2025 Volkswagen Jetta SEL - Quick Drive Review

GETTA JETTA: Once a regal German made sport compact family sedan, (model named "King" in China), which was just snazzier upholstery away from an Audi and a liftgate away from a Golf, the Volkswagen Jetta fell on hard times in its homeland. By the late 2000's, Europeans had little interest in high quality and pricier small family four doors that didn't bear luxury emblems.

Beginning with the sixth generation, the VW Jetta was deemed an economy car (for China and South America). Americans, who avoided compact hatchbacks like the plague, always considered small family four-doors price leaders. Since U.S. Volkwagen dealers were a generation away from jumbo SUVs, Wolfsburg deemed Yankees worthy of a dumbed-down Jetta to enhance its bottom line.

In 2019 the Volkswagen Jetta Mk. 7 finally adopted the stiff modular MQB platform...one generation following the "still premium" Golf. However, to keep the base price below $20,000, VW's entry car for America would never get the German made hatchback's interior or driving dynamics, a destiny cemented when the base Golf exited the Americas in 2022.

Yet it's 2025, and despite unstoppable SUV dominance and VW U.S.A.'s market share challenges, the Jetta still sells well. American dealers moved over 70,000 Jettas in 2024, a number exceeding even the Golf's cute ute replacement, the Taos.

With a replacement likely not far off, Volkswagen U.S.A. sent Roadblazing.com a cosmetically and technology tweaked 2025 VW Jetta SEL for evaluation.

EXTERIOR CHANGES - 2025 VW JETTA SEL MODEL YEAR:

• Revised upper grille, vertical fencing, underlining lateral light bar
• Lateral staggered headlamp LED array
• Body color mid bumper, cantilevered descending outboard arms
• Flared descending dark lattice lower grille
• Metallic lower front fascia border trailing up into dark corner folds
• Wrap around stacked LED tailight assemblies joined by light bar above mid trunk lid kink, containing wide spaced "JETTA" lettering
• Lower rear fascia features darkened bow-tie insert with upper border metallic banding wrapping at the lower border
• New rear slant, five tuning fork spoke alloy wheels

INTERIOR CHANGES - 2025 VW JETTA SEL MODEL YEAR:

• 10.25" Digital Cockpit Pro gauge standard on all trims
• 8.0" MIB 3.0 Composition touch landscape LCD infotainment screen, gesture icon call-up, larger gloss black frame
• Updated cloud native navigation, with map replication in Digital Cockpit Pro
  • supplemented mere map migration to Digital Cockpit
• New Swipe + tap digital Climatronic two-zone automatic climate control
  • replaces triple rotary knob controls

CARRIED OVER from MY 2024 VW Jetta

• Five passenger compact sedan
• Stately, sporty notch-back, which, despite lacking competitors flashier profiles, only hinting that it was once German compact car royalty
• EA 211 1.5T DI 16V DOHC petrol inline-4 engine
  • 158 horsepower, 184 lb-ft torque
• 8-speed torque converter manumatic planetary front-wheel transaxle
  • Manual transaxle no longer offered in non-GLI trims
  • Brake based front XDS limited slip differential (Sport trim only)
• Fuel Economy: 32.5 MPG combined observed
• Front strut, rear torsion beam suspension, coil spring, dampers
• Four wheel disc brakes, vented front rotors, ABS, Stability Control
• IQ Drive safety and advanced driver assistance
  • Reverse camera, blind spot warning, adaptive cruise control, lane tracing
  • IIHS Good scores except for Acceptable score on side impact

WHAT CLIFF LIKES ABOUT THE 2025 VW JETTA SEL

Driving It :

The 2025 Volkswagen Jetta 1.5T SEL delivers a suitably livable touring excursion road manners, filtering ordinary harshness and resisting excessive rebound. Slight sway manifests in harder corners. By that time, the stunning steering wheel, with light resistance, does transmit the grip limit of the all season tires. Lane turn-in is that is sharp in suburbia is less so at high speeds, and the brake pedal modulates smoothly but without hard bite at its end.

