The refreshed Jetta rides on the corporate’s wonderful MQB platform, which underpins a bunch of different automobiles and crossovers with four-cylinder engines. Physique rigidity is up, which helps each dealing with and trip. The GLI was at all times sharper than the essential sedan it was constructed on, and that is nonetheless true as we examined the sedan on North Carolina’s wonderful mountain roads.
The Jetta GLI has coil springs and an antiroll bar in entrance and a multilink rear suspension with gas-filled shocks tuned for sportier driving. The GLI sits a couple of half-inch decrease than the common Jetta too, and on the street that interprets to fast modifications of path with minimal physique roll. And it does take in many of the crunched-up pavement round corners with out affecting the steering adversely. VW’s VAQ entrance limited-slip differential places energy to the skin wheel, shoving the driving force by corners with out understeer.
It has an electrical power-assisted rack-and-pinion setup with a speed-sensitive ratio. Which means at pace it corporations up whereas maneuvers at slower speeds are lighter. The Blue Ridge Parkway and the encompassing roads preserve a restrict of about 45 mph, which suggests we felt a superb little bit of weight within the steering by the turns, although many of the street really feel was tuned out. Nonetheless, it is a small automotive, which makes it simpler to really feel what the chassis is doing with out having to get your whole info from the steering wheel.
The GLI comes normal with adaptive dampers, and modes for Eco, Consolation, and Sport, every altering the damping, throttle, and steering traits. We discovered Sport mode utterly satisfactory for every day driving with the extra delicate throttle however with out loads of harshness from the suspension.
