What Could Possibly Go Wrong...

Work harder, boy, or it will be you in here ^{VW Jetta 2.0 TDI Sport}

I suppose I ought to come clean. The cars I review on these pages every Sunday are sometimes nothing like the cars you can actually buy. Every car company runs a fleet of press demonstrators, which motoring journalists can borrow for a week. We imagine, of course, that the cars on these fleets are plucked at random from the production lines, in the same way as a famous restaurant reviewer expects that the food he’s eating is exactly the same as the food everyone else is eating.[1] But I fear that, sometimes, they are not.

Many years ago, when cars were judged only on acceleration times, Austin Rover made all sorts of wild claims about how its new Maestro turbo could get from a standstill to 60 mph in six seconds. And indeed the press-fleet cars supplied for testing could do just that. But only once. Because then they’d blow up, causing everyone to wonder if the wastegate valves hadn’t been welded slightly shut.

There were also tales about car makers stripping down cars that would be going to the press, and then rebuilding them, very carefully and at huge expense, by hand. And I must say that the Ferraris that turn up for performance testing always seem to be noticeably faster than the cars that are supplied for photographic purposes. That could be my imagination, though (he said, aware of the laws of libel).

But even if the car supplied for testing really does come from the production line, the experience is still a bit skewed. First of all, it’s delivered, fully taxed and insured, in an extremely clean state with a tankful of free fuel. That makes the reviewer feel very gooey about life in general and his job in particular. And when the tank is empty, a man comes with another car and takes the first one away. It’s all completely unrealistic, really.

And so are the cars. Most press-fleet managers will ensure that every demonstrator is fitted with every single optional extra. They will argue that this gives the reviewer a chance to sample all that’s available. Yes. But a layer of exciting buttons and knobs can also mask the dreariness of the product underneath. In the same way as a spicy sauce masks the fact that the curry you’ve ordered is full of dead cats.

So, in short, I spend half my life driving around in a £15,000 car that’s been hand-built at a cost of £250,000 and has been supplied with eighty quid’s worth of free fuel, free insurance, free tax and a range of optional extras that are worth twice what most people would pay for the entire car.

Not this week, though, because Volkswagen supplied a new Jetta in what can only be described as hire-car spec. I assumed that this was because the company was so proud of the actual car, it didn’t want to spoil the experience with lots of unnecessary electronic or cosmetic flimflam. I was wrong. Because this is the dreariest, most depressing car ever made in all of human history.

I am not saying this because it is an ordinary car of a type people buy. I am saying this because it really is the four-wheeled equivalent of drizzle.

In front of the gear lever are five switches, and in a standard car all of them are blanked off with plastic shrouds – little reminders that you didn’t work hard enough at school and that life’s not going as well as you’d hoped. If only you’d clinched that last deal, you could have bought the £440 parking-sensor pack. Then you’d have only four blanked-off buttons.

It’s much the same story with the central control system. Push the button marked ‘Media’ and a message flashes up saying, ‘No medium found.’ This is not a reference to Doris Stokes. It’s another gentle dig, another reminder that you couldn’t afford to fit an iPod connection. That your whole life is going down the khazi.

So you push the button marked ‘Nav’ and you get another baleful message saying that no navigation disc has been found. You couldn’t afford it, could you? You only got three Bs and Exeter said no. You ended up at a glorified poly and your life’s gone downhill from there.

It must have done for you to have ended up in a Jetta. As we know, it’s a Golf with a boot on the back instead of a hatchback, and what’s the point of that, exactly? There was a time, when Terry and June was on television and people doffed their caps to aldermen, that a saloon was perceived to be more upmarket than a hatch.

There are also places in the world, in Africa mainly, where a saloon marks you out as someone special. But here? Now? No. We have come to realize that a saloon is just a hatchback that’s less practical and more boring to behold.

The Jetta is extremely boring to look at. It’s boring to think about. This is the sort of car you would buy not realizing that you already had one. It is catastrophically dull. As dull as being dead.

It is not, however, dull or boring to drive. No. It is absolutely awful. First of all there’s the suspension, which is plainly tuned to work only on a billiard table. On a road it transmits news of every crease, ripple and pebble directly to your spine, and, to make matters worse, the seats appear to have been fashioned from ebony. They are rock hard.

The backrest, which is even less forgiving than the squab, seems to have just two positions. Bolt upright and fully reclined. Only once can I remember ever being so uncomfortable, and that’s when a doctor was examining my colon with what felt like the blunt end of a road cone.

Then there’s the air-conditioning. Or, rather, there isn’t. VW calls it semi-automatic air-con, and I’m sorry, but there’s no such thing. It doesn’t work. And as for the trip computer, it told me about oil temperature, which isn’t interesting, or it was a compass. And that’s not interesting either.

So what of the engine? Well, you’ve a choice of a 1.4-litre petrol, which comes in two states of tune, or a brace of diesels. I opted for the 2-litre, which, by diesel standards anyway, was reasonably quiet and refined. It was also reasonably powerful, clean and economical.

I must be similarly kind about the quality. The interior does appear to be well screwed together, but then the Jetta is made in Mexico – and Mexico, as I have recently learnt, is a byword for industrious attention to detail. On a personal note, I’d far rather have a VW built by Pablo in Central America than a VW built by some sloppy German who just wants to spend the day sleeping and being kidnapped.

Apparently, Volkswagen wants to sell 3,000 Jettas in the UK this year, which in the big scheme of things does not sound an ambitious target. But I cannot think of even three people who would be happy to live for more than a few seconds with this hateful, dreary, badly equipped, uncomfortable, forgettable piece of motoring-induced euthanasia.

Better alternatives include the Golf, the Passat, every other car ever made, walking, hopping and being stabbed.