Partly to earn fairly stellar fuel economy, the powertrain and drive-train develop an affinity for lugging and droning at sub-interstate speeds. While not even Sport drive mode can avoid that, the manumatic shift lever is about as long as in a proper manual, and engages in a slot to be yanked back to engage a lower gear for building back the engine speed. Being an economy car that it is, there is the dreaded delay from stomping the throttle to downshift, which demands care for motorway overtaking.

While by no means a hushed cabin experience, road and wind noise only become intrusive well into elevated highway speeds, and the engine sounds less raucous than others in the class. And yet all Jetta apertures, except for the prop rod propped bonnet, close with an appropriate Teutonic light thud.

Occupying It :

As a Teuton in name & spirit, the 2025 VW Jetta showcases what German engineering can achieve slash all costs where possible entry model design. So the dash-top is hard poly-something, the rear door cards, in top SEL trim, remain hard, 2nd Row seat headrests are fixed, surface grains aren't that refined, and there is a visible gap between interior panels and exposed painted body surfaces.

Still, Wolfsburg managed to authorize new middle dash glassy lateral panel, a matched infotainment display housing, and a center stack touch to slide Climatronic smooth climate control panel. 1st Row door cards receive tandem contrast stitched plush mid panels.

Jetta's artful flat-bottom steering wheel is brilliant in its ample size and telescopes a useful distance. Volkswagen wisely avoided the haptic smooth panel spoke controls, yet the buttons are intuitively spaced and identified. For an economy car, VW knows how to do bucket seats. Heat and cooled front perches are firm in the shoulders and hips, pliant in the lower cushion with ample upper back padding and powered on the drive side.

• Second row accommodations are generous, heated on outboard positions, However, bean counters got their way with a fixed height passenger seat, fixed second row headrests, and no center pass through. The trunk is cavernous and expands via a 60:40 split folding rear seat back.
• All four door power windows feature full express operation, while wing mirrors are heated as standard

Operating Within It :

The latest Jetta instrumentation is comprehensive and concise in color presentation, with three cluster formats, from traditional dials, to a panorama which fills the upper steering wheel aperture view with duplicated native navigation map, to a quadrant layout. Buttons, switchgear looks ordinary yet yields precise action.

The MIB 3.o media display clearly hails from a pre- custom application age. While the screen isn't jumbo by today's standard, graphics and colors are well defined, icons and menu categories are logically laid out. Unfortunately all settings are contained within. "Helga" is the VW Jetta's voice command assistant for routing to an appropriate function, however she is neither Alexa nor Toyota Connected resourceful.

WHAT CLIFF ISN'T CRAZY ABOUT WITH THE 2025 VW JETTA SEL

• On the low end of potency / lack of a competitive hybrid powertrain option
• No more manual transmission option / automatic transmission won't permit true engine braking
• Torsion beam rear suspension hobbles on uneven pavement
• Steering requires corrections at highway speeds
• Wind noise at high speeds
• Cost cutting in assembly
  • Sloppy engine bay welds
  • Inner door skin partly exposed to cabin
• Cost cutting in finish
  • Hard plastics throughout cabin including dash-top, 2nd road door cards, pillars
  • Exposed under-dash mechanicals
  • Trunk hinges sprung with high tension, releasing with force
  • Thin trunk liner and carpeting
• Cost cutting in amenities
  • Older fixed app infotainment
  • No physical trip odometer, instrument cluster illumination switches
  • Short length, center console bin armrest cover
  • Fixed height passenger seat, fixed integral 2nd Row headrests
  • No traditional VW 2nd Row center pass through

CLIFF'S TAKE ON THE 2025 VW JETTA SEL vs. the competition:

The Hyundai Elantra has more avant garde lines and offers a plusher cabin experience. A Honda Civic gets an independent rear suspension for improved road control and a hybrid option. The Mazda 3's finish and refinement border on prestige, with more precise responsiveness and available all-wheel drive. Perhaps the Toyota Corolla trails in most areas, except for affordable available hybrid power.