Survey: 2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup Edition juggles fun as well as debasement
Station in attendance: “You certain you wanna put diesel in which?”
Me: “Yeah.”
Attendant: “It doesn’t look similar to the diesel.”
Me: “That’s kinda a indicate.”
And so it goes. That wasn’t a first time as well as it wouldn’t be a final that we got sarcastic looks when grabbing the cosmetic glove as well as commanding up a 14.5-gallon tank upon the Salsa Red 2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup Edition tester. After all, when you consider diesel, a body-kitted sports sedan doesn’t spring to thoughts. Particularly in the U.S., where (Cliche Alert!) old-school oilburners conjure up the soot-covered nostalgia of smoke-belching Benzes, unwashed boots, sharp hands as well as acid for a appropriate siphon during lorry stops.
But in the 21st century – as well as via Europe for a final multiform decades – a complicated diesel motor fuel is the buttress. Nearly half of all brand new cars sole opposite a pond tipple ultra-low sulfur diesel, and after years of being hamstrung by California bureaucrats as well as a Feds, a high-mileage misers have finally returned to the shores.
But can the diesel motor fuel unequivocally be sporty?
Volkswagen patently thinks so, as well as after fielding “countless inquiries” about suggesting the reproduction of its TDI Cup cars for the highway, V-Dub has begun offering a kitted-out chronicle of its diesel-powered Jetta to a fragment (of a fragment of enthusiasts who wish the some-more entertaining way to bake by the tank of ULSD.
So the Cup Edition positively looks a partial, though how’s it get upon? Let’s find out.
Gallery:Survey: 2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup Edition
After years of slogging by a SEMA Show, we’ve turn justifiably cloyed when it comes to assorted models’ physique mods – and which doesn’t even cover a cars (*badum-ting*). So when a TDI Cup judgment debuted approach back in 2008, it barely purebred on our radio detector. In a records of a Las Vegas Convention Center, a side skirts, back valance as well as redesigned front fender with its comically large air dam weren’t impassioned sufficient to stand out. But off a uncover floor as well as upon a cement, it’s the dissimilar story.
Although a front fascia packs more filigree than the New Orleans Gentlemen’s Club, take condolence in a actuality that this is the same physique kit fitted to a TDI foe cars. It’s got racing origin, even if it’s the decidedly less glamorous extraction than some alt-powered sky rocket from Audi or Peugeot, at slightest it’s more approach.
The residue of a model’s modifications have been pulled from a VW opening parts garbage bin as well as embody a lean bars as well as stiffened cessation from a final Jetta GLI. The red-painted calipers have been additionally carryovers, and they hold larger brakes (12.28-inches up front as well as 11.26-inches in a back, framed by 18-inch, 10-spoke “Charleston” wheels. The hoops have been right off a uncover car, though unfortunately a Yokohama 225/40R18 ADVAN sport tires have been substituted in preference of “all-season high-performance” Pirelli P Zero Nero’s sized 225/40R18. They’re sand as well as sleet rated, for whatever that’s value.
Make your approach passed a tri-colored graphics travelling a doors and you’re greeted by an additional pinnedtoken on the sill to remind you which a TDI Cup is some-more than the tarted-up aftermarket Jetta. Despite a “Interlagos” fine cloth inserts, a seats shouldn’t be confused with a GTI’s supremely bolstered thrones. Complete with lumbar support, they’re competent enough for diesel motor fuel item, but be prepared for unpretentious forearm exercises whilst hammering around on-ramps.
Thankfully, a leather-wrapped circle is the nice thing to clutch, and comes standard with twelve (12!) steering wheel-mounted controls for the stereo as well as multi-function arrangement in between a tach as well as speedo. The buttons have been some-more washout than you’d find in alternative applications, that should have mid-corner hire changes and volume adjustments reduction of the hassle, but upon some-more than a single occasion we inadvertently skipped a lane in our playlist.
If AM, FM, heavenly body airwave or a single of six CDs on sequence doesn’t fit your tastes, VW offers three ways to pier your digitized song into a touch-screen stereo. A tiny container next a arrangement accepts an SD card, whilst an auxiliary jack is mounted upon a core console, abaft of a crater holders and the “Media Device Interface for iPod® Integration” (read: $199 cable) is propitious inside a claustrophobic arm rest.
Our tester’s nav-less touch-screen was easy to work after a couple of days of exploration, as well as we’ve nonetheless to moment a owner’s manual in disappointment. However, a single thing to note about regulating an iPod along with the smartphone: You can’t toggle in between the dual. If you wish to use the 1/8-inch jack to tide tunes from your phone, you’ll have to physically disconnect a iPod from the wire as there’s no way to name an particular auxiliary source.
