Instrumented Test
From the January 2011 Issue of Car and Driver
TESTED
Chasing maximum volume, VW strictly avoids offending anyone with the design of the 2011 Jetta. It looks like a joint venture between the Chinese taxicab drivers’ union and the Mexican phone company. Applesauce served in a Dixie Cup is more thrilling.
In business school, they teach future pinstripes to look for the USP—the unique selling proposition. Volkswagen’s USP was that, for many years, it was the only inexpensive Euro brand sold in America. Unlike Renault and Fiat, it held on against the Asian tsunami by offering slightly higher sophistication at a slightly higher price and only slightly worse quality.
That is, until VW decided to emulate Mercedes-Benz with silk purses like the Touareg and Phaeton. Sophistication and prices both shot up, but quality and sales didn’t. Last year, VW sold more vehicles in Brazil than in the U.S., which is the world’s second-largest car market after China.
Now, instead of looking up, VW is looking down. Beware, Hyundai, of falling Jettas.
Compared with the 2010 model, VW has whacked $1590 off the Jetta’s starting price, which is now $16,765 for the coach-class, 115-hp, 2.0-liter S that includes air conditioning, remote locking, a CD stereo, and power heated side mirrors.
Even when equipped with a five-speed manual, you don’t get to 60 mph in less than 11 seconds, thanks in part to a stability-control system with no off button. Apparently, off buttons add a lot of extra cost. But at least you won’t need gas pumps very often, with a highway fuel-economy figure of 34 mpg. We managed an equally impressive—for us—29 observed mpg.
After hitting an Audi-like high point in the 2005–10 fifth generation, you can almost hear the Jetta’s interior screaming as its costs have been cut. The few remaining soft-touch surfaces have now mostly iced over with hard plastic. However, if you can accept the cockpit downscaling, the rest of this new Jetta still feels like a proud son of Germany—albeit one made in Mexico—especially in the particular heft of the doors and the satisfying whump! they make when they close.
The Jetta’s dimensions have been stretched in length and wheelbase, and the car seems airy compared with others at its price, especially in the back seat and trunk. A multilink rear suspension has been flushed for a simpler torsion-beam setup, but the steering response remains as perky as one can expect from 195/65 tires on 15-inch steel rims, and the Jetta holds a set through corners without any unruly wallowing or harsh clumping.
Toyota Corollas and Hyundai Elantras could definitely take a lesson; a Mazda 3 is livelier, but it doesn’t offer the VW’s cabin serenity. So, some sophistication survived the hatchet.
The Jetta is what VW’s pinstripes believe the American mass market wants. How’s that for a USP? Not very unique.
