so...yeah i'm trying to buy a car and i could use any and all advise that i can get so chip in where you can!!! some people say that the newer VWs are junk and others claim that they have never had any problems. the car that i am interested in is a 1997 VW Jetta GLS, V4 2.0L, 118,500 miles, clean title(checked it myself), passed all smog checks, two owners, selling because son went in to navy.

has anyone else noticed serious problems with these cars? all of the reviews that i have found were people complaining that the repair staff was rude to them or that the molding kept falling off. i don't care about that crap. i wanna know can these cars, if properly maintained, run to like their predecessors the Beetle? i can take apart and work on most anything so i will be doing all of the repairs myself. i have access to any car related tool imaginable, so that's not a problem. what are your experiences with the Jetta?

1. Pretty much anything that has more than 100,000 miles, excluding Hondas, is potentially going to have serious problems. It's just a matter of uncertainty, things could go well or they could go bad.

2. The Jetta is not going to be something you can tune up in your garage like the beetle. Anyone can troubleshoot a beetle, hitting the carbs with a mallet to un-stick the floats, or snapping off the valve covers to adjust to rockers. But if you get a clogged injector in the Jetta, first of all it'll just run like crap and it'll be hard to figure out why, second there isn't really much we could do about it without someone who can order a new injector, so you might as well have them install it too.

BUT despite thoes things, I think you should do it anyways as long as when we go look at it it's not totally falling apart. Besides you need a car that you can finally mod and put like 128 computers in. I like Jetta's too, they look very nice, they would probably do donuts in my field excellently!

Assuming you plan on doing alot of the repairs yourself I would say go for it (And if the price is right). 100,000 miles seems a lil' high but I'm sure you can tackle any problems your car has also if it can get you from point A to point B then it sounds like a plan.

Jetta, Jetta, contact Lindsay, a friend of Beth and I, she owns a Jetta, not sure if it's the same make or whatever. I guess get her number from Bethie, she'll tell you how it is.

PATRICK HAS A CAR! WOO HOOO!

ok, i know a little about german makes and a little about VW's

1. you cant change the oil on your own, there kinda low so you cant get under to get the screw loose and drain it out. so its kind of a lickety splits because you gotta go to the dealer or a shop and wait to change it out!

2. the miles are a little high, specialy for a non-jap car

3. vw tend to break down after time more so then other german cars, my brother had a golf and things were happening to it that we couldnt realy figure out on our own

4. unlike jap cars, you kind of have to take care of it, jap cars you can just like not really have to worry about them for to long and they just keep plugging away! thats why you see all the girls in high school getting civics, because they dont know jack nothing about nothing for cars so they just drive till theres 15,000 miles on it without changin the oil! true story! only it was more like 6-7,000 and then engine nearly blew up! so jap cars it doesnt take much maintanence, germans it just takes a little more.

5. ok, if something breaks on VW's you really can just get on simple basic part, there usually all put together and you have to almost buy a whole essembly part just to replace one thing. my brother wanted to replace one simple vent on the dash, they told him it wouls cost him $150 because he almost had to buy the entire dash assembly, little rediculous!

ok, so theres my take on VW's. there good, but its just a little more responsibility and maintenance then jap counterparts. in summation, alright looking car and if you want it go ahead and take it, but i dont know how well it will run for how long you want to keep it. if its in good shape and you keep it that way then it should run for yrs! as always, its all up to you! good hunting!

not true, you do need a jack and some jack stands ($30 @ kragen) and it is a snap. i changed my own oil right in my own garage.

well the milage could be a problem if the car is not taken care of. Honda and toyota are incredibly different from Volkswagen vehicles; not just in make but in maintenance. you can abuse a honda or toyota and get away with it. you cannot do that with a Volkswagen. if you do it will hit you where it hurts most, the wallet. however if you do take good care of your volkswagen you can get about 200,000-250,000 miles out of it or more with most of the origonal equipment. there are many people who have done this with newer volkswagens and they all say that without regular and thourogh maintanance the car will seek revenge on you.

with the right tools and a knack for mechanical/electronic stuff anything is possible. for example on my car the power windows were reported to have a huge problem with the clips breaking all the time causing the power window to be useless and perminantly retracted. i found a way to fix it perminantly with a piece of scrap metal and two rivets. you just have to be willing to take the time to work on it thouroughly.

yep yep. ready and willing

yeah the dealership can be a bit redicuious however with the right amount of paitence and perserverance not only can you find most of the parts for the car on your own but you can really fix most of them yourself for almost nothing. i have experiance this first hand with the window. the dealer wanted $80 to look at it and it could be $800 to fix it; i fixed it with $0.02 worth in parts.

thanks. well as you can probably guess i have already purchased the car. it is an addicting little vehicle to drive. it gets way good gas mileage and it does need a very attentive eye to make sure everything has been taken care of. basically it feels like i am driving a expensive european sports car when i only paid 3000 for it.