VW Jetta TDI

Mr_Shiftright

I think we will be seeing the most innovative vehicles in terms of diesel power, EV, hybrid, etc. coming out of Europe and Asia, as these technologies are highly incentivized. The USA has this very strange "on again, off again" system of incentives that has put us behind the curve in these technologies and in the quest for cleaner energy in general. This is not good.

jogousa

On 2009 you can re-program that annoying door lock feature in the on-board computer. I had that originally too (it's a factory setting) but it can easily be re-programmed on 09 Jetta. You go to menu and find the door lock feature and then scroll to desired setting.
Not sure if 2006 has on-board computer like the 09 does.
It's all described, how to do it, step-by-step, in user's manual. If he doesn't have one (user's manual) you can download it from the website (you don't have to print all pages, you can save it in Pdf format in your documents and access only pages that you need).

smdtdi

Does anyone know an easy way to do this? I have a Bentley repair manual that says I need to remove the luggage compartment interior trim. Is this really necessary?

Mr_Shiftright

Do you have an owner's manual?

jogousa

On my 09 Jetta Wagon (not sure what year your is):
Left (driver's side) : you open a small storage area/compartment (held by to 2 rotating plastic plugs) and open (flip out) a small access cut-off panel of the interior trim. You can access bulbs from there.
Right side: you open (flip out) small cut-off interior trim panel inside and access bulbs from there.

jogousa

You are correct and the reason are the "cheap" fuel prices. If prices of gasoline were as high as they are in Europe (appx 5 to 7 US Dollars per gallon, depending on country) Detroit would produce more high mileage cars that people would actually buy.
On and off is right...remember the 70s oil crisis in his country? Detroit shrank large cars proportionally. Then cheap gas returned and we were back with gas guzzlers.

As far as diesel fuel prices in Europe, diesel fuel is cheaper than gasoline because in most countries it's tax subsidized (lower taxes on diesel fuel) and enough capacity, thanks to their armies that require diesel fuel for strategic reasons.

Diesels in Europe rule! In France, for example, there are more diesel cars than gasoline cars!

sailor1x

My 84 y/o father, who can't stand up straight and walks in a shuffle, went alone to a dealer and was sold a used car for $20,000. (nothing wrong with the 10 y/o 40,000 mile car he had - traded it in) I find out the next day when he calls and tells me that his cars been stolen. He didn't remember buying the new car, which was there in his apartment's lot! What a hassle cancelling the sale - paperwork's already changed at the RMV. Dealer won't return the $20K until the titles delivered in about a month! Why don't dealers have a policy to prevent this?

Mr_Shiftright

Not sure this is the right topic but it certainly is an interesting subject. Would you consider posting a new discussion titled "Auto Sales to the Elderly" in our Automotive News forum?

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS FORUMS

Use the "add a discussion" tab.

sailor1x

re-posted in the Automotive News Forum as "Auto sales to the elderly!"

elias

gagrice i don't buy that the floormats caused that 'famous' Lexus crash, but maybe you know more details of it. I understood that the proximate cause was the driver was not trained/experienced enough to turn off the engine - (presumably the brakes could not be engaged due to floormat impediment, and accelerator was stuck due to same impediment?)

in jetta TDI news, the 06 auto-lock is an annoying feature. the dealer eliminated that annoying self-lock bugfeature, but only if I last-locked it via a particular one of the keyfobs! would have cost (more) $ to do for the other keyfob too.

the brake bulb swap on a TDI is really easy even for a mechanical klutz: i happened to do 06 TDI the other day.

Mr_Shiftright

On some modern cars with a 3-second delay on the big starter button, you're kinda screwed trying to turn off the ignition during a sudden acceleration--especially with the key in your pocket.

