 I loved my Jetta when I bought it, until one day the air conditioning blew hot and would cost $1,300 to fix due to compressor failure, the windows motors went out before that, so now my car is a portable sauna. It has an oil leek, the automatic transmission automatically drops itself into neutral. The silver paint is oxidizing and rusting (this shouldn't happen), and the dip stick broken and inaccurate.  I also agree that the recline twist handle is midevil torture. The timing belt rotated and caused my engine to turn off and not start.  This happened while driving...scary and costly.  All in all, I'd rather burn my money than buy a '99 Jetta Wolfsburg. Oh yeah and my seat magically came unbolted. The speedometer works once a week if I'm lucky