What is "initial quality" as per the commercials?

I'll give you that they've lost their roots, but the original 1.6 and

1.8 engines are damn near bulletproof. Heck, they made a Diesel out of it and it held together which is more than you can say for the Olds 350 (which is a strong engine in its own right)

nate

A count of defects within the first 90 days of ownership, mostly defects in fit, paint, and rattles, and it's not a good indicator of long-term reliability because it favors cars that have been carefully finished, i.e., luxury cars, rather than those of the best mechanical assembly and design (Toyota, Honda). There's little correlation between initial quality and long term reliability, and even Powers' longer term surveys show this. But Powers surveys seem to give different results than those of Consumer Reports and Popular Mechanics (1-year trouble figure, usually 10-40%) or the records of commercial leasing companies.

The recent JD Power rankings placed VW near the bottom. I happen to like VW and Audi cars, but they definitely aren't models of either initial or long-term quality. Fun to drive tho...

C

Well, at least you're finally agreeing that you're full of crap about the reliability. I knew you had it in you, sport.

C

What did you buy instead?

DAS

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I bought a Saturn Vue (4 cylinder). Not nearly the gas mileage of the Jetta, but it cost less and has a lot more room inside. So far it is averaging around

23 mpg in around town use and has not needed any attention from the dealer. It might be I took a chance on the devil I didn't know instead of the devil I do know. However, I reviewed the Saturn newsgroup and it did not seem to reflect a lot of unhappy owners, so I thought I'd take a chance. Who knows, in 4 or 5 years I may wish I had bought the Jetta - but I doubt it. The Jetta's big mileage numbers were awfully attractive. But then the Toyota Prius has even bigger numbers and I didn't even consider it (or the Honda Civic Hybrid). I have always found Japanese cars to be cramped no matter what the reported measurements say. On the other hand, German cars seem spacious, even if the numbers say they are smaller than equivalent Japanese cars. I don't understand it, but I still find it to be true. It seems ironic to me that German cars are among the least reliable cars sold in the US given the impression I have that Germans always "do things right." I do believe German engineers aren't willing to adapt there designs to the American market. I am sure in Germany the cars are properly maintained, where in the US that might not always be the case. In Germany they just don't have many "old" cars (8+ years old), while in this country, the average life of a car is 14 years or so. I guess I am looking for a German engineered car, with Japanese quality, built by Americans at a third world price.

Ed

Dori Schmetterl> What did you buy instead?

I hope you get many years out of the Saturn.

FYI I used to get the monthly mag of Germany's leading motoring and breakdown rescue organisation, ADAC, equivalent of AAA I think. Once a year they published their breakdown statistics. Only cars that had annual registrations exceeding 10 000 were included to give some statistical validity.

In all classes where the Japanese Big Three were represented (Honda, Nissan, Toyota) they came top of the reliablity tables.

Individual models from other manufacturers beat them, e.g. certain Mercedes diesels, but the JP manufacturers as a whole came top.

Like all stats they had to be read with some care, e.g. Merc S-Class seemed to have an unexpectedly high number of faults. This was a bit misleading as the figures were not normalised for mileage, and S-Class owners put in above-average distances. Nevertheless, the overall results gave a good indication of 'what's what'.

I haven't seen the numbers for a few years but I thought it might still be worthwhile sharing this info.

DAS

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I think you hit it on the head here. My mom has had Volkswagons for decades. The worst by fas was her '64 & 1/2 Square Back - the last production 6V !!!! car! What a pain in the ass. But, it still went

130,000 MILES, and on the factory clutch at that! (Before she sold it, hehehe ;)

I have a co-worker with a VR6. He has had a number of problems. Investigation has shown that the car (sold in Canada) had most of the parts made in Germany, but it was assembled in Mexico. Most of his problems have been assembly related.

I have seen that the VW's that were made in Germany seem to command a higher price here on the used market. Nowadays, you dont see them too often unless someone actually shipped them privately direcetly from Germany. But the German Made VWs seem to be better.

Perhaps that is where the problem lies.

But I do believe you can get a lemon no matter where the thing was made.

My mom is still driving a 93 Jetta - a year which was supposedly rife with all kinds of problems. Any problems she had were covered by the warranty, and the car purrs just as good today as the day it drove out of the showroom - and as far as I am concerned it looks WAY BETTER than the ultra-rounded-bubble car designs for jettas, et al, that VW is producing now! The 93 and 94 jettas have great classic lines, the new ones look like crap. Last year we were asked at a gas station if this was the "new" Jetta! The car is garage kept, and looks new, so he thought VW was bringing back a "good lloking" car! He was shocked to find that the car was pushing 10 years old. ;)

Be that as it may, I dont like VWs. The parts are WAY to damn expensive, and they always have been! $100??? Baby, you cant wipe your nose for $100 in a VW service shop here in Canada! By the time you get p&l try more like $500 to START.

Way too rich for my blood.

As always YMMV