First Drive: 2009 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen SEL
“Un-pimp ze auto.” Volkswagen belabored the motto with a wrecking ball and a trebuchet. Peter Stormare taught the lesson as an eccentric German engineer. Dressed in white, Stormare and his supermodel female assistant would mercilessly destroy flamboyant sport-compact disasters while touting the subtlety of the new GTI. “German engineering in da house,” Stormare would say, posing while making a “VW” sign with his hands. Remember the ads? Good. Volkswagen’s apparently forgotten.
Take the Jetta SportWagen SEL pictured here. To the topline model, Volkswagen’s fitted a few options from its accessory list, including a Motorsports aero package, a painted hood spoiler, and black, 18-inch Karthoum wheels. On enthusiast forums, the body kit is known as the Thunderbunny — a term you should be careful about Googling at work. It replicates the styling of VW’s TDI Cup race cars. And while it looks appropriate on a dozen or so sponsor-coated race cars flying along mid-Ohio raceway at ten-tenths, its decency on public streets, especially when equipped to a wagon, comes into question. Suffice to say, this SportWagen is pimped. But more on that in a bit.
Hidden behind the gratuitous accessory platter is quite a good car. The SportWagen simply adds space to the Jetta sedan’s formula of a pleasant ride, good interior materials and packaging. Can’t take your eyes off the Thunderbunny duds? Let’s look inside. The dash presents cleanly organized gauges illuminated with cool blue light. To the right is one of the three options our tester came with: a touch-screen navigation infotainment system ($1990), which adds a connector for your iPod in the compartment beneath the arm rest. Look up and you’ll see and unhindered sky; at 4.5 feet, the panoramic sunroof ($1300) provides an impressive view. The down sides: The glass only opens halfway, and it steals a significant amount of space normally reserved for the heads of taller occupants.The wagon part isn’t apparent on a windy road — unless you haven’t packed your gear tightly. Up front, the 2.0-liter turbo four from the GTI doles out power through an easy six-speed manual. While the SportWagen won’t win any speed contests, the 207 pound-feet of torque provided from 1800 to 5000 rpm makes for enjoyable driving. The car surges forward while the turbo spools, the steering wheel dances around in lower gears. Torque steer you say? A bit. Volkswagen employs an Electronic Differential Lock to mitigate the problem. It isn’t a differential in the typical sense, but the system, in conjunction with the ABS, uses sensors to monitor the speed of the front wheels. When the revolutions get out of whack, the system applies the brakes to the faster-spinning wheel. It doesn’t eliminate the problem, but keeps the wheels in check. In fact, the added driver engagement becomes kind of fun.
Or it would be. Remember those black, 18-inch Karthoum wheels? With the Goodyear Eagle GT rubber, they’re 51 pounds apiece. That’s rather heavy, adding a total of 204 pounds of unsprung mass to the car. For comparison, the 16-inch wheels and tires of our Jetta TDI long-termer weigh 42 pounds a pop (though SportWagens come with 17-inch wheels from the factory). This added wheel weight worsens acceleration, braking, and handling performance. And, in our tester, the mass is painfully apparent. The SportWagen shudders and vibrates over the road. Slight bumps translate into harsh impacts. And to what benefit? Besides deteriorating the ride quality and handling, they’re expensive — as is the rest of the package. The wheels and tires are $1799; the Thunderbunny kit is $2799; the painted hood spoiler? $533.24. That’s $5131 of pimping, which raises our as-tested MSRP to $35,536. Ouch.
[source:MotorTrend]
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