[graaja]

At last my 6 months saga of searching and buying a second car comes to an end and a Platinum Grey Jetta 2.0TDI AT HL comes home. Let me first summarize the likes and dislikes.

What I like in the car:

• Simple, yet elegant design
• 140bhp, 320Nm explosive diesel
• Butter smooth 6 speed DSG gearbox
• Very refined engine and a silent cabin
• Built like a tank. All the doors close with a thud. In fact, the solidity is better than Octavia
• Super bright Xenons with automatic levelling and static cornering
• Very spacious interiors
• Paddle shifts

What I don’t like:

Honestly, coming from Getz and this being my second car, there is nothing that I do not like in this car. However, there are a few things that I would like to list compared to the Octavia.

• Lacks the AFS function in the BiXenons
• Lacks the sunroof
• Though the boot is by itself huge, compared to the notchback opening of Octavia, the access to the boot feels a little bit cramped
• Lacks the fresh looks of the Octavia

As this is going to be long thread, I have divided this into many parts. Please skip to the desired part depending upon your level of patience and the time you have at hand. As I am an engineer, this is going to be more like reading a boring project report or a documentary than an interesting novel (like some other ownership threads from dkaile, iliketurtles and RavenAvi to name a few) that is fun to read.

Part-1: I need a car with a bigger boot – The booking of Honda City
Special Thanks to: @RavenAvi, @KarthikK and @puchoo with their ownership threads for the Honda City and the Fiat Linea.

Part-2: Lets go shopping in the D1 segment - The booking of the Octavia
Special Thanks to: @shankar.balan, @Santhoshbhat, @hayek, @dkaile, @Saheel, @Swanand Inamdar, @adi_petrolhead, @B747 and all the other members who took the Skoda Reliability survey

Part-3: The wait for the Octavia, Booking and Delivery of the Jetta
Special Thanks to: @GTO for his punch statement on German Diesels and @iliketurtles, @Chethan B G, @VW2010 and @akshay1234 for providing me with all the information on the Jetta and encouraging me to go for it

Part – 4 A Platinum Grey Jetta 2.0TDI AT HL Comes Home

[graaja]

Part-1 I need a car with a bigger boot – The booking of the Honda City

It all started in the beginning of October 2013. I had a Hyundai Getz 1.1 GVS which was my first car. At the time I bought the car in 2007, it was just me, my wife and the first daughter. 6 years later, after the addition of my second daughter, I realized that Getz is not good enough anymore, when we went on a 4 day trip. The boot was completely full and I had to place some bags in the back seat. That is when I decided I should buy a car with a bigger boot. I started with a budget of 10L and decided to go for a C segment sedan. Also, as my usage is very limited (about 7000 km per year), I decided to go for the petrol.

At that time I had come across TBHP and had started reading up various articles on buying a car and the ownership threads for the Honda and Linea by RavenAvi, KarthikK and Puchoo.

Honda City:

I visited the Honda City dealer and asked him for a test drive. He promptly brought the City VMT and VAT models for test drive the next couple of days.

Things I liked:

• Peppy 1.5L iVTEC engine
• Smooth gear shifts in the MT
• Very comfortable seats and leg room
• Huge boot compared to my Getz
• Paddle shifts in the AT
• Very comfortable driving position

Things I did not like: Not much

• No automatic climate control
• No automatic door-lock when car is in movement

Fiat Linea T-Jet:
I visited the Fiat showroom and asked for a test drive. As they had only one T-Jet that was displayed at the showroom, they took a few days to bring the car for the test drive.

Things I liked:

• The T-Jet engine; I was blown over by the power and torque delivered by this engine
• Ride and handling and steering feedback
• Powerful brakes
• Solid build. It was very difficult to even lift the boot

Things I did not like:

• Cramped driver’s foot well. This was a deal breaker for me. My left foot always got stuck between the clutch and the dead pedal. Though I read in the reviews that one would get used to this, I was not convinced.
• Cramped interiors: The Linea looks huge from the outside, but the legroom inside was worse than my Getz.

Though the car is an enthusiast’s delight, I had to rule this out due to the cramped driver footwell and the cramped interiors.

Vento TSi:

I decided to check out the Vento as well. At that time, all the reviews I had read pointed out that Vento was the king of Diesels in the segment. Though I was not looking for a Diesel car, I did not want to just rule out the Vento.

