G
Guest
·http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/LongTerm/articleId=124737
It's a 2005, not a 2005.5 but they're holding it for a year. It should be an interesting article. They've already noticed that it gets more than EPA highway ratings
News flash: Diesels — clean ones — are coming to America. The ethanol/E85 fire is starting to dwindle in the face of reality, and with gas hitting $4 per gallon (plus that whole global warming thing), efficiency is at the forefront of people's minds.
But the new wave of clean diesels with urea-injected particulate filters isn't here yet. Still tearing their way through the red tape that's keeping Americans from 40 mpg, these new diesels won't be hitting our shores for another few months (or is that 20 months?).
We couldn't wait. We wouldn't wait. We wanted to experience the day-to-day realities of living with a diesel passenger car. So we bought one. It's not the newest of the new, but it's one of the most recent diesels offered to the American public that doesn't come with an 8-foot cargo bed.
So we'll spend the next 12 months putting 20,000 more miles on a 2005 Volkswagen Jetta GLS TDI to test the validity not only of owning a diesel car in America but also the usefulness of the certified pre-owned program nearly all manufacturers offer these days.
What We Bought
The guy who bought this 2005 Volkswagen Jetta GLS TDI in Texas back in 2005 had very good taste. This Jetta is loaded with the GLS package, a top-of-the-line equipment package for the '05 diesel. It has a sunroof, a cloth-upholstered interior and, most important, a five-speed manual transmission. Our new-to-us TDI is equipped with a turbocharged 1.9-liter inline-4 that makes peak power at 4,000 rpm and peak torque at 2,000 rpm. Of course, being able to stay in the power band is absolutely essential when your diesel makes only 100 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torque.
Being able to choose our own gear with a five-speed manual transmission keeps us from falling asleep while driving. It also helps the TDI achieve an EPA rating of 39 mpg on the highway. In fact, we can report that we've already managed to get 44 mpg on one road trip that featured a lot of freeway mileage.
The VW diesel's 100-hp output might seem low, but we suggest that you compare it to our 2007 Honda Fit. The Honda makes 109 hp, but the engine's torque peaks at 105 lb-ft at a comparatively scorching 4,800 rpm. The VW's engine's 177 lb-ft of torque so low in the rpm range gives the Jetta TDI a seat-of-the-pants thrill. Of course, the test numbers hotly contradict this impression, as this car feels much faster than it really is.
As a bonus this Jetta also has a Monsoon stereo with at least one blown speaker, a funky interior smell somewhere between wet dog and burned hair, and some hazy purple window tint. Hey, we bought it with 51,000 miles on it. What'd you expect?
Timmons Volkswagen of Long Beach had the car we wanted. A few numbers were lobbed back and forth (read about the buying experience on our Strategies for Smart Car Buyers blog) before we settled on a fair price of $17,200 for this car, which qualifies for VW's certified pre-owned program.
Not everyone can afford a new car. Many of us just don't want to swallow that initial depreciation. In any case, used cars are big business. There's an entire industry built around the assumed failures and sleaziness of the used car trade. Lemon Laws, shade-tree mechanics, Carfax, Edmunds True Market Value® — all designed to protect consumers from potential used car disasters.
Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) programs help the car manufacturers take part in the used-car world. Basically CPO programs have been designed to help carmakers flush cars that are coming off lease programs through their dealers in a way that benefits everyone. A dealer rounds up the best cars on the used-car market, executes a detailed car-prep protocol, then backs up every sale with an extended factory-backed warranty (and sometimes cheaper factory-backed financing). Everybody wins.
With that we begin our 12-month test. As we take the measure of the world of modern diesel cars and (more important) the world of the infrastructure meant to support diesels, we'll also be testing one of the most highly promoted CPO programs in the country.
