2009 Volkswagen Jetta Sportwagen TDI Review
Male: Cars.com auto review
Bill: Hi, I’m Bill Jackson and I write the Weekend Athlete column for
our blog Kicking Tires at cars.com and as you know I’m always
taking my bike in various cars and everything else. I’m here today
with the 2009 Jetta SportWagen and I have to say the station
wagon is my favorite body style for the Weekend Athlete test.
Why? Well, for starters you have all these cargo room back here.
That’s obvious, it gives you a lot of rooms for bikes and everything
else. Then if you’re the type of person who doesn’t believe in
putting your bike inside the car like its roof racks, the best part of
what a wagon is. You have all the space up here and it’s never too
high. You don’t get too many wagons where it’s too high for a
short of person to low the rack and that’s a good thing.
Now, the other thing about this Jetta SportWagen that makes it a
little different than any of the other ones is this is a diesel version.
And I’ve driven both the gas and the diesel throughout the city on
a highway. The one thing I would say about the diesel is it has got
little more grunt which you would expect from a diesel engine
because it generally makes just a little one more torque.
And all that really means is with a manual transmission, you don’t
have to shift as often because you just have a little more grunt and
a little more pull. Speaking of the transmission, one of the other
things that I really like about this car is I’ve driven the manual in
both engines. It really makes a world of difference in terms of how
the car drives. It just makes a lot more fun and I’ll recommend it if
you can drive a stick.
Now, it’s said it’s a wagon and one of the things I like about
modern wagons versus the wagons we have when I was a kid is
you have this hatch opening rather than a swing out door. The
other things that’s nice as you can see, it opens really high. So, if
you’re a tall person that can be banging your head. It has a good
height for shorter people to pull it down. That’s good. Also, the
area itself that we have here is really big. I mean we’ve got ball
seats up and we got plenty of room back here. It is easy to take
four or five people camping if you really had to with the amount of
space you have back here.
Now, like I said you have a choice of gasoline or diesel and
manual or automatic. One thing to keep in mind, Volkswagen
doesn’t give you the choice of all-wheel drive. So, if you live in a
place with inclement weather or just having an all-wheel drive
matters to you. It’s something to bear in mind when you’re
shopping.
Male: For more car-related news, go to cars.com. For our blog,
kickingtires.net.
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