When I dropped in to the VW showroom and asked about the Vento diesel, the SA told me that VW has introduced the Vento TSi with 7 speed DSG and invited me to test it out. I took the Vento TSi for a long test drive. The 1.2TSi engine + the DSG7 combination was superb. I actually have no words to describe my experience. My wife immediately liked the comfort and space. The SA told me the car was ready for delivery if I booked it immediately. I almost booked it, but just held back and asked him for a day’s time.

Then I came back and did some research on the DSG7, and it was as if I opened a can of worms. A search of DSG7 in Google returned only the problems with the gear box in its top results! I also came across the Skoda Superb threads here in TBHP where almost all the Superbs in the forum had a DSG breakdown, one of them even had to replace it twice.

Still, as I was totally possessed by the performance, I called the SA and asked him if an extended warranty was available and what would be cost of changing the gearbox if it failed outside warranty. He came back next day saying there was no extended warranty for the Vento TSi and the cost of replacing the gearbox would be 1.5L for the mechatronics which is the one that usually fails. I was not prepared for this at that time and hence dropped the idea of Vento TSi.

Things I liked:

• Powerful 1.2TSi engine
• Butter-smooth DSG7 gearbox
• Comfortable seats and spacious interiors

Things I did not like:

• The unreliable DSG7 gearbox
• No Extended Warranty
• Very expensive mechatronics if it were to be replaced outside warranty

Though I had decided not to go with the Vento TSI, I wanted to still check out the diesel and a couple of days later visited the showroom again and took a test drive of the Vento TDI. However, there was so much of noise and vibrations inside the cabin, I straightaway dropped the TDI from the list. It is quite possible though, that the test drive car was in such a state due to high mileage and abuse.

With all the above test drives and talking to a couple of colleagues who had recently bought a Honda City, I decided to go ahead with the City. It was at this time that I saw the news about the imminent launch of the next version of City. I told the SA that I will wait for this launch and then book. I paid the booking amount on the same day the all new City was announced after watching the live podcast of the announcement.

As I was waiting for the pricing and features to be announced, the official TBHP review came up on December 13th. I was disappointed by the following:

• CVT gearbox and the rubber banding effect
• Skinny tires and ugly alloys
• Asymmetrical placement of the HU and the parking lights. This in my mind spoilt the total look of the dashboard. Earlier generation City with the Caska HU looked great compared to the new one
• Blatant cost cutting measures like the naked boot lid with the exposed wires

Also, the fact that only diesel cars were given priority and the delivery of a petrol car can be expected only in March added up. I promptly called up the dealer and cancelled my order and after three weeks of follow ups got back the booking amount.

[graaja]

Part-2: Lets go shopping in the D1 segment - The booking of the Octavia

As I was waiting for the Honda City details, news started trickling in about the CVT gearbox, skinny tires etc from the media drive. So, I started looking further.

In the one month since paying the booking amount for the City, I had been regularly reading TeamBHP and started considering safety features seriously. I read some threads where users had serious crashes in German cars and came out without a scratch. This biased my mind towards German cars and away from the reliability of Japanese and Koreans. Also, after driving the turbo petrol engines in the Linea T-Jet and Vento TSi, I got attracted towards turbo-petrol engines. The only segment that offers high level of safety features and turbo petrol engines is the D1 segment. Octavia had just been announced and Jetta had the 1.4TSi. After reading lots of reviews, decided to check out the Octavia.

Visited the Skoda dealer and saw the Octavia in flesh for the first time. It was love at first sight. The stance and elegance of the Octavia was simply captivating. However, there was no 1.8TSi available for test drive. So, took a test drive with the 2.0TDi Manual Ambition, just to check out the interiors. The interiors were superb. Lots of space, fresh look, fantastic HU that integrated system configuration settings and the huge boot with notchback opening. So, decided to go for the 1.8TSi and paid the booking amount on 19th December. Expected delivery was 12 to 16 weeks – 3rd week of March or 3rd week of April. However, there were a few issues to be sorted out with the 1.8TSi.

