The Volkswagen Jetta Bluemotion at Daisy Cottages

Volkswagen are well known for manufacturing attractive, decent and reliable cars.

I am a fan of the Golf and was looking forward to taking the latest green VW out for a spin. VW call their green technology ‘Bluemotion’ and this essentially describes the most fuel and carbon dioxide efficient model in any range. All Bluemotion models are diesels, and have a variety of tweaks that make them the greener version.

Green Tweaks include:

• Oxidation catalyst and Diesel Particulate Filter that reduce emissions of oxides of nitrogen and carbon to near zero.
• Gearbox modification, making 3rd 4th and 5th gears more fuel efficient.
• Aerodynamic changes to reduce drag, including lowered suspension and low rolling resistance tyres.
• Gear change suggestions from the on board computer, shown on the dashboard.

According to the VW press release, these changes ’still retain all the features of the standard cars on which they are based so not only are they conventional to service and repair, customers also do not have to compromise on safety, practicality or comfort.’

The Jetta is a safe, conventional, fully featured and environmentally friendly car, and therefore a good candidate for the DG household family car, at least on paper. We had the car for an entire week so were really able to put it through its paces. During the week, we used it to drive around Northumberland in search of locally sourced compost for the garden, to do the recycling and shopping runs, and Mr DG used it to drive to and from work every day. In total we put 203 miles on it during the week we had it during a week where we did some exceptionally unusual long range driving.

My first impressions were that it was a good looking car, it appeared comfortable inside, but that it lacked some green gadgets compared to the BMW I had tested previously. In fact it is tax band C, whereas the BMW previously tested is B, (comparisons can be made on the governments Act on CO2 website.) I do wonder when all car manufacturers are going to start adding gadgets like auto start/stop and brake energy regeneration.

20 Bags of Dirt inside the VW Jetta Boot

The first journey was up the A1 and into Northumberland. First driving impressions were excellent because the car is comfortable, the driving position is good, and the car has plenty of room inside. At one point of the journey we had a passenger in the back who also commented how roomy the back was, and how comfortable the drive was from where she was.

I took it easy on this trip, trying to see how many MPG I could eke out. One thing I like about all VW’s is the in built computer that tells you how many instant MPG you are doing, and what the average is for your journey. It’s interesting to see that any and all acceleration really does bring the MPG down, sometimes to lower than 10 MPG, whereas cruising along can get up to 190 MPG, or even cause the gauge to show infinite MPG.

However the significant measure is the average, and at the end of the journey we had managed 68 MPG. The return journey was a useful exercise in testing the boot space, and the handling of the car when weighed down with 20 sacks of Northumberland’s best compost and top soil. Even with this weight in the boot. It was still nippy enough and handled itself well, with only a slight hint of over-steer.

During my drives to work I started to really enjoy the car as a daily workhorse. The radio has a lovely touch screen interface and a plug to connect your MP3 Player of choice. It also turns the volume up a little as you drive more quickly, to combat road noise.  I have a ruptured disc in my back and the seats really gave comfortable support.

Also the boot opens remotely at the touch of a button on the key fob. I found this incredibly useful when I was coming out of school with handfuls of bags and boxes. I didn’t have to do that funny juggling act/dance you do when trying not to drop anything as you reach to open the boot.

The Jetta has all the standard safety features you’d expect on a small car, ABS, front and driver airbags, but it also has side airbags, and traction control ESP. The ESP was useful in the rain when trying to get away at roundabouts and traffic lights and this saves on tyre wear, and on fuel.

Overall we were slightly happier with the Jetta than the BMW from a functional point of view. This was particularly true when we spoke to a friend who said her Auto Start/Stop BMW sometimes doesn’t Auto Start, after it has Auto Stopped. On paper, the Bluemotion increases the MPG by 13 per cent and reduces the CO2 emissions by 3.5 per cent compare to the standard Jetta. VW is bringing out a whole new range of cars now, which means that there will be a glut of second hand Bluemotion cars coming into the market very soon, and we will be considering buying one.