8th Dec 2010, 12:22
Just make sure you maintain it like you would any car and it should be okay for you, some new car owners don't always maintain their cars right.
But it's true, most new VWs are Mexican.
24th Feb 2011, 12:01
Plenty of cars with good reliability records are made in Mexico. These posts seem to imply that people in Mexico have a lousy work ethic or are incompetent. The Ford Fusion and Nissan Sentra are two Mexican produced vehicles that come to mind. If you examine Consumer Reports' surveys, you'll note that Jetta (made in Puebla, Mexico) and Rabbit/Golfs (made in Wolfburg, Germany) are recommended and models from 2005 to the present rate highly. German made Passats rate well below average, as do the Portugese made EOS and the Slovakian built Touareg. And one must ask, what leads these people to be so concerned with what a stranger, possibly half the world away, purchases as transportation?
25th Apr 2012, 15:12
I am a VW tech and I will agree with the commenter above me. Mexican made VWs are just FINE.
The German made Passat is a piece of garbage. Every time one comes in, we see $ signs floating above it. As are the EOS, Touareg and some new German Golfs. We had to buy back a few German made Golfs recently due to unfixable issues. 3 weeks straight in the shop is German build quality? I don't think so.
The Mexican made Jetta is a fine little car, good enough that I bought an '10. Don't ever confuse country of origin with build quality. American made Jettas are horrid in the fit and finish department too, FYI.
8th Jan 2016, 02:49
I have a 2010 JSW TDI standard transmission sunroof with nav. 144000 miles with zero problems. I average 34 MPG mixed driving, and when on the highway, cruising speeds regularly exceed 85mph. I have a neighbor with a 2011 JSW TDI with DSG trans. He has 290000 miles on his with zero problems also. He did just replace the DSG trans at 285000, but at almost 300k miles I wouldn't consider that a problem, just maintenance. What people do not realize and what dealers do not tell you about these TDIs, is that they need to be driven and driven hard. That's the way all diesel engines need to be run.
14th Sep 2020, 08:13
140,000 miles and no problems doesn't mean anything when you just bought the car second hand. Wait until it breaks and costs you hundreds to fix.
Speaking of Mexican made VW, these DO have problems, just have a walk at the junkyard; all, and I mean all VWs from those years have rust and paint peeling off the rocker panel. The only rusted cars in the junkyard are the Mazda and VW. Can you tell the Mexican factory works great when the paint is peeling off the rockers on ALL cars? Clearly there is a problem on the assembly line. And obviously because that was disastrous, VW HAD to issue that rust warranty to fool new customers - only to cancel it a few years later when there were too many repairs needed. This is the same company who fooled everyone with the gas emissions.
14th Sep 2020, 22:36
Must be a bad day at the factory. Mexican Jettas in RHD were exported and sold in Australia and New Zealand, and a friend bought one, a 2009, as a 3-year old used car. She kept it until around 100k kilometres, and gave it to the in-laws, who have had it for 3 years now. The paint is fine, the car runs well. Maybe luck of the draw, but they bought a new Golf to replace that car. There must be enough of these VW around the world that run well enough for people to keep buying them.
16th Sep 2020, 00:00
Nah. VW fans have a different standard of what 'good and reliable' is. Going to the shop for repairs every 2 months is considered normal for a VW owner, but is considered unacceptable for a GM or Toyota owner. VW fans are diehard and are just willing to accept quirky unreliable cars.
16th Sep 2020, 22:05
Even die-hard fans will give up a car if there's an unreasonable number of trips to repair over a year. Never mind the money (yeah, right), the mere inconvenience of taking the car in, is enough to make most people give up. Many car brands have died because of that - people stop buying, even companies which have all the tax-deductible resources to repair a vehicle, don't bother again. That's why most British brands (Rover, Triumph, Austin, Morris) are dead.
17th Sep 2020, 00:03
Depends where and when you bought the car. I'm in the UK and had a VW Golf and a Passat through the 1980s and 1990s, and they were among the most reliable cars I ever had. With VW cars around after the year 2000, things went downhill quality wise - of course economy and safety improved in their cars, but long term reliability left a lot to be desired.
Take another example - friend of mine had Mercedes cars through the 80s and 90s that were great, but a 2001 E Class he had gave problems and rusted earlier than the 80s Mercedes cars ever did, so to be fair it's not just VW, a lot of manufacturers have a similar story - built their reliability reputation decades ago and live off past fame with sub standard quality.
17th Sep 2020, 04:22
Then there are those who think that their Jetta or GTI is some sort of hot rod.
17th Sep 2020, 18:25
You have to admit that VW have nice interiors and - as of 2020 - nice engines and handling. This is the reason the company is still making lots of sales in Europe. Too bad many of their parts are of poor quality and very expensive to replace. They just didn't get the right level of overall quality. But because a buyer is seeing a nice car but doesn't see the problems, it's a recipe that works.
18th Sep 2020, 22:00
They do have nice interiors, and overall fit and finish. I test-drove both a VW Golf and its equivalent Skoda Octavia two years ago, back-to-back. They're both built from the same MQB platform, but there is definitely a difference in general feel for both. Despite similar or near-identical mechanicals, the Skoda has more road noise inside than the Golf, the steering is slightly lighter. The Golf was quieter and felt tighter, overall more refined. It also felt more sure-footed to drive. I feel though that part-for-part, VW group car parts are not as durable as (in my own experience) as BMW. Depending on which part of the world you live in, parts prices for basic or common VW group or BMW cars (say, a 1.4i Golf or a BMW 320i - NOT GTIs or M3s or 7-series for example) are not expensive relative to, say, Ford or Toyota. VW generally used to be quite dependable in the 1980s and 90s, but the quality of some of their parts has been inconsistent and affecting their reliability, despite their fit and finish.
27th Nov 2010, 23:56
I just sold my 2003 Jetta wagon TDI that we bought new over 8 years ago, which we put 110k miles on, and we bought a 2010 JSW TDI. Fit, finish, features, drive-ability, and power are all superb. We just passed 5k miles, are getting 46mpg, and I do have to take it in to have an airbag issue sorted. I don't expect to have many problems after that. I only had three minor issues the entire time we had the old one.