The first was the DSG7 gear box. Remember, I had rejected Vento TSi based on the unreliable DSG7 and lack of extended warranty. As the 1.8TSi was not available with a manual transmission, I decided to do some more research. Spent a lot of time reading forums on DSG7 issues and came to a conclusion that the problems with DSG7 were mostly in cars manufactured before 2011. VW had found the problems and had implemented fixes (like revised clutch plates, use of mineral oil in place of synthetic oil etc). I also came across a site that was conducting survey on DSG failures. This site may be found in the below link.

DSG Survey

The results in this site also pointed that there were very few problems reported in DSG7 post 2011. Nevertheless, I did not want to get the car without the Extended Warranty. EW was not available at the time of booking. However on repeated follow ups with Skoda and from inputs from other users adi_petrolhead and B747, came to a conclusion that EW will be launched by end of March, right at the time I would be taking the delivery of the car.

However, Skoda horror stories started cropping up in the forum like clockwork (the 4.5Lakhs cost on Yeti which later got resolved for 30K after weeks of negotiations with Skoda, Sahil’s 1 Lakh+ bill on ABS sensor, adi_petrolhead’s fuel pump failure, and the infamous fake thread by another user reflux). This led to sleepless nights. My heart was pushing for Octavia as there was no other car that can give the pleasure of the 1.8TSi + DSG7 combo (even the Audi A4 came with CVT gearbox), but my head was repeatedly getting concerned about the reliability of the car and the A.S.S. All the Skoda bashing that happened in the related threads did not help either. The amount of bashing that was happening was creating an illusion that almost all cars made by Skoda are not reliable and almost all the dealers are scumbags. So, I decided to conduct a survey to find out the truth.

The post on the survey may be found in the following link. Subsequent posts have details on users responding to the survey and providing their feedback.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...ml#post3340571


The results of the survey may be found in the following post.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...ml#post3343872

My sincere thanks to all the users who took the survey and also who supported me during this time. In summary, I came to a conclusion that owning the Octavia is definitely risky and about 5% of the cars could fail. So, it was sort of calculated risk. I still decided to go ahead with the risk. Such was the pull of the 1.8TSi.

Meanwhile, I had another digression. As the new Superb was being released, there was a possibility of huge discounts on the previous generation Superb. I got tempted if I should go for a Superb. Details of this can be found in the below thread.

Skoda Octavia or Superb?
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/luxury...ia-superb.html

Based on feedback received from users, I decided to stick with the Octavia booking.

[graaja]

Part-3: The wait for the Octavia, Booking and Delivery of the Jetta

What followed was weeks and weeks of waiting and regular calls to the SA to know about the delivery schedule of the car. But I came in for a rude shock. In the third week of March, during my routine call to the SA, I was told that the car can be expected only in May or June at the earliest, and that too no guarantee. This was the last straw for me. I was back to square one, looking for an alternate.

During the wait for Octavia, I had seen many users cancelling their Octavia booking and going for a Jetta. Also, GTO’s comment “Germans make better diesels” kept ringing in my ears. However due to my experience with the NVH levels in Vento TDi and due to my hearing loss that requires a very silent cabin to make any conversation possible, I could not make the decision to switch to Diesel.

Now that I was back looking for a car, decided to give Jetta a try. I would like to thank iliketurtles who in his review had written that Jetta had a very refined engine and the cabin was very quiet, and also encouraged me to check it out for myself. He too was in a similar situation - had booked the Octavia 1.8TSi, and after a month's waiting, cancelled the Octavia and bought the Jetta. His reaction was quicker than mine though!

So, I visited the VW showroom on Friday, the 21st March. I was promptly attended by a SA and he provided me with all the details of the car and told me he would bring the car to my residence on Saturday for a test drive. For some reason this did not happen on Saturday, but on Sunday (though it was a holiday), he brought the car over to my place. Went for a long test drive, and I just fell in love with the car. My main concern about NVH levels was resolved as the cabin was very silent. The 2.0TDI diesel with 320Nm of torque with the 6 speed DSG (the 6 speed DSG is a wet clutch one and is more reliable) was total fun to drive. And I decided the same day to go ahead and book the car.

I have posted details of my test drive experience in the below post.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/sedans...ml#post3396993

I was in store for a pleasant surprise. The SA told me that they have a platinum grey and a toffee brown in stock and these were available for immediate delivery, whereas colors like white, silver and black had a waiting period of 4 to 6 weeks. Went to their yard on Monday with my wife and both of us liked the Grey. I immediately booked the car. All the financial formalities were completed by Friday and the payment was made in full.