But enough of this prattling on about functionality as well as ergonomics. This is, after all, the Jetta. And we’ve got a single subject to answer as well as dual of our the one preferred California exam roads await.
The drive to our first paved playground concerned the run opposite a couple of freeways, as well as here the TDI’s Teutonic season shown through. Despite the stiffened suspension, a Jetta was equally during ease during high-speed passes and battle-scarred, right lane grind. The 140 horsepower offering up by a 2.0-liter turbodiesel won’t set a world (or tires) upon glow, but a 236 pound-feet of torque makes elementary work of the six-speed DSG’s ratios, catapulting you to turnpike speeds with an positive speed. Each successive rigging is finished with with the smallest (and we unequivocally meant slightest) pause, serve explanation which while ye ol’ torque converter is alive as well as good in the brand new century, a dual-clutch gearbox continues to be the complicated magnum opus (talk to Ferrari as well as McLaren if you’re in disbelief.
As you’d design, a engine note isn’t the voluptuous serenade – a resting is decidedly diesel as well as there’s the amiable pole during 75 mph (around 2,500 rpm), that is lessened/consumed by breeze noise by the time you stretch 80. However, a steering is high. The weighting is nearby undiluted, corrections have been singular as well as a feel is splendidly approach, if not magnificently communicative.
By the time we hit the off-ramp to tackle a initial towering pass, we were tender. The power smoothness is well-spoken, the gearbox’s shifts even smoother. And then things started to get twisty.
Flogging a diesel motor fuel in the opening environment is an peculiar one. As you’d design with many any engine that’s got the turbo dangling off a exhaust manifold, there’s the satisfactory amount of loiter prior to rise torque arrives during 1,750 rpm. But when you’re piloting a petrol-powered turbo, you flesh by a loiter as well as have been rewarded by the heaping assisting of boost until redline (or nearby it). With a diesel motor fuel, a powerband is so shallow as well as you’ve usually got so most revs to work with prior to a delivery shifts during 4,500 rpm – 500 rpm revs next redline – which anticipating flexible energy by low-speed bends is damn nearby unfit. And to exacerbate a incident, no matter what environment we put a gearbox in – Drive, Sport or Manual – the shifts regularly came 500 rpm bashful of redline. With peak horsepower arriving during 4,000 rpm, that severely boundary your options.
To make counts worse, many of the exam highway would routinely be taken in second rigging with an occasional upshift, though the gearbox boffins insisted on third, and total with the tranny-imposed redline, we were out of a tasty powerband when a time came to get behind upon a stifle. It was extraordinarily suggestive of a traction control issues we experienced in a Hyundai Genesis Coupe during the comparison exam (throttle, wait for, wait for, wait for, energy as well as equally as frustrating, TC intent or not.
So how do you have fun? Charge into the dilemma carrying the hold as well much speed, stop with your left feet as well as try to keep a revs dialed in with your right. But afterwards, notwithstanding loading up a front tires, a all-season rubber gives up a ghost as well as stop fade – something which was mostly kept in check during the initial run – came upon (predictably) quicker. Entertaining? No. Rewarding? A bit. Frustrating? More than we can Inform.
However – as well as this is critical – high-speed blasts have been a utterly dissimilar savage. Keep things in third or fourth and you simply fly. The framework, reworked cessation and, in particular, the incomparable back anti-roll club, all work in concert to broach a surprisingly sporty knowledge, shower up bumps with coolness as well as you do the conspicuous pursuit of communicating what’s starting upon during all four-corners. The brakes, whilst the bit tear-jerking upon initial application, organisation up serve down a transport as well as blur comes upon most later thanks to longer bouts in between applications. Understeer rears the conduct earlier than we’d similar to, though a aforementioned mid-bend dab of a brake quells it to the indicate. The TDI Cup still needs stickier gumballs to live up to the nameplate, as well as the beefed-up set of stop pads would be a order for lane time.
So can “diesel motor fuel” as well as “competition” co-exist? In this box, it depends on a environment. In sure situations, we would’ve elite a carryout afforded by the primer gearbox, as well as thankfully, VW obliges with a standard row-your-own six-speed as an choice, yet we think the dual-clutch is only what the alloy ordered for bland travelling. Upgrade a tires and fit some high-performance pads, and you’ve got an entertaining everyday motorist which can play good upon a track. And just as importantly (if not some-more so), upon the approach there you’ll be attack 30 mpg in a city as well as 42 mpg on a mainroad. During the time we were averaging around 37 mpg – easily unmatched by anything this side of the hybrid – as well as we had confidently some-more fun in a routine. Given a right stretch of highway as well as a correct set of opening tires, a Jetta TDI Cup Edition has genuine intensity. And we’ve got a unctuous guess which an on-track rendezvous is in the really nearby destiny. Stay tuned…
Gallery:Survey: 2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup Edition
