Faults:

Clutch went out at 102000.

Head gasket is leaking oil at 108000.

General Comments:

This car is a great first car to have. It gets me to point A to point B fast.

I put a new exhaust on it and it sounds great, and I put a intake in. This car is a overall nice car, and anyone out there looking for a car should get a VW.

Faults:

New starter. I have 60,000 miles on it and the dealer ship wants 700.00 to do it.

General Comments:

Very expensive to have serviced.

I do think that the dealerships are way too expensive for fixing minor things.

Faults:

I have owned my car for 11 years. During that time the window regulators seem to be the main problem with this car. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have purchased the same model with manual windows. I have replaced both the driver and passenger window motors at least two times, each.

Aside from that, the car has only minor issues. Everything else works exactly as it should. The car has 141,000 miles on it and is still running perfectly.

With regular maintenance I believe I can squeeze another 50-100k miles out of this vehicle. I drive about 30 miles round trip to work in every day in comfort.

General Comments:

While I really like the car (which is obvious since I've owned it for so long). I have not have a good experience with the any of dealerships I taken it in to for service.

Once I took the car in to a VW dealer for a door handle problem, and they broke one of my window regulators while fixing the door handle. They then tried to blame the car and claimed it was like that when I drove it in. Of course, it wasn't broken when I brought the car in and clearly they broke it. They agreed to pay for the part but not the labor. My window wouldn't stay up so I agreed (because I wasn't going to drive it around like that... I live in Seattle!).

I never took it back there again and have told at least a thousand people that story. I had much better experiences at non-dealer servicers. They are awesome.

Simply due to the ultra crappy service I've received at literally every VW dealership in the area, I would never buy another VW again. However, the car itself is a great machine. I will continue to drive it until it is a hunk of rusting metal.

Faults:

Ignition system shorts out in damp weather.

General Comments:

A lot of people are frustrated with this car as it is said to be sensitive to misfiring in damp weather. That was the case with my Jetta.

I took a Windex bottle, put plain water in it and misted the spark plug and coil leads while the engine was running. The cause of misfiring was obvious as thousands of volts shorted out of a crack in the boot by the spark plug.

I bought a new Bosch set for $129 and for good measure changed the rotor and cap. She runs like a charm and it is raining today.

Faults:

First time I took it on a road trip (400 miles length) it blew a cylinder. Towed 85 miles over mountain range to nearest dealership, took week and a half for them to rebuild, cost me $2000, plus being stuck out of town for so long. Mileage on the car was under 100k, so it would have been covered for the original owner, but VW cuts the warranty down to 50k for subsequent owners.

Aside from the expected wear and tear (2 new sets of tires, 3rd battery, and new brakes) I've got the common Jetta owner problems:

Door moldings fall off (just did the third reattachment)

Air bag light on for last few years, intermittent.

Dash light for window defogger intermittently on and off.

Alarm usually goes off if you try to unlock & open just the trunk (again, intermittent,) so I have to unlock the door first, to deactivate the alarm.

Driver door lock not working well. Looks like those commonly go out.

Fabric on front edge of headliner dropped and is hanging there. Shop tried twice to re-glue, but the headliner edge is rotting from sun, so it won't stay attached. I've since stuck a row of straight sewing pins into the foam to tack it up there.

Inside light intermittently will turn itself on, even when the car is parked and locked, and stay on for days. I can no longer trust it in the neutral position (which is supposed to just turn on when you open the door,) so I have to keep it off always. Hopefully muggers won't be lurking in the back some night when I unlock my dark car.

Dipstick tube snapped when I was checking the oil, so I had to tape the dipstick in to maintain pressure until I could get it seen by my mechanic. (Of course I was out of town, over a holiday.)

Cruise control out since 2003. Mechanic has spent some time changing hoses but has yet to find the exact cause.

General Comments:

Got this from the dealership as a two-year old high mileage lease return. I've only put 43,000 on in my 9 years of ownership, which makes it pretty high maintenance for the dollars to miles ratio. I have the oil changed and car looked over by a VW only mechanic twice a year, which is about ever 2000-3000 miles.

Best feature is the huge trunk. Well designed, with the hinges out of the way so you can fill it with big stuff.

Cup holder is annoyingly small. Good for a 12 ounce soda can and not much more.

My third VW, and possibly the last. It just hasn't held up as well as earlier VW's I've owned.