Now my wife added to my woes of waiting. She was very firm that we do the registration on Wednesday and take the delivery only by next Friday as that was the first available auspicious day. After spending some time in futile argument to take delivery on Monday, I gave in. What is another 5 days’ wait compared to 3 months I waited for the Octavia! After a quick PDI (from TBHP checklist) on Wednesday, the car was registered. Friday was the D-Day.

Note about experience with Skoda: I must say, my experience with the Skoda dealer was very pleasant. The SA, Mr. Suresh was very helpful throughout the process - the test drive, booking, waiting and cancelling. In fact, though I was told that the refund would take 3 weeks to process, he got me the cheque in just 3 days.

[graaja]

Part – 4 A Platinum Grey Jetta 2.0TDI AT HL Comes Home

On the D-Day, we arrived at 9:00AM at the dealership. Everything was done quickly and efficiently. I took with me, the printout of the PDI checklist and made sure everything was in order. Thanks to the checklist, I found a discrepancy in engine number between the invoice and warranty card. I duly pointed out this mistake and they corrected this with an apology.

The cost worked out to 23.1L with registration and regular insurance. The dealer offered me a deal where I paid 23.18L and got the “Drive Assure Elite” cover which includes zero depreciation insurance and also covers the alloys and other damages like rats chewing the wires etc. The effective savings in insurance was around 23K. As the car is fully loaded, the only accessory I got free was the mats.

We got the keys after a quick ceremony amidst confetti.

Getting ready for delivery.


Gift Wrapped


Unwrapping the Gift


Receiving the keys amidst confetti.


Also, per recommendation from iliketurtles, Chethan and akshay1234, I changed the stock Good Year NCT5’s to Michelin Primacy 3ST straight from the showroom. They took the stock tires for 4K each, and the Michelins cost 10K each. Hence I paid 24K for the new shoes. And I thank all these friends for this advice. The tires are very silent and there is absolutely no road noise. The car feels like gliding!

Wheels removed.


New shoes being fitted.


Wheel balancing


Wheels being fixed


And I present my Platinum Grey Jetta 2.0TDI AT HL.


And that gentlemen, is how I started with a budget of 10 Lakhs looking for a C segment car and ended up buying a D segment car at 23 Lakhs!!

[graaja]

They say "A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words"! Here are some pictures of the car.

Side View


Rear View


Rear three quarter left


Rear three quarter right


My favorite, the head on view


Side view of the front


ORVM


Shark fin antenna


Another rear view


Tail lights and number plate in the dark

[graaja]

Here is a photo of the engine.



The engine hood is quite heavy to lift and heavily padded. The effect of the padding is evident from the very low noise levels in the cabin.



Engine Power and Gear Box:

I have driven the car for about 400km since taking delivery. This includes a 280km trip to Valparai from Coimbatore. To describe my experience in one word – Awesome, Exhilarating, Enchanting (that is not one word!!).

The combination of the powerful 2.0TDI engine and the butter smooth 6 speed gearbox is superb. I have been mostly using the D mode. The gear shifts are very smooth. With a light foot, the car easily picks up speed and shifts up seamlessly. In no time, the car is doing 80kmph in 6th gear with the RPM hovering around 1200 or 1500. This is perfect for relaxed highway driving. At times when I need to do an overtake maneuver, all I need to do is press the accelerator a bit more. After about a second of hesitation (is that due to tubo lag?), depending on how much the accelerator is pressed, the car drops one or two gears and it is as if a beast inside has awakened. The car just shoots forward with a huge thrust. Depending on the amount the accelerator is pressed, the car holds the up shift to a higher RPM as well. For example, during light foot, the upshift happens at 2000 RPM. I noticed the upshift to happen at 2500RPM and at 3000RPM depending on how hard I pressed the accelerator.

