The 2001 VW GTI VR6 was my first car. It didn't have a ton of power, only 170 hp or something like that, but it sounded great and ran so smooth and had a 5-speed manual transmission that shifted really nicely. It was enough power to be really fun to drive around the city, plus it was very comfortable for the highway, too. However, it was pretty clunky over potholes and bumps because it had 17-inch tires, but i loved the way those tires looked on that car. I never did like the gold paint, though.

Except for the fact that i had to get a new battery the first summer I had it (at 80K, which is pretty normal) and a clutch at 120K, it gave me almost 4 years of fairly low maintenance reliability. But beware, insurance rates are pretty high on this car, boo.

The seats were excellent, slide/tilt/height adjustable, heated and leather, and felt really nice even after many years, and when you released them to let people into the back seat, they flipped up and forward to allow a wide space to step into the back seat, which made it easier to put our daughter's car seat in. I also liked the quality of the interior, everything felt and looked nice, especially the red and blue-lit gauges. too bad it only had a tape deck and am/fm stereo, and the climate control was weird.

It was a hatchback, so my hockey equipment was easy to toss in the trunk, and when i needed to, i could drop the back seats and pack up a couple bikes.

We bought the Jetta Wagon as a replacement for a GTI VR6 because we loved the seats in the GTI, and both myself, at almost six feet tall, and my wife, at five feet, can adjust the seat to a comfortable driving position and the seats are also really comfortable, which is really important to us. We also chose it because it had a bit more cargo space and the rear doors were better than having to go through the front doors when putting my daughter's infant seat into its base. I also like the way that the VW rides, with a firm suspension that isn't sloppy, though on rough highways it is a bit, well, rough—it's about as close as I could get to a GTI wagon, and it handles quite well because I kept my 17-inch summer tires and separate winter wheels and tires.

Despite being a smaller engine, it is still powerful and fast, but the automatic transmission is really jerky. However, it takes premium gasoline and requires synthetic oil, so every fill up and oil change is more expensive.

The stereo isn't great, but at least it has a CD player, although if you use the cupholders, the stereo controls are blocked, which is a royal pain. At night, the gauges are lit up in blue, and the speedometer wand is orangey red, a colour/lighting scheme I've always thought was cool, and it makes most all the controls really easy to find at night, except when the lights sometimes die on the heating controls.

One of the things I love about the Jetta Wagon is the cargo bay—it's no huge, but it is big and square, so it's easy to throw in strollers and bags, and there are even bag hooks if we don't want something to roll around.