Review
The Jetta is a four-door version of the VW Golf, designed around the distinctly different priorities of the American market, where buyers prefer saloons to hatchbacks.
As such, it's a spacious, sensible car - but ungainly styling and pricing that gets close to the far larger Passat means that it's appeal is likely to be as limited as that of all the previous four generations of booted Golfs.
Despite the uncomfortable proportions given by the stuck-on boot, the Jetta is genuinely useful. It can't muster quite as much luggage space as cars like the Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Vectra, but its far more commodious than the Golf.
Most of the rest of the experience is, as you'd expect, very Golf-like. The cabin is effectively identical, meaning plenty of space in the front and a good range of driving position adjustment, although with dreary, dark plastics on the cheaper versions. Decent standard equipment includes air conditioning and alloys.
Only a limited range of engines are available, buyers getting to choose between 1.6 litre and 2.0 litre FSI direct injection petrol units, or 1.9 litre and 2.0 litre turbodiesels. All offer similar performance to their Golf equivalents, meaning decent acceleration from the petrol units and a combination of decent performance and spectacular fuel economy with the diesels. The rest of the driving experience is similarly Golf-like - a decently reactive chassis and a ride that gets a little harsh over low-speed bumps.
If the Jetta matches the example of previous generation Golf saloons, it will suffer from worse residuals than its hatchback sister - negating most of its financial case.