Of course diesels can be hard to shut off as well, and I've also heard they can run backwards.

sitsat

Hey all - just took delivery of my silver 2010 TDI Jetta sportwagen and am loving it. The dealer forgot to include my circled option of an iphone adaptor, so I am trying to figure out the different options I have to push iphone content into the nav screen radio controls (no navigation system on-board), i.e. google maps, music, photos, etc. The armrest has a standard 3.5 femail stereo port, which I assume will only take audio off the iPhone (3g) but nothing else and I would need to control form phone, not nav screen. I did see a neat little adaptor from snedstation (https://www.sendstation.com/us/products/pocketdock/lineout-usb.html) that would allow me to push audio from the phone and also charge to an alternate input, like DC lighter, but doubt this will push any media other than audio. any ideas?

car drives great, btw. incredible torque and while I have yet to go through a full tank of gas I drove from San Diego to LA, then over the hill to Hollywood and back and still have used less than 1/4 tank!

gagrice

Good luck with the JSW. Keep us posted on your iPod and the MPG. Have fun.

PS
Did you buy in San Diego? Which dealer?

ydw

Copy your music onto an SDHC card and insert the SDHC card into the slot just below the radio touch-screen. You can then access the files through the touch-screen. Title, artist info etc stored in the MP3 files will display on the screen, but not album cover art. No iPhone/iPod to connect and disconnect every time, no aux-in cord getting in the way of the gear shift. See the manual for the Premium 8 radio for details.

jogousa

Well, there you have it. Today Toyota announced a recall of quite some number of vehicles... (unlike Audi, few years back, immediately blaming drivers before thoroughly investigate the issue). Here you can clearly see the difference in corporate culture between Japanese and German thinking.

elias

joqousa it's obnoxious to try to make a racial thing out of it.
could it be that the difference of 25 years is more signficant than the home-country of the corporate HQ -
could it be that all manufacturers of today have learned now not to repeat the Audi PR nightmare with "unintended acceleration", independent of the home country of their corporate HQ, or their corporate culture?

jogousa

"....joqousa it's obnoxious to try to make a racial thing out of it....."

Racial thing? What's racial about my statement? If anything it's an issue of mentality. Are you saying different mentalities are racial things?
Amazing...WOW! Where is this country heading when one cannot express his/her opinion....
Being an European I don't see it as "racial: statement, sorry...

elias

hey, i didn't say racist, dude - i said racial.
your statements were racial by definition. and maybe they were accurate too,
even though i think they were obnoxious. So what - deal with it man - it's just my opinion. Now you get to say what you think too. Happy Thanksgiving, man!
My point is that any manufacturer would/will/does treat an unintended-accel issue lots differently than Audi did a few decades ago. It doesn't matter what country or what corporate-culture - the unintended-acceleration fiasco(s) are a black-hole of bad PR and all the manufacturers and industry experts are well aware of this.
I'm seeking some toyota forum here so i can understand all the technical details of the toyota situation.
I find it amazing that toyota would have to install a special system to make the brake pedal override the gas pedal in some new way. A Yugo's brakes are enough to overpower even a corvette's torque! I still don't understand why the 120 mph CHP officer who died with his family in the lexus that accelerated to 120 mph due to stuck-floormat or sticky-accelerator-pedal - why could that guy not turn off the engine and/or shift into neutral? Or apply the brakes!?

jogousa

just chilling....

Check these links, "dude"...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-recall26-2009nov26,0,3295310.story

http://www.freep.com/article/20091125/BUSINESS01/91125018/1319/Toyota-recalls-ga- - s-pedals

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499404574557540432697208.html?m- - od=WSJ_hpp_sections_business

It's a well known fact that German auto industry is on a decline since late 70's precisely for this reason - corporate culture! And there is nothing racial or racist about that...Japanese automakers surpassed Germans quite some time ago!

Enjoy your Turkey too....

pat

Let's not turn a misunderstanding into something worse, it's really not worth it. And this isn't really the place to get into Germans vs Japanese on any level.

