<p>My dad is still looking at it. I went online and found a lot of very negative reviews and was surprised by the relatively poor gas mileage. (20 city, 27 hwy). It’s a GLS and has all the bells and whistles – moon roof, side airbags, auto everything. My brother works for a dealership and got the CarFax on it. Looks good except for a scrape on one side. Not sure what that’s about.</p>
<p>I told him not to buy it until I think about it some more!</p>
<p>I had a VW. Once was enough. Since the car was less than 2 years old, I was lucky to get a good trade in deal.</p>
<p>My fully grown DH has driven a small VW since DDs began college 
He is looking forward to them graduating, he is planning already for a bigger car</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay:</p>
<p>Is there some reason for focusing on the Jetta? There are lots of other used cars of every variety available.</p>
<p>No, that’s just the most recent car to catch his eye – right price, mileage, etc. I was really surprised when he called with that one because he is very much a “buy American” kind of guy.</p>
<p>I owned Audis from 1982 to 2000. Smaller Audis had a ton of VW parts back in the 80s and 90s. Maybe they still do. When you opened the hood, there were VW logos all over the place. The car was a blast to drive to maintenance was a nightmare. There was a lot of really cool German engineering but it required a fair amount of maintenance and electricals seemed to be put in just to replace them a few years later. I had a 4000s for 12 years and 225K miles. Of course I was a glutton for punishment so I got a 5000 Quattro. Low-volume production car. Rear bushings cost $300 each. On a normal car, they cost $20. The hydraulic system was a nightmare. There were five expensive parts that would generally fail over time. Symptoms were hydraulic fluid leaking. The fluid was $20/quart. People would top off the fluid until the leak got so bad that buying fluid was more expensive than replacing one of the five expensive parts. One of the parts, in particular, provided pressure for power steering and power brakes at the same time. So if the part failed, you could lose the ability to steer and brake. Frozen rear brake calipers every couple of years due to design. Fuel pumps that got noisy after three years. Engine seals. Power Window switches. These things cost $42 each and there were 9 of them. They would typically fail by allowing you to roll down the window but not allow you to roll them up. Great during rain or snow after a toll booth. I got rid of it at 185,000 miles and replaced it with a Toyota. A very boring and pedestrian car but I have had only one major problem with it in 170K miles and that’s the replacement of the fuel injectors. I had dozens of these major problems with the Audis. Spending several hundred dollars every three months has you dreading a funny little noise or smell somewhere near the engine. I think that I paid several times the original costs of the cars in maintenance over the years.</p>
<p>“We bought a Dell xps1330 based on Consumer Reports great reviews and it stunk–made cheaply, had to have motherboard replaced within 8 weeks, usb port so cheap that I had to use a screw driver to push into the slot and align the pins so usb wire could be plugged in. Bought a highly rated washing machine based on consumer reports and it stunk too. I don’t put much faith in Consumer Reports.”</p>
<p>Dell, HP and Apple were all hit by the nVidia graphics chip problems and nVidia continues to put out bad chips (see recent Apple comments and Charlie’s articles at The Inquirer). I have a Dell XPS M1330 and it runs fine (mine comes with Intel Graphics). Outside of Vista, it’s a very nice system.</p>
<p>I’ve had a '95 VW Cabrio for the past 8 years. Great car, not many problems. However, if you do need repairs they are a bit pricey.</p>
<p>I have a couple other friends who also love their VW’s.</p>
<p>Have a 99 jetta - will pay you to haul the cute but useless bit of tin out of our garage before we have to pay for another repair. We bought it in 05 for $7000 and have paid more than that in repairs since and it still doesn’t have a radio faceplate, the back window is nearly useless from bad sunsceening and the alarm system/radio/electrical is a nightmare. IF the battery needs to be replaced the alarm system locks up and goes off when you try to open the doors - remedy involves a complex hocus-pocus of unlocking the trunk with the remote, locking the doors with the remote, unlocking the trunk with the key, then opening the door with the key.
Did I mention that it’s really cute?</p>