Current Odometer: 52,829
Best Fuel Economy: 43.8 mpg
Worst Fuel Economy: 36.5 mpg
Average Fuel Economy (over the life of the vehicle): 40.0 mpg
It's a 2005, not a 2005.5 but they're holding it for a year. It should be an interesting article. They've already noticed that it gets more than EPA highway ratings
News flash: Diesels — clean ones — are coming to America. The ethanol/E85 fire is starting to dwindle in the face of reality, and with gas hitting $4 per gallon (plus that whole global warming thing), efficiency is at the forefront of people's minds.
But the new wave of clean diesels with urea-injected particulate filters isn't here yet. Still tearing their way through the red tape that's keeping Americans from 40 mpg, these new diesels won't be hitting our shores for another few months (or is that 20 months?).
We couldn't wait. We wouldn't wait. We wanted to experience the day-to-day realities of living with a diesel passenger car. So we bought one. It's not the newest of the new, but it's one of the most recent diesels offered to the American public that doesn't come with an 8-foot cargo bed.
So we'll spend the next 12 months putting 20,000 more miles on a 2005 Volkswagen Jetta GLS TDI to test the validity not only of owning a diesel car in America but also the usefulness of the certified pre-owned program nearly all manufacturers offer these days.
What We Bought
The guy who bought this 2005 Volkswagen Jetta GLS TDI in Texas back in 2005 had very good taste. This Jetta is loaded with the GLS package, a top-of-the-line equipment package for the '05 diesel. It has a sunroof, a cloth-upholstered interior and, most important, a five-speed manual transmission. Our new-to-us TDI is equipped with a turbocharged 1.9-liter inline-4 that makes peak power at 4,000 rpm and peak torque at 2,000 rpm. Of course, being able to stay in the power band is absolutely essential when your diesel makes only 100 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torque.
Being able to choose our own gear with a five-speed manual transmission keeps us from falling asleep while driving. It also helps the TDI achieve an EPA rating of 39 mpg on the highway. In fact, we can report that we've already managed to get 44 mpg on one road trip that featured a lot of freeway mileage.
The VW diesel's 100-hp output might seem low, but we suggest that you compare it to our 2007 Honda Fit. The Honda makes 109 hp, but the engine's torque peaks at 105 lb-ft at a comparatively scorching 4,800 rpm. The VW's engine's 177 lb-ft of torque so low in the rpm range gives the Jetta TDI a seat-of-the-pants thrill. Of course, the test numbers hotly contradict this impression, as this car feels much faster than it really is.
As a bonus this Jetta also has a Monsoon stereo with at least one blown speaker, a funky interior smell somewhere between wet dog and burned hair, and some hazy purple window tint. Hey, we bought it with 51,000 miles on it. What'd you expect?
Timmons Volkswagen of Long Beach had the car we wanted. A few numbers were lobbed back and forth (read about the buying experience on our Strategies for Smart Car Buyers blog) before we settled on a fair price of $17,200 for this car, which qualifies for VW's certified pre-owned program.
Not everyone can afford a new car. Many of us just don't want to swallow that initial depreciation. In any case, used cars are big business. There's an entire industry built around the assumed failures and sleaziness of the used car trade. Lemon Laws, shade-tree mechanics, Carfax, Edmunds True Market Value® — all designed to protect consumers from potential used car disasters.
Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) programs help the car manufacturers take part in the used-car world. Basically CPO programs have been designed to help carmakers flush cars that are coming off lease programs through their dealers in a way that benefits everyone. A dealer rounds up the best cars on the used-car market, executes a detailed car-prep protocol, then backs up every sale with an extended factory-backed warranty (and sometimes cheaper factory-backed financing). Everybody wins.
With that we begin our 12-month test. As we take the measure of the world of modern diesel cars and (more important) the world of the infrastructure meant to support diesels, we'll also be testing one of the most highly promoted CPO programs in the country.
Current Odometer: 52,829
Best Fuel Economy: 43.8 mpg
Worst Fuel Economy: 36.5 mpg
Average Fuel Economy (over the life of the vehicle): 40.0 mpg
