If the absolute cheapest to buy and run new car is your goal, you wouldn't get either a Corolla or Jetta. You'd get an Echo with no options or something like that.
Of course, any new car will be expensive compared to a carefully selected (i.e. well maintained and in good condition) used car that costs maybe $2000 or so.
In my opinion and based on personal experience, the one of the best "values" in a car is a program Taurus. Five star safety rating, decent economy, fairly roomy and comfortable. And you can get it fixed in any town in the US. All for around $13K. Runs on regular gas and pretty reliable and cheap to maintain with this exception: you absolutely MUST have the transmission fluid changed every 30K. Well, there is one other problem...it ain't fun to drive like a VW! :-)
NO NO NO, just clean it out! When the US finally gets low sulfur fuel slated for 2006 as I remember, could be wrong about that, the problem will go away. The buildup is caused by recirculating exhaust gas to lower emissions. The soot and oil vapors from the crank case form a crud like substance in the manifold. All new diesels, even semi trucks, will have to go to this eventually.
$100??? My dealer needs my car for the entire day. I will check to see how much time they actually need and what's the flat rate for this procedure. If this is all it costs (Canadian) than that's ok. That to me would be considered part of maintenance, however, from the people I talked to, the dealer was charging over $500 as they had to take the entire manifold out. A very big job.
NO, it is NOT around $100 to do a decoke. It sounds like they really didn't do one for you. A real decoking is a **4 ** HOUR job at the dealer PLUS chemicals. A dealer quote the other day was around $450-500 CDN including chemicals. I confirmed this with several other dealers around town.
I have a Jetta TDI wagon, and given the number of miles I drive, I'd be better off financially with, say, a Mazda3 5 door hatch which would serve my purposes. Still, it is fun getting an overall 45mpg, and it is convenient to go 650 or more miles per tank of fuel. Also, the TDI drives very well and the torquey engine just "feels good" with the manual transmission. So far, my car, which I've had 8 months, has been completely trouble free. I hope my luck continues.
Well, my experience doesn't match yours. I have 185,000 km on my Golf TDI with very few problems. Like most, the interior can be a bit buzzy, I had a vacuum line connector break and replaced in 15 minutes under warranty. I had an O2 senosr go out of warranty but the dealership only charged me the labour. I recently replaced the rear shocks but that's because I'm often heavily loaded and tow a utility trailer at times. I'm still running on the factory front brakes and the rears were done for the first time at 175,000. Other than oil changes, that's it. I do have odd behaviour under full throttle acceleration at times but it's not of consequence and a less aware driver than I wouldn't notice. My driving is a mix of highway, country two lane, and Toronto stop 'n' go.
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