While descending in the mountain roads in Valparai, I felt that the D mode was not suitable as it did not offer any engine braking. So, during the descent, I mostly used the manual mode with a combination of the stick shift and the paddle shifts. During downshifts, the car does a rev matching and then switches the gear. This is an awesome feeling. Paddle shifts are not very well suited for very sharply winding roads like hairpin bends. When I had to rotate the steering more than 180 degrees, I used to lose track of the correct side where the paddles are and sometimes pressed the wrong paddle. This was solved when I changed to tiptronic using the stick. I think the paddles would be perfectly suited for winding roads where you do not have to take your hands off the steering wheels.

I have not yet tried the S (sports) mode as I believe this will result in the car holding the gear till it reaches redline. I will try this out after I have run the car for at least 1500km.

Cruise Control:
During this trip, I also had the chance to try cruise control. Below picture shows the Cruise Control/Head Light control stalk on the left side of the steering wheel. The "Down" paddle shift can be seen in the foreground.



At any speed above 40, pressing the "SET" button results in the car entering cruise mode. The cruise control speed is also displayed on the MID. The car now maintains the speed without any acceleration input. Any braking maneuver exits cruise mode. After braking maneuver is complete, just press the "RES" key to enable cruise mode again. The car accelerates quickly (it is very quick) to the set speed and maintains. While in cruise mode, the "RES" and "SET" keys also function as "Increase" and "Decrease" keys. Just press these keys to increase or decrease the cruise speed in increments of 1kmph. If you would like to set a completely different cruise speed, just flip the On/Cancel/Off switch to Cancel and back to On. This clears the current cruise speed and a new speed can be set by pressing the "SET" key again. However, in India, this is not of much use as I could not maintain cruise even for 15 seconds together.

Ride, Handling and Comfort:

The car handles extremely well. I could easily take some sharp curves at 80kmph, which I would never have dared above 50 on my Getz. The car feels totally planted in these curves. I could actually feel the steering tightening up as the speed increases. This adds to the stability in the curves with more accurate steering. The multi-link suspension is very effective in absorbing the irregularities on the road, that it feels like the car is almost gliding on the roads. Except for a few sharp speed breakers, I have not felt any jolt inside the car at all. Overall I am extremely happy with the ride and handling department.

Fuel Economy:

I think this is too early to comment on the fuel economy. I filled up the tank as soon as I took delivery of the car when the Odo was at 40km. The Odo is now at 455Km with the fuel level standing at around 50%, and the MID is displaying the range to be 370km.



Also, during the Valparai trip, when I was driving on level road for around 80km, the average fuel consumption was standing at 20.2kmpl. As soon as I entered the mountain roads, the average started dropping. It dropped till 15.0kmpl and recovered again when I was back on level ground. At the end of the 280km trip, the average consumption was at 16.5kmpl. However, I am not sure if this average consumption is for the trip or since the beginning. I will update the thread with the accurate figures when I do another tank fill.

[graaja]

Head lamp assembly


Light control switch


The light control is situated on the right side of the steering. At 0, the lights are off (the DRLs are on though). In Auto mode, the lights are off in daytime and automatically get on as light fades. The next position turns on the side lights, and the next one is for manual head light control. The position left to 0 turns on the fog lights.

The control on the left side of the light control switch is for controlling the brightness of the instruments and switch backlight.

BiXenons: The BiXenons are extremely powerful. Usually during night drives, my eyes get tired due to the glare from the oncoming traffic. During a short trip in the night, I found it very relaxing driving in the night. Also, when I turned on the lights, I saw this strange thing where the lights did a dance. The lights first swept right and left and then swept down and then up and settled down on the low beam. I guess this is the light aligning itself according to the load. This is really exciting to watch. In auto mode, the BiXenons come on in low beam. This can be switched between high and low beams by flicking the cruise/light control stalk up or down. Also, in both low and high beams, the beam on the right side is smaller than the one on the left side. I believe this is to avoid glare to the oncoming vehicles.

Cornering: On the day I got the car, I had been to Marudamalai, a temple situated on a small hill. There is a small distance of ghat road. While driving in this road in the night, I found how effective the cornering function is. Depending on the side the steering wheel is turned, one of the cornering comes on and lights up the curve ahead. This is very helpful. I am loving this German engineering!

Head lights in action.

[graaja]

And now, some pictures of the interiors.

