[clue-talk] iPhone Madness

[Nate Duehr]

On Jul 4, 2007, at 9:37 AM, Sean LeBlanc wrote:

> Then I woke up...because while owning a Corrado, and having more  
> and more
> problems with it (it was 10+ year car at that stage), I began looking
> around, reading reviews on Passats/Jettas. And I came to the  
> conclusion that
> somewhere along the way, VW started making craptacular products and  
> were
> relying on their branding instead.

Our diesel Jetta wagon seems to be doing fine, but they have  
definitely had some problems with the gas-powered stick-shifts... a  
lot of NHTSA reports on clutch issues, mostly.  Just over two years  
on ours and already over 50K miles... and my wife's only filled it  
with unleaded once.  (LOL!)

There have been two recalls on it, a plastic non-flexible connection  
from the fuel pump to the engine had some sort of cracking problem  
(didn't happen on ours, but was replaced with a more flexible version  
during a routine maintenance trip to VW), and they had reports of  
some broken brake-light switches... and the powers that be don't mess  
around with those... so VW replaced all of them on her model year.

She also had a failure of the moon-roof motor within the first  
month... all of the above fixed fast and correctly by the  
dealership... which is probably what makes it seem so painless that  
stupid stuff like that broke.

Customer service can "fix" a lot of silly stuff on the back-end.  Not  
to mention good design... there's an allen wrench and a way to crank  
the roof closed built into the overhead compartment that houses the  
motor.  Talk about easy... take down the panel and the tool itself is  
right there... crank a few times, roof closed.  Good fail-safe  
engineering design.

The thing that sold my wife on it originally was that it really does  
drive just like an Audi, virtually the same suspension... but it was  
a WHOLE lot cheaper.  :-)   That thing feels like it's glued down in  
corners... and that's WAY too much fun for me... heh.  My wife  
regularly thumps me for my "enthusiastic" on-ramp entrance techniques  
with that car.

I also like it because the turbo keeps it performing up into the  
mountains, and the torque of the diesel (even with only 110 HP) gives  
you the feeling that it has more power than it really does during in- 
town acceleration from a stop.

The electronic stability control feature has been wicked neat in the  
winter too... it's very VERY hard to get the back end of that front- 
wheel-drive wagon to come around on you.  I've tried on purpose, and  
it fights you every step of the way.

35 MPG from here to Vegas and back twice wasn't bad either, for its  
size.  It's LOTS bigger than most hybrids, but rivals them for fuel  
efficiency. We get from 28-32 in town in it, depending on who's  
driving it.  (She's a lead foot, but I'm far worse.)

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com