Jetta Safety Rating

You lose a lot of economy in an 09 diesel. I like my 50 mpg in my 03. I would be annoyed getting in the 30's with a newer car.

The Jetta did a pretty good job as it weighed less than the opponent and bumper heights were probably different. Also half a bumper and crush zone makes the survival even more impressive.

Maybe they refined their criteria and the 02 was on the edge anyway and the 09 is against new criteria. No idea of course.

Get a SUV and you have to factor roll over risk. I drive 1987 Toyota pickup. Sort of roll over friendly. Not so well protected from front or side impacts.

When I wrecked my Rabbit I remember waking up in the ambulance. Policeman said he saw me outside of the car so I must have crawled out after the smashup. My short term memory was a mess for months. Who knows maybe forever as I do not recall how good it was before the crash. Trying to avoid TBI is a good thing.

Good to hear that your wife got lucky in what could have been a horrid incident.

Thanks for the info, Jim. It sounds like you came out of your accident in at least fairly good condition. There are a lot of people that have not. There's so many things that can go wrong, it's downright scary.

I'm not at all thrilled about losing the economy we had with the Jetta, since we do a fair bit of driving. My truck spends most of its life in the garage (or up against a tree somewhere) and our primary vehicle gets 99.9% of our miles. Going from the 42+ mpg diesel-powered Jetta to something that only gets in the low 20's is not my idea of a smart move. But the wife has the majority of the say in what we replace the Jetta with so all I can do is try and hit her up with logic. It's funny, but I haven't had that much luck with that method in the past!

I'd say the Jetta did an excellent job of protecting my wife. I may post a couple of pictures on a.b.test, since I know people freak out when they're posted here. When the EMT's called me and said that my wife had been in an accident, I was concerned but not overly worried, as they said her condition was good, that she was talking, etc. However, when I saw the car (from a distance - it ended up facing the road, about 40' into a farm field) I became really worried. In fact, I only recognized the car because of our license plate. I was not aware at the time that they'd cut the roof off, so it looked to me as if it had rolled. Honestly, I didn't stick around very to find out, as I had a helicopter to chase after. It was close to an hour drive to the hospital for me and believe me, all the things on the TBI website were going thru my mind during that time. I had no idea what I'd find when I finally saw her. The relief at finding that she really did have just minor injuries is indescribable.

But looking at the car up close a few days later, I was again in wonder how she had escaped any broken bones or serious injury. In fact, one of her more emotional friends actually puked when her husband drove her over to look at the car. I'll be the first to admit that Filipina's can be drama queens but that was going just a bit overboard. This gal is my wife's best friend but to get physically sick over something like that, especially when she'd already spent time talking with my wife and knew she was ok, was a little weird.

You're also right on regarding the disparity of size in the vehicles. Which is why I say the Jetta did a fantastic job of keeping my wife as safe as it did. The amount of destruction the Jetta endured is quite amazing. We visited the crash site just yesterday and the 'debris field' is surprisingly large. I've done a bit of work on the Jetta over the years and there were parts I had absolutely no idea where they had been!

I'm going to be looking into the change in the Jetta's safety rating change to see if I can find out the reason for the reduction. I liked the Jetta a lot would have no trouble getting another one. Anyway, thanks again for the info. Cheers, jc

AND what about replacing it with one of the same vintage? Unless you only want a new one so you can be the only ones breaking it in. ;-)

I just saw a '02 Jetta TDI auto here for $3500 but it had 453K miles on it and a dent in the right 1/4 panel.

Glad everyone is well!

I've posted a couple of pictures of the wife's Jetta on

alt.binaries.automobile

with the subject "Jetta Crash" Cheers, jc

Thanks, Doc. I have a very poor history with used cars that seems to get worse the better I know the individual I buy from. Maybe it's bad karma or something but I've had terrible luck with every used car I've ever purchased in the past, while I've had generally good luck with new ones.

And, I am pretty particular about breaking in new vehicles. I'm an aircraft mechanic by trade and have always taken very good care of my vehicles. I think my Jetta was worth on the order of $10+ which I'm sure is going to be a sticking point between me and the insurance co. If someone had offered me that much, I wouldn't have sold it. It was by no means perfect but we both liked the car and I expected to get a lot of miles out of it before it died. I don't think it had even reached the half-way point in it's life.

It's not as if I haven't had problems with new cars... in fact, that's the reason GM and Ford are on my personal boycott list (along with Chrysler and all Japanese cars). I will not buy new cars from any of them.

I did really well with my '94 Escort (140k relatively trouble free miles) but the '98 Taurus was a ball buster (died the first time at 20k and went downhill from there) and put me and Ford at odds. My GM boycott goes back to my '77 GMC pickup, which I worked on continuously until I sold it in '89. I have a very long memory when I think I've been screwed on something!