Let's just get back to the TDI Jetta here. Thanks.

sitsat

so that's what that little slot is for! that will cover my music needs, but still want to display media from iphone, i.e. google maps while driving. any ideas how to go from USB out of iphone 3G into nav screen without opening up the whole instrument panel?

ydw

I'm not sure what your options are to bring other iPhone apps onto the screen. I don't use an iPhone or iPod, and I stopped hooking up my Sony MP3 player to the Jetta after I got the SDHC.

altair4

"It's a well known fact that German auto industry is on a decline since late 70's..."

I believe that VW just became the world's largest automaker. That's some decline.

shrifty

I am looking for a battery charger/maintainer and I was wondering what I would need to look for specifically? I have an 09 Sedan. I heard something about the voltage, but not quite sure what it was.

bpeebles

If you have access to a WallyMart, you can pick up a schumacher battery maintainer for under $20. The schumacher brand is renowned for producing very good battery-charging equipment over the years.

WallyMart also has schumacher battery-chargers too. Personally, I have the 15amp microProcessor-controlled charger from WallyMart. I am VERY impressed that it can deal with everything from lawnmower-batteries all the way up to big Diesel batteries. This little charger does the work of 3 other chargers... one of which weighs 50 Lbs.

shrifty

Who DOESN'T have access to one? These things are everywhere!

My car will more than likely be garaged until May, so I plan on picking one up this weekend. This may seem like a naive question, but after hooking up the maintainer, should I keep the hood open or closed? Also, should the car be locked? Or, should I take the battery out of the car?

bpeebles

(shrifty) Some appenders here on Edmunds are not in USA... thus WallyMart may not be an option for them.

To answer your other questions:

While charging, I usually just lightly lower the hood till it clicks on the first latch.
If you want to LOCK a VW you MUST close the hood. (The hood is alarmed too!)

It really does not matter if the car is locked or not.... If you are satisfied that the garage is secure, you may leave the hood open and not lock the car.

You do not have to remove battery from vehicle to use battery-maintainer.

jim314

If the purpose of putting the hood on the first latch is to allow any generated hydrogen to dissipate, then I think this is unnecessary. The engine compartment has got so many openings that hydrogen could not build up to an exposive or flammable concentration. Anyway modern car batteries do not produce much hydrogen when being charged with a modern charger.

bpeebles

Actually, I gently close the hood to keep rain/snow away from of the battery-charger overnight. I dont have a garage... just a dirt driveway.

shrifty

My car will be garaged, so it won't be an issue. I wasn't sure if closing the hood with the charger attached would work more or less due to clearance issues between the battery and the hood.

sitsat

I am going to take your advice after going through the whole deal with the iphone situation and realizing the SDHC card is the easiest way to go, as you noted. What is the best way to copy my music onto an SDHC card? I don't think I can do it through iTunes. I am Mac only, no PC (windows media)

jogousa

I am also MacBookPro user. You will need USB - SDHC card reader then you can do it through your Mac iTunes. Follow the instructions that come with the reader. On iTunes you change the source to SDHC.

Reader is available from many sources on the web. Here is one.

http://www.cellularfactory.com/laptop/APPLE/4/30126/86422/

sitsat

I have a USB-SDHC reader but tossed out the directions! I can drag the files straight across from the CD itself onto the SDHC card, which shows up on my desktop as an untitled disk, but the files are AIFF and really large! Beatles 1 CD takes up nearly 1 GB on the SDHC card. Can't find where in iTunes to change source...

ydw

I don't use Mac, but in Windows or Linux I can connect my USB card reader (SanDisk ImageMate All-in-One) and insert the SDHC card into the reader, and it work just like any regular USB memory stick. I use only MP3 format, and considering all the road noise while driving, I rip the music from my CDs at only 128 kbps, so it normally takes no more than 80 MB for one CD. I suppose there should be a way for you to rip tracks from your CD using iTunes, choosing your own file format and bit rate, but I don't use iTunes, so I can't tell you how, but take a look at
http://pocketpccentral.net/mp3c/howto/itunescdmp3.htm
I'm in the process of putting my 90-CD Deutsche Grammophon Complete Beethoven Collection onto my SDHC...

