It rained for most of my time with the Jetta in DC, so some of these are going to be VW's stock images. Expect to see more of this鈥攊t was an epically wet summer, in fact. The Jetta under gray skies. I rather like this paint color; VW calls it white silver metallic but I think it's a nice gray. The Jetta is longer than it used to be. The cabin is austere but classy in that way that VW does better than anyone else. That infotainment screen is a total fingerprint magnet. Curiously, the 7th-gen Jetta gives away about half an inch in rear legroom (37.4" vs 38.1") to the old 6th-gen car. Forget the gas struts of a hatchback. There's 14.1 cubic feet (400L) of space in the trunk. And unless you push the trunk lid ALL THE WAY open, it will smack you in the back of the head as you're reaching in to load or unload something. I got beaned several times by two different Jettas until I finally noticed this warning glyph on the trunk. A more atmospheric shot of the Jetta's interior.
You can pick between 10 different interior lighting hues. The Mk1 Jetta really was just a Golf with a trunk. But the Mk7 Jetta is much more differentiated from its equivalent hatchback. Right now, you can only get a Jetta with a 1.4L engine, so it's no speed demon. Unlike this one, which used a version of the forthcoming 2.0L engine to set a time of 210.16 mph (338.15 km/h) at Bonneville, making a new record in the Blown Gas Coupe class. LED headlights are standard across the range. Is there a more quintessentially American Volkswagen than the Jetta? Having grown up in Europe, my default image for VW is the humble Golf. But hatchbacks never really caught on stateside. Until the age of the crossover, you needed a trunk if you wanted to sell, and the Jetta鈥攁 Golf with a trunk鈥攑roved that in spades. VW has sold way more than three million of them here since 1980, keeping the Jetta nameplate alive in the US market even while it called them Ventos or Boras or Sagitars elsewhere. Now there's a brand-new Jetta on the block, the seventh generation to bear the name.
Calling it a Golf with a trunk is underselling it. These days, car companies like VW use architectures, not platforms, and the MQB architecture lets it build Golfs and Jettas but also Atlases, Tiguans, A3s, and TTs, plus some Seats and Skodas we won't see for another 25 years. The architecture fixes some dimensional relationships, including the distance between the front axle and the pedals, for example. But it leaves others free, so a Jetta can be as wide as a Golf but much longer and with a larger wheelbase. That's good, because for now your only choice of engine is a 1.4L turbocharged four-cylinder one. Consequently, the 2019 Jetta is not a car that you want to hustle, even if it does have a Sport mode. Perhaps underscoring that point, I can't even find reference to a 0-60mph time anywhere in VW's press kit for the car. On the other hand, a slippery body, a relatively low mass, and a small turbocharged four can make for efficient cruising.
The EPA rates the Jetta at 30mpg city, 40mpg highway, and 34mpg combined. Based on my drive from Denver to Pikes Peak and back, I have no reason to doubt that. That's not to say Jettas can't be fast. A couple of weeks ago, one broke the 210mph (338km/h) barrier at Bonneville by using a modified version of the 2.0L that will show up in next year's Jetta GLI. Just don't expect 600hp and a braking parachute on the GLI's options list. Car architectures like MQB are about more than just the physical layout of the vehicle鈥攖hey also include all the electronic stuff that we can't do without. That means advanced driver-assistance systems like adaptive cruise control and various collision alerts (blind spots, rear traffic, forward, etc.), but it also means LED headlights that know when to turn themselves on, infotainment, and instruments. Speaking of adaptive cruise control, the Jetta's system works fine and kept me out of trouble on long drives and in traffic.
