Drew Dowdell

The 2012 Jetta GLI went back and we were supposed to get a Passat in its place. However, the Passat encountered some unfortunate incident in the hands of another journalist so instead Volkswagen sent us this 2012 Beetle Turbo with DSG and Navigation. So far I've done almost entirely city driving in the Beetle and while the DSG is very smooth above first, I'm finding it a little jerky in stop and go city traffic. After you get it out of crawling speed, the DSG opens the Beetle's wings and allows incredibly smooth and fast shifting in either direction. In regular drive mode and normal city speeds, the DSG does its best to keep the RPM below 2,000 at all time. Switching to sport mode raises the imaginary line to 3,000. You can rev the engine higher than that, but in normal driving, it is completely unnecessary. When prodded, the Beetle will break its front tires loose pretty easily in first and second gear. I was seeing some pretty great highway economy numbers out of the Jetta GLI with this same engine but a 6-speed manual. During my time with the Beetle, I will be driving 90% of the route that I took the 2012 Chevrolet Cruze Eco on and again I will be loaded down with gear. Because the Beetle has a larger engine with 62 more horsepower and 52 more lb-ft of torque, I don't expect the Beetle Turbo to match the Cruze's 51mpg I saw on that trip. The Beetle Turbo is rated at 22/30 city/highway but my guess is that I'll be able to beat that number after seeing what the Jetta GLI was able to do. The looks are far more masculine than the first generation Beetle, and I'm getting a lot of stop and stare as I drive by. But now I have to get on the road. Leave your questions in the comments section for this 2012 Volkswagen Beetle Turbo. View full article

Welcome LH lovers!

well I'm not sure how a stainless steel exhaust is critical to the safety of the car. I agree on the fuel lines though, it would make all cars most of the way to being ethanol compatible.

still not a coupe

It was only sudden if you weren't watching where it was going.

It ABSOLUTELY is a safety issue. The GM in the list of cars I mentioned was a rental. While one should certainly take the time to learn the emergency off procedure for their own car, in a rental, who is really going to take the time to read the manual for emergency off? Emergency off should be standard across the board. The government is regulating this BECAUSE the SAE (or any other manufacturer group) didn't do it on their own. They had two years to just announce that they were working on such a standard. It could have been 4 interns in a back office... but as long as someone was working on it, the Feds would have stepped back and let them work on it. All it takes is a press release to get that process started and should be enough to keep the feds out of it. Shame on them indeed. Edit: Furthermore, this should have been "sponsored" by Toyota as just a PR campaign. They could have came out and said "We're heading up an SAE task force to establish an industry standard for keyless ignition.

I've gone from a VW to a GM, back to the VW and then on to another VW in a matter of a week, all having keyless ignition, and each one having slightly different starting/stopping routines even among the same brand. I'm a car guy and even I find it annoying that there isn't some standardization. The SAE had their chance to institute some standard when this was on everyone's mind 2 years ago; they didn't do it.

You don't say!