I may have to bite the bullet and go for a slightly used vehicle, perhaps a low mileage 08 or something, as I'm not sure how we'll come out on this financially. So far our bills are running in the $25K range and there's more to come, such as the ER bill. If we get the 2 to 2.5x total loss my insurance man said we should hold out for, we will get at the least an 08 model vehicle. For now, it's a matter of the wife making up her mind what she wants. Cheers, jc

I could see someone puking if they knew their friend was in that car.

I have owned 2 new vehicles and 5 used vehicles. I have done tranny swaps, engine swaps, struts, shocks, brakes, axles, paint and body work, clutches, rings and bearings, interiors. Just about everything you could do but I have never torn down a tranny. It really has not bothered me on most of the cars as they were all 1984 or older and fairly simple to work on. My 87 Toyota I bought new is frustrating me with power/injection frustration. The 03 Jetta I bought new has had scheduled maintenance. I have done two timing belts on, one clutch, rear brakes, and soon struts and shocks. Pretty low maintenance. I would think you take a bit of chance with a used TDI but you know you might have to do a turbo, and if it runs good you do a deluxe timing belt change as soon as you buy it. Maybe a fuel pump. If no one has screwed up the engine with a bad timing belt you just have to boogie man of turbo and fuel distributor and over a grand each. After that the 2001-03 seems to be a fairly good run. Of course that gets you to the same place you were with the last Jetta you owned. Transmission was going to die soon if it was an automatic or you were due for a clutch as the dual mass was fixin' to mess up soon.

I always get a bit nervous with a new vehicle as I know a lot about the last car. The 66 Beetle carried forward to the 67 Beetle and the

66 Squareback. 70 Nova was on its own but all it needed was a 5 minute idle mixture screw adjustment and it ran another X years. I sold it to my brother after I got my winter out of it. Air cooled did not help with the water cooled Rabbits except for a common drain plug wrench for 37 years, maybe longer as I have not touched newer than 03 or older than 61. What I knew about my 80 Rabbit carried to the 84 GTI. Rabbits did not carry forward to the Jetta. What I knew about the 78 Toyota sort of carried forward to the 87 except for fuel injection. I have seen stupid to me engineering on every car I have owned. Well maybe not the Nova. It was so simple like the air cooled VWs but it had heat in the winter.

I have yet to break>>

What a story and what pics, wow! I feel for you and your wife, my family was rear ended in 1998 at 70mph and shoved into the back of a minivan. We had a 1991 Camry wagon and it did a super job protecting us. The car folded in the middle like a tent. Front and rear completely crushed in, but the passenger compartment was almost completely untouched. Have you thought about a Passat TDI? We have a 2005 and get consistently in the mid 40's combined driving. I have hypermiled it once and got 50.6 mpg. It is larger and drives like a dream. There are a few really good ones in the South East Virginia area at reasonable prices.

Cecil

Thanks, Cecil. I suspect that if she comes away from this with enough money, it'll be a new car. She hasn't said much lately but I think she's got her eye on an SUV and the Tiguan is at the top of the list - at least, as far as I can tell.

I like the Passats but the new ones have the same issue as the new Jettas in that they have the reduced front impact rating. I didn't research the year that changed or even if the Passat ever had a 5 Star rating. Then there's the issue with my rotten luck with used cars...

I may bite the bullet and go for a used one and anything that goes wrong, I can blame on *her* bad luck?! Not sure if that angle will work or not, of course, but might be worth a try. I sure wouldn't bet on my streak of bad luck being over with! Cheers, jc

Wow, I hate when stuff like that goes wrong with my car... and it's usually my used car that I just bought that has these type problems! Lucky me, eh? It would be my luck to buy a used one that was nice and quiet and 5 days after I bought it, it would start making noise. Then, in some kind of record, the whole thing would fail 24 hours later...

Then again, buying a first year model, such as the Tiguan, is nothing more than a fishing expedition for the manufacturer when it comes to problems like this. I've run into more than one or two myself. I think it's all nothing more than a crap shoot and you pays yer money and takes yer chances. Since I plan on blaming the wife for *anything* that goes wrong with whatever new vehicle we get, I'm hoping her luck is going to be better than mine! Cheers, jc

Seems to me you passed it on to her. (JK) Every manufacturer puts out crap at some time. I've had good and bad from a lot of them, so I take brand loyalty with a grain of salt. We drove a used (1988) Kcar for 126,000 without a hitch and had a top of the line Taurus LX break constantly. You never know. I'd let her drive whatever she's happy in as long as it is safe. After all, that's is in your job description, pleasing her, right? We love the Tiguan, does it have the diesel in US yet? Good luck and let us know what happens.

Cecil

No diesel for the Tiguan as yet, but they say it's on it's way soon. You're right about keeping them happy... and believe me, it's a full time job! Cheers, jc