sitsat

that's excellent. thanks so much for that link as I was able to quickly figure out the whole process and have downloaded music in MP3 format at a drastically smaller size than in AIFF. The trick was just locating where iTunes stores the files after importing on my hard drive and then copying them over to the SDHC card. BTW, this all came about because I found out how much effort and cost it would be to control my iPhone playlists from my radio touch-screen (Premium 8 in a brand new 2010 Jetta Sportwagon - no navigation). I had REALLY wanted to be able to control the apps from my iphone on the radio screen, i.e.google navigation when I'm driving, but not possible. VW told me it was because Apple's iphone OS is proprietary but it's really just that no car nav system, i.e. bluetooth interface, can handle that kind of streaming data...wondering if anyone has tried to hook up a garmin GPS system to the on-board nav screen yet...

thanks again. loving this car so far!

jogousa

As far as I know, there is no such thing; i.e. hook up portable Garmin Nuvi GPS on to on-board nav. screen (if that is what you were talking about), at least not from portable Garmin Nuvi. Not sure if it can be done from iPhone or any other cell phone that has integrated navigation by way of using data cable.

ydw

I'd been told by VW that if you had the navigation system your Jetta, you should be able to pull up the phone book from your BlueTooth phone onto the nav/radio display or the multifunction display (either or both, I don't remember). But I think that utilizes only the BT interface, and is not sophisticated or specific enough to support iPhone features. The BT phone book feature does not work if you only have the Premium 8 radio and not the navigation/radio combination unit.

jogousa

You can pull tel number and navigation display on Garmin Nuvi portable unit via BlueTooth from your cell phone, if properly programmed.
Likewise, you can dial tel number from Garmin Nuvi using touch screen or voice command, if so equipped.
Not sure if the same applies for VW Jetta BlueTooth/nav/radio display application. I don't have that option in my 09 Jetta Wagon.

sitsat

yes, that's the same thing I was told by VW dealer I purchased from (Encinitas, CA) Interface is only BT and wireless bandwidth (and functions) not capable to stream iPhone content. At least not yet! I am transfering all of my CDs, my wife's, and my 4 year-old's CDs to my SDHC 8GB card in MP3 encoding at 160 Kbs. works great for playback in the 2010 Jettasportwagon with Premium 8 radio (touch screen controls with sat radio but no navigation). there's a company here in so cal (dice electronics) who members on this board probably have already mentioned that makes specific interfaces for VW.Audi, BMW nav systems to ipod/iphone but they don't have the 2010 VW radio model up and running yet, I guess. typically you have to go in the back of radio or if there is a pre-wired CD changer in the trunk (not on Jetta wagon 2010 models) you can plug in there. allows you to control ipod functions from the VW nav screen, but again, no streaming apps or the stuff I really use the iPhone for - traffic, email, news apps, etc.

no clue on interfacing a garmin portable as I don't have one. But curious if those have an output port and what it would be. as noted in the post above, they run on BT, right?

oli1

I.ve looked at both cars, the vw jetta tdi sportwagen and found the Audi A3 tdi screwed together better. Now other than price which would be the better car?
Would the Audi cost more to repair?

sebring95

The only thing that would send me running to the Audi is if they offered AWD. The Audi will cost more to repair/maintain down the road and nevermind the higher price...it will also depreciate more. I've owned Audi before and they're great cars, but these are just too similar IMHO.

longo2

I just read a notice that the Audi A3 won the green car of the year award at some auto show. But I think it mentioned it will only be sold in a 2 door for a while, and was several thousand dollars more than the Golf TDI 5 door Hatchback, it's first cousin.

