Are Volkswagen good cars?
I got into an accident recently and am searching for a good car. I like the VW, and the one I'm looking at is a 2011 VW Jetta gasoline engine and has a manual transmission and has 120,000 miles. I've heard really good about them and really bad. I'm a car enthusiast so it's an nice step from my 2012 Ford Fusion which also was reliable. I'm 17 so I can just go crazy with price but this one is 5k. Should I go for it or get something Japanese?
Yes but repairs and maintenance costs will be higher than American cars.
You should be searching care make/model/year reviews, and checking carfax on this particular car, not asking random strangers on the internet. Get the blue book value of that car and compare it to the asking price. Check the carfax to find out if it's ever been in an accident, find out if it has a clear title, and if it's had regular maintenance AT LEAST every 8000 miles. Before you go spending 5k, DO YOUR RESEARCH.
"… 2011 VW Jetta… 120,000 miles. " about 20,000 miles/year -- a freeway flyer, probably kept up with maintenance, you should be able to get another 100,000 miles without major problems.
*ALL* major manufacturers make good vehicles, maintenance matters more than make/model.
Personally, I like the German Engineering. Family has a '03 New Beetle, a 04 New Beetle, and my '13 Fortwo (made by Daimler.)
A Petrol Jetta with 120k on it is not worth buying, seriously you'll hate the thing unless the seller has genuinely kept on top of its issues, diesels with that sort of mileage are actually quite decent most the time but a petrol with 120k is really going to feel like everything is a bit over used, I've got a 2004 with 115k on it bought it on 104k and that's just because I'm a godless broke cheapskating unlovable ugly phantom ****
120,000 miles on a Volkswagen engine, that's 193000 km, or the average expiring date of a gasoline engine, which is said to be at around 200,000 km.
I'm German, and a Volkswagen enthusiast, I really love their cars, but 5k$ is really overpriced.
The Jetta is a really good car, low fuel consumption, but not at that state. In Germany, 2,000 to 2,500 euros would be what I'd pay for it.
The price your dealer wants would be for a Jetta with 80,000 to 120,000 kilometers. And only in America; German prices would be lower.
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edit/add:
manual transmision is standard in Europe, we pay extra for automatic. So don't let you fool you into "that's something special". In fact, manual transmissions need less maintenance than automatic ones.
Don't buy it
You can get one here
The 2011 VW Jetta has a extremely low reliability rating. Keep shopping.
The biggest pain in the azz about VW's is that you can't use after market exhaust system parts on them. When the converter goes bad only a stock catalytic converter will work so that the CEL stays off and you can pass an emission test. That's a $1200 part on average depending on the model VW it is
Jap cars are designed much better in my opinion.
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