Volkswagen Jetta

Which Volkswagen Jetta years should you avoid?

Going by 10,156 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Volkswagen Jetta years to avoid are 2002, 2003, 2009, 2010 and 2001.

• 2002702 complaints, 3.5× a typical Jetta year, most often about the electrical system; and 4.0× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (71 fires, 31 crashes, 10 deaths).
• 2003457 complaints, 2.3× a typical Jetta year, most often about the seats; and 4.6× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (70 fires, 25 crashes, 1 death).
• 2009889 complaints, 4.4× a typical Jetta year, most often about the fuel system.
• 2010852 complaints, 4.2× a typical Jetta year, most often about the electrical system.
• 2001668 complaints, 3.3× a typical Jetta year, most often about the electrical system.

10 more years cleared the same bar; they are marked in the table below.

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2018, 2022 and 2020 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

Too new to judge: 2025 and 2026. Complaints take a few years to arrive, so a new model year looks better than it is.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →