The 2009 Volkswagen Jetta is the cure for car boredom and fuel-a-phobia, too! Go with the Jetta TDI diesel and thumb your nose at the gas pumps. Feeling stuffy? The Jetta SEL SportWagen will open those clogged nasal passages. It’s true! The 2009 Volkswagen Jetta can cure what ails you!
It’s no wonder the Jetta is Volkswagen's top seller. Jetta comes as a four-door sedan or the new-for-2009 four-door SportWagen with 32.8 cubic feet with the 60/40 rear seat up and 66.9 cubic feet with it down. The Jetta SportWagen is the perfect Jetta for the stuffed-up and claustrophobic. Both body styles are available in S ($17,515 MSRP with manual transmission), SE ($20,095 MSRP with manual transmission) and SEL ($22,965 MSRP) trim levels. As Edmunds.com points out, “The Jetta remains the only discount-priced European sedan.”
Sedans are powered by 170-hp 2.5-liter five-cylinder engines. Jetta S and SE versions are available with five-speed manual transmissions. The Jetta Wolfsburg Edition is essentially an SE sedan with the turbocharged engine, 17-inch wheels, no exterior chrome window trim and Wolfsburg badges. The SEL wagon and TDI have six-speed manuals. Standard on SEL sedan and available on all other Jettas is a six-speed automatic. 
Available safety features on all Jettas include ABS, traction control, an antiskid system, curtain side airbags, front side airbags and rear side airbags. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave the Jetta sedan and SportWagen four out of five stars for frontal collision protection and a perfect five stars for side protection. In Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crash tests, the Jetta sedan received the highest rating of "Good" for frontal-offset and side crash protection.
Optional on all Jettas are an iPod interface and rear side airbags. A touch-screen navigation system is optional on all but the Jetta S, with a 30GB hard drive, digital music storage, SB memory card slot, USB port and DVD playback. A panoramic sunroof is a stand-alone option on the SportWagen.
There’s good news for another model – the 2009 Jetta TDI has been named Green Car Journal's 2009 Green Car of the Year. This is the first win for a clean diesel.
"The 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI epitomizes what the Green Car of the Year honor is all about," said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal and editor of GreenCar.com. "It raises the bar significantly in environmental performance with its EPA estimated 41 mpg highway fuel economy, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and extremely low tailpipe emissions. This is all the more impressive when you consider the Jetta TDI is a clean diesel, achieving the kind of fuel efficiency offered by gasoline-electric hybrids, but in a more affordable way."
The power plant for the 2009 VW Jetta TDI is a 2.0-liter turbocharged clean diesel four cylinder with common rail direct injection. The clean diesel technology makes this vehicle emissions-compliant in all 50 states. The performance of this engine is impressive with 140 hp and 236 lb/ft of torque. The TDI is available with a six-speed manual or DSG “Direct Shift” transmission. Fuel economy for the TDI with a manual is estimated to be 30 mpg city/41 mpg highway and 34 mpg combined, while the DSG lowers mileage by one mpg in each context.
The Jetta TDI has even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. An Australian couple, John and Helen Taylor, have made a living teaching people to drive more frugally. Driving totally around the contiguous United States, they set a record 58.82 miles per gallon in their stock 2009 Jetta TDI.
"The terrain was very diverse, the weather less than ideal and the traffic heavy at rush hour, and the VW Jetta TDI handled it all beautifully, showing its fuel efficiency and its fun-to-drive dynamic capability – just two of this vehicle's many attributes," said John Taylor. "The car efficiently helped us drive to a fuel-economy world record."
The Taylors drove a total of 9,419 miles over 20 days.
Car bored? We recommend the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta. Give us a call and we’ll prescribe the right Jetta for you. We’ll even set you up with a test drive.
