copycats (yes, even after all these years) and not as good as european ones... talk about prejudices. Another problem is that for many years, their only argument were their cheapness and their good reliability, which made them look dull and faceless. However, if you look at Mazda and Honda, you will notice that those brand are trying to appeal to new customers by using more inspiring design and less focus on practicaliy. This raises another problem: the usual Jap-crowd was mainy interested in reliability, practicality and cheapness. Changing the design and moving the focus isn't what tose people expected which causes them to move to other brands. The possible "new" customers, however, already have a lot of stylish, prestigeous brands to choose from. Why would anybody buy a vehicle which has nearly no prestige and looses most of it's value in the next two years?

Speaking of the Jetta...VW might just have made the same mistake: most people that have bought a VW yet have done this because of VW's "upmarket" reputation. Moving the Jetta downmarket puts it into heavy competition while the usual Jetta crowd is somewhat alienated by the new concept... it may still turn out as a move of genius because this is only my personal view of the scene.

[Dino Scuderia]

VW is the new Toyota...bland autos with more bland in the pipeline.

[roosterjuicer]

Blah, this is just pandering to the masses and following the latest trends. Show me virtually anything the VW Golf TDI doesn't do better and I'll be surprised - and you can also buy a Golf outside of North America.

the problem with the TDI is that its diesel. Diesels dont sell very well in America for some reason.

[RacingManiac]

North America did not have the European grade of diesel fuel until very recently, thus we didn't have the European diesel cars, thus the only impression most have about diesels, are the old smoky diesel cars running around, or the truck/buses. They don't exactly leave you with the best of impression.

Now though with the low sulfur stuff and proper diesel cars being here, you start seeing more of them. I am willing to say maybe 50% of the new Golf I see around here are TDI...

And also gas is still MUCH cheaper here than in Europe...

[roosterjuicer]

And also gas is still MUCH cheaper here than in Europe...

But for the most part Diesel costs more than gas.

[Matra et Alpine]

^^^ A taxation decision
BP man told me it costs LESS to produce diesel, so the current trend to be a higher price is purely down to the bloody tax man !! ( and occasional supply and demand fluctuations )

[Ferrer]

Well, because this is Europe. Logically, people will look at domestic brands first, and because this is Europe, there are loads of them which cover nearly all types of cars. The average Joe considers Japanese cars to be copycats (yes, even after all these years) and not as good as european ones... talk about prejudices. Another problem is that for many years, their only argument were their cheapness and their good reliability, which made them look dull and faceless. However, if you look at Mazda and Honda, you will notice that those brand are trying to appeal to new customers by using more inspiring design and less focus on practicaliy. This raises another problem: the usual Jap-crowd was mainy interested in reliability, practicality and cheapness. Changing the design and moving the focus isn't what tose people expected which causes them to move to other brands. The possible "new" customers, however, already have a lot of stylish, prestigeous brands to choose from. Why would anybody buy a vehicle which has nearly no prestige and looses most of it's value in the next two years?

Well it is true that a very important factor is the image. We, probably more than anyone else in the world, are a very closed market which is very difficult to enter. We refuse anything that's new and uknown, and that includes japanese cars.

However, I would argue that there's also a degree of inadaptation. It's almost surely not quite as bad as cars from North America, but still the cars that are best adapted to European needs are... European cars. This is curious because it doesn't happen anywhere else in the world, at least probably not as much as it happens here (maybe Asia, but I don't know their market very well, and I'd say it's not a continent-wide phenomenon as it is here).

This could probably be due to the unique nature of the European. We need cars that are cheap to buy and run, and which have very small and frugal engines but that at the same are capable of high speeds and performance. Which actually makes no sense at all. Which may be probably why the European market is so hard to crack.