I bought the car new with 7 miles on it and have put about 120,000+ miles on it in 4 years. The car runs fine though I recently had to get the transmission replaced. There are no strange sounds coming from it other than when I plug in my mp3 player into the stereo while charging it. When I accelerate or use the blinkers a high whistle or static, respectively, will come through the speakers. It stops once the charger is disconnected. Its not a big deal, just weird.

My Jetta was the first manual vehicle I ever owned and I absolutely loved it. Although I had originally learned to drive manual on a different car my Jetta (Wolfsburg edition) is one of the easiest manual vehicles I have driven. I would recommend any first time manual drivers to buy a Jetta. The reason for this is that it is very forgiving, you could slow almost to a stop in second gear and still not stall out and be able to pick right up again, and for first time manual drivers this is a very good feature since figuring out when to shift and preventing stalling is the biggest tackle. It is also nice because you do not need to hold the clutch in in order to start the vehicle, which is really just added convenience. It shifts very smoothly and like I said before very forgiving if you don't have the RPMs where they aught to be.

My Jetta was one of my favorite cars. I loved the leather seats, the German quality construction, and great gas mileage. Although it was great when it worked, my Jetta would often surprise me. Breakdowns happened numerous times, and cold winter mornings were often a challenge.