2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI: Road Tripper

Nice car, economical, comfy, huge trunk = true. Decent audio system? False. It is terrible, tho the head unit is fantastic!

ddark13

Because not all driving is done on road trips. In city driving, hybrids beat diesels.

The solution isn't one or the other, it's people being smart enough to choose the best car for their needs.

Much better vehicle than a Prius in nearly every subjective way, and generally feels like a much more expensive car than other cars in its class (except possibly the Malibu), but the Jetta's audio system is not even approaching "decent" -- though it's very user friendly, the sound quality is terrible. In fact the dismal sound quality and dismal brakes are really the only significant letdowns in this car.

Is the Prius/RX400h/Edge/Civic ever going to be car of the week?

My girlfriend drives one and I can say that the audio system sounds like crap. Well, maybe that's too harsh, like dgcamero said, the head unit with 6 disc changer is nice. Nice interface. Aux input, but no ipod dedicated, (at least on her '08). The speakers are sub-par though. They rattle the door trim badly, and that's with little bass.

The batteries are recyclable.

Diesels are low on CO2 emissions, but still higher on smog-forming emissions.

Get your head out of the sand.

nf

Thats strange. I had the chance to borrow a friends 2009 TDI and I thought the sound quality was decent, and I consider myself to be somewhat of an audiophile. Was there a diffrence between 08 and 09??

@ Noflash1: that's why we have urea injection in the exhaust, a la adblue. It can reduce NOx emissions, the smog causing stuff, to levels roughly comparable with gasoline engines. Still, there's an interesting idea: diesel hybrids. Why not?

"The batteries are recyclable."

Maybe so, but the process to obtain the materials used to build them is extremely harmful.

Ah, now we get fights between hybid vs. diesel. I love it! Let's start the argument now about why anyone would spend $40k on a Volt when they come out, when you could buy 2 diesel Jettas for the same amount of $.

What's with all the stereo/speaker bashing? Someone please go turn up the volume in a Civic Hybrid and compare to the TDI (I sold our Civic for the TDI). I never wanted to listen to music in the Civic, but find myself blasting it in the TDI. I'm sure it's nowhere near some more expensive car's stereo systems, but I feel that it's just fine. Now, if VW would have kept the under-seat amplifier found in the Loyal Edition TDIs, I probably would have been blown away even more coming from the Civic.

On a separate note, we regularly received 50mpg in the Civic and our average so far in the TDI (DSG equipped) is 41.5mpg. The fun-to-drive factor is more than worth the hit in FE.