Sebring95 has the right idea, don't buy one unless they make it AWD.

jogousa

Audi A3 shares the same platform with VW Tdi. It's assembled in Germany while VW is assembled in Mexico (cheaper labor).
While the robotics (from Japan) on the assembly lines (that tighten the screws) are calibrated to the same torque, some people think it's assembled better in Germany by Germans. But if you visit the assembly plant in Ingolstadt there are not that many "Germans" doing the work...
Like it's said above, it costs more for parts and repairs in this country. Resale value still suffers from setback few years back with unintended acceleration. Some experts in this field claim Audi still did not fully recover from that setback.
Think of Audi as what Acura is to Honda, Lexus to Toyota or Infinity to Nissan. You are paying for the brand.
While it's a fine automobile (I have owned a few myself) it makes more sense (financially) to get a VW. VW also has more service authorized centers in the U.S. than Audi.

smdtdi

I do have an owner's manual. It says to take it to the dealer. This is very expensive. I thought that someone here may have figured out an easy way to do this themselves. I have a 2005 Jetta wagon, and unfortuneately, it appears that I need to remove the interior trim to access the brakelight bulbs. I don't think I can do this myself without butchering the interior of the cargo area.

I'm glad to see that that VW has made this easier to do in the 09 wagons, but that doesn't help me.

jogousa

I think VW is slowly but surely getting the message! On my 09 Jetta Wagon you have access from rear cargo area where there are 2 small cut-offs in the lining.

Now if they would re-design the headlight assembly so that one doesn't have to take the front bumper off, that would help. Right now, as is, you have to take the front bumper off to get to 2 screws that hold front headlight assembly, what a chore!

jogousa

For all those out there, who frequently remove rear cargo area retractable black cover, be aware! Once you take it out the rear edge of the plastic cover that fits behind rear seats has razor sharp edge! I suggest to take a sand paper and round the edge off otherwise you may cut your fingers (like I did mine a while ago)....

notquitejetta

Hey folks -
Test drove a '10 TDI Sportwagen today - I specifically asked if the engine use a timing belt or chain, and the salesman said "chain, requires no maintenance." I know that was true with my old '97 Altima, but an 8-point buck killed it a few days ago at 231K so I'll never know just how far it will go. Anyhow, a few questions for current owners:
1- is that timing chain really "no maintenance", or does the VW service manual call for service/replacement at some point?
2- I've noticed some posts regarding sceduled maintenance visits - am I lining myself up for some high-dollar visits to the dealership with this car that I wouldn't with garden-variety gas engine cars?
3- test drove a wagen with the panoramic roof - wasn't planning on getting that option but now I like it. Any experience with wind noise or water leak issues out there regarding that roof?
4 - Anyone have the cornsilk interior, and notice a lot of scuffing or dirt issues?

Thanks for any help

cosmo

The '10 TDI has a spur belt driven valve train. The gas engine has a chain driven valve train.

I've found over the past five years that TDI maintenance has been less expensive than for previous cars with gas engines. Of, course, the maintenance costs for gassers may have decreased over the past five years, too.

jogousa

Panoramic roof: No leaks so far - 9500 miles on 09 Jetta Tdi Wagon.
Replaced VW ill-designed wind mesh deflector with plastic wind deflector. Not sure if 2010 has the same design though.
Scheduled maintenance is free for the first 3 years/36,000 miles - at least on 09 it is!

notquitejetta

Thanks for the info on the roof, and also on the timing belt from cosmo. I like the panoramic roof now that I've seen it, but unfortunately it's on a car with the cornsilk interior and I can't get past that yet. Also, I didn't notice any sort of wind deflector in front of the roof on the '10. I didn't notice any wind noise but I was busy talking to the salesman at the time. As for the timing belt, that's a bummer. I've changed two or three myself in the past but I was hoping to avoid it with this car.
To my knowledge the '10 also has free schedule maintenance through 36,000, but I saw a prior post where an owner was concerned with the 40K visit and its cost.