A view of the cockpit


Driver seat with 12 way electrical adjustment


Front armrest. There is a storage space below the armrest where we can keep things like cell phone, lose change, toll receipts etc. The arm rest can be slide forward or backward and can also be adjusted for height. The only problem with the armrest is it is difficult to fasten the seat belt as access to the seat belt lock is congested. But this is not a big deal.


The Gear stick


A view of the rear seats. It is going to be a nightmare maintaining all this biege with two children!


Rear legroom. Driver seat adjusted all the way back and passenger seat adjusted midway. The center hump is very prominent and it is going to be very difficult for the 5th passenger. Not my problem though


Rear AC vents and the 12V socket. There is also a small storage space where a cell phone may be placed while charging. Very thoughtful.


Driver side foot well. Very comfortably spaced pedals and the dead pedal is very useful.


Glovebox with the USB connector. The car came with the iPod connector. As I have the 2nd generation iPod touch, no problem with the cable. Users with the iPods with lightning connector will have a problem.


Ample boot space.


Boot space with seats folded.


A view of the interiors through the boot opening through the rear armrest.


Spare wheel with all the tools neatly packed.


All door pockets can hold a 1 liter bottle.


ORVM control and central lock control. The ORVM control can be used to fold the ORVMs and also to turn on the heater function for the ORVMs.


Window controls. All windows have single touch up and down. Again, I am loving German engineering.


Vanity mirror. The light turns on when the mirror cover is slid out. Wife loves this.


Rear view mirror with auto dimming. The view from the mirror is very limited though. I have not yet tested the auto dimming feature.


Front reading lights with sun glass holder.


Windows do not fold down completely. This is the maximum they go down.

[graaja]

And more pictures.

The multi-function steering wheel. Has both tilt and reach adjust.


MID control switches. MID can display system settings, ride parameters (like speed, range, average consumption etc), phone controls (like phone book, call information etc) and media information (like artist, album etc).


Phone and audio control switch. Can be used to advance tracks, attend phone, mute audio etc.


Head Unit and Automatic Climate Control.


When you adjust any settings on the AC, the HU displays the AC information for some time (the duration is configurable in the system settings)


When the reverse gear is engaged or when the parking aid switch (in the gear console) is turned on, the HU displays the parking aid. This display is with the car parked in my portico, the gate behind and the sit-out railing to the front.


The dashboard. I like this simple yet elegant design. Dials show speed, RPM, fuel level and engine temperature.


The cockpit at night with the interior lamps turned on.


That is all I have folks, for now. As I drive the car more, read the manual and understand all the features and operations, I will periodically update this thread with more information.

I once again thank all fellow TBHP'ians who have helped me during various stages of the car selection process and have been patient with me as I kept coming back again and again with more questions and problems.

I thank the TBHP moderators for accepting me as a member, without which I could not have got all the advice and guidance from the forum.

[noopster]

Thread moved from Assembly Line to Initial Ownerships section. Thanks for sharing!

Very well-written review of an excellent car, graaja! I confess I wasn't an early fan of the Jetta since the nearly 50% premium over the Vento seemed a little steep, but over time this car has really grown on one.

Beautiful shade as well. Many congratuations and do keep posting regular updates about your new baby.

[amansanc]

Congrats graaja for your latest acquisition. Beautifully detailed review as well!

I love the looks of the Jetta after the minor facelift. Looks far better than the competition. You chose a lovely colour as well. Get it detailed regularly and it will look smashing.

Keep posting updates regularly.

Cheers!
amansanc

[avira_tk]

Congrats on getting the top end automatic, most people chicken out and settle for the mid variant.

Is that first photo taken on the Palakkad route? Just asking as I studied in Cbe.

How does that wood finish look in real life? Some people complain it's a bit too plasticky.

[iliketurtles]

Congrats graaja, slightly surprised you did put up an ownership review so soon, but it is a pleasant surprise nonetheless.

Super to see that you complemented your review with tons of pictures. Like noopster, I too wasn't a fan of the Jetta until its most recent facelift, it just didn't make sense at that point. Congrats on owning one of the most well-rounded cars at its price point, may you have many miles filled with joy behind the wheel of your Jetta!

[Nicky]

Congratulations. Fantastic car for the money.
Really nice write up. Quite a search with bookings and cancellations but finally you picked the best. Color is really nice. Toffee brown is also another color which stands out.

Enjoy the safe drive.