2008+ VW 2.5L Rabbit/Jetta

Yeah I know why do the 2.5 when the GTI/GLI exists? Power of a 4cyl with the gas mileage of a 6cyl. But with baby #2 on the way the 3 door SVT is not going to work and I want to up the safety factor. Not expecting 'hot' performance but warm and entertaining would work for the price. In 2008 the horsepower bumps to 170 and some of the major WV tuners have ecu flashes that up the redline to 6500 and add a few ponies. This is for street with 91 crappy CA gas and crappy CARB requirements. So maybe an intake and tune, could it be fun? I need the torque for the hills where I live. Half of the reviews at the time say the 2.5L Rabbits were really fun compared to other offerings at the time.

Yeah Mazda3 is on the list, but I want to investigate this option too. Lancer could be an outside contender.

I've had my eye on these as well if only because they are one of the last manual compact wagons, a few previous owners on the board here have suggested that the fuel economy is super crappy but otherwise they were fine.

My sister has an '09 Manual 2.5 Jetta. Its not a terrible engine, just not great. It gets the job done, gets mediocre mileage and seems to be more reliable than I was expecting from a VW. Really the only thing about her car that I like is that I recall it being somewhat quiet, and its interior is a major step up from most things I've owned.

Are they cheap?

I drove a friends Jetta recently after I swapped his brake pads. It had more torque than I was expecting. Plenty for daily duty imo. I didn't get a chance to hammer on it. That's all I've got.

Edit: just saw the Mazda 3 part. I daily an 08 MS3. The Jetta has a marginally better interior I would say. It's German and boring but has more features if you like that kind of thing. I like the MS3 seats better but those can't really be compared.

Ok so not a ton of love but maybe acceptable for a DD. I do see some of these under $5k so that is attractive. Not sold on them yet.

I always read that VW restricted the flow of the head with a crappy intake manifold and once that is changed, it makes closer to 200 whp

I drove one of the 2.5 passat's as a rental recently. It was acceptable, like my 4 cylinder RAV4 is acceptable. I wouldn't seek them out unless they are uber cheap

They sound cool with a perf exhaust. The gas mileage was the turn-off for me... then I bought an SX4 which doesn't do any better. I'm really smart like that.

Had a 2010 Wagon with an Auto. Decent car, mileage as noted was meh. Ours had ice form by the front edge of the doors and then bent the doors leading edge when opened.

VW fixed the doors and we sold it. If you live in a cold climate keep this in mind.

They exist because the TDi's hate short trips, so for short trips to/from the store, doctor's, etc. they work great and the mileage isn't hardly noticeable.

This is why my retired parents bought a 2.5L Jetta Wagon.

Needless to say they are very happy they didnt' buy the TDi, though its annoying that the TDi got the rear view camera and some other options they wanted, but thanks to VWNA's bone headed decision to only allow those options on the TDi....Canadian cars get more options apparently just to add insult to injury.

I bought a 2006 rabbit new. This was the turd of a 150hp motor. I don't have any experience with the 180. The 150 was a total letdown. It had gobs of torque right off idle and made great noises and it would pull pretty well until about 3500 rpm where it would just stop making power and wheeze it's way up to maybe 5k. It was useless to spin it up up to even 4k. It felt like a diesel with a good soundtrack, except it returned abysmal fuel economy. Like maybe 15mpg city if my wife was driving it, it averaged closer to 12. It did great on the freeway though. Closer to 30mpg.

It had the worst AC I have experienced in a modern car which was hilarious because the dealership bragged about how it was piped into the glove compartment and center cubby to keep your drinks cool. At idle it simply didn't function so at traffic lights you found yourself with your foot on the accelerator keeping the engine above 1200rpm so it would continue to blow something remotely cool at you.

The center dash vent that pointed at the windshield rattled and buzzed to no end. Not in a minor annoyance kind of way but in a "FOR berkeleyS SAKE MAKE IT STOP!" sort of cacophony. After the third trip to the service department the service writer suggested I buy an aftermarket vent delete kit because they all did it and there was nothing they could do.

The seat heater melted through the seat, my jacket, my work coveralls and my shirt giving me a nice burn on my back. New seat cover and heater under warranty which almost kinda sucked because the horrible polyester material in the rest of the car had "pilled" up within a few months of purchase and the new piece looked totally out of place.

The one strange thing is that the car would not engine brake. I am sure this was part of the economy tuning or something but if you drive in third gear up to say 50 mph and took your foot off the gas pedal completely it would coast as if you had depressed the clutch. It would just coast away until it got down to around 20mph and then it would suddenly begin engine braking with enough force to make you fall forward in the seat and bite the steering wheel. I never got used to that.

The one thing it did do well was long trips. It was quiet and comfortable for hours at a time. Almost no road noise in the cabin.

I hated that thing and took a big loss trading it in at 12,000 miles on a 2001 GTI, which felt like a damn supercar compared to the rabbit.

We bought the rabbit the week they were introduced and the dealership had to find us a manual transmission version so they gave us a loaner 2.5 Jetta for the 2 days until they could get the car shipped to us. The Jetta felt totally different than the rabbit. For the worse. It was bland and had no snap to the handling. It was quite a relief when we got the car we ordered and found it much more tossable than the loaner.

All that being said these last few years with the penalty box (Kia soul) has me longing for something like that rabbit, just... You know., Better!