I bought my MK7.5 Volkswagen Jetta GLI back in August 2022. Today I’m doing a long-term review of the MK7.5 GLI Please #LikeTheVideo and #Subscribe for more Jetta GLI content!
This video can be used as a review for these models:
2022 Volkswagen Jetta GLI
2023 Volkswagen Jetta GLI
2024 Volkswagen Jetta GLI
POV DRIVE in the 2024 JETTA GLI | WAVE MAN MIKE | MK7.5 GLI
00:47 Reliability
04:30 Handling
05:00 Power
08:43 Exterior
10:43 Interior
2023 jetta gli, car reviews, mk7 gli, vw jetta gli 2024, wave man mike
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, what’s up? It’s your host with the most, entertaining people like you from coast to coast, Wave Man Mike, and we’re back for another video. In this video, I’m going to be doing my one-year review of the Volkswagen Jetta GLI.
It’s been a great year driving this car, not gonna lie. By the way, the camera might be a little shaky, but I mean, that’s what you guys should expect from a POV video like this. So, in this
Video, I’m going to be going over a few things that over this year I’ve been thinking about, that I like, or that I want to change. Or I’ll just go over each topic. Hold on, I’m not about to miss this live. Alright, so let’s start with everybody’s question.
They mention Volkswagen, or really any German car—is it reliable? Honestly, I’d say so far it’s been decently reliable. It is in no way the most reliable car, but it is more than reliable enough to where I am not worrying about reliability at all.
So, there have been a few things that have come up in this time of owning this car, and let’s just go over those. They’re not really that big of a thing, but let’s just talk about them. First thing is the automatic windows. For some reason, the automatic windows on mine stopped
Working when I first got the car. I could only hold the button for the windows to go down. But I took it to service, and they didn’t even have to do anything to the car. They just told me
What to do. I guess it was something very common, and the problem was fixed in like 10 seconds. The next thing, which I don’t know if it is due to the car itself or just the way I drive, is the
Tire wear. I experienced more than usual tire wear on my tires. I checked in a GLI group chat, and some other people were saying that they experienced the same issue. Their tires were wearing faster than usual. But like I said, that could just be the way that I drive, who knows.
The next one ties into that same topic of not knowing if it’s based on the way I drive or not, but it’s the brakes. My brakes actually wore out quite fast too on this car, and I think that one definitely is the way I drive. I do brake
Pretty hard, not pretty hard, but I brake pretty late. Normally, people would start braking a lot before I do, and I think that’s a result of why my brakes wore out so quickly. But I just wanted to add that in there just in case one of you guys watching experiences that same thing.
Alright, let’s move on to the next topic, the one that I know a lot of you are also waiting for—performance. So, as I mentioned, my tires wore out pretty quickly. What I did was I actually got new tires of a completely different brand. I got some Continental Tires. By the way,
While we’re on the topic of reliability, travel assist currently not available. I get this notification so much, you guys would not even understand. Of course, Travel Assist is not available, bro. Travel Assist is never available on this car,
Literally never. But I think it’s because I have the sticker on the front of my car. If you’re not familiar with what sticker I’m talking about, I’ve made a video on it, and I’ll even possibly show it in this video if I can remember. But yeah,
Those tires that I got this time around are much better at gripping the road, so I don’t experience the lack of traction that I did in the last set. There still is a lack of traction. I’m still
Going to spin when I launch the car, but it’s nowhere near what I was experiencing at first. Handling is okay. It’s definitely better than average, but it’s nowhere near, hold on, I don’t know why that was playing on my radio. It’s nowhere near like if you’re expecting
Sports car performance handling the turns like a, I don’t know, a Hooper or something. It’s not that, but it’s more than enough for handling for what it is and how much it costs. The top-end power of this car is actually really nice as well. You’re going to find yourself
Pulling on a lot of different cars once you get up to that top end. If you’re going up against, let’s say, a Honda Civic SI, maybe even a Subaru WRX, you’re gonna pull on them, especially when you’re going a little bit faster. The gearing in this car is set up so weirdly. All
The gears are super long, and it makes it very hard to do a roll on this car from certain speeds. If you want to do, let’s say, a 40 roll or let’s say maybe 35, or I don’t know, you might be right
In the middle of a gear. Like, you’re not going to find it perfectly at that point where it spools up the turbo and gives you all the power available unless you’re in that right section of the gear.
Sometimes I have experienced something that I don’t know if it’s true or if I’m just in my head thinking this. But I’ve experienced that sport mode in this car is actually not the fastest mode. I made a custom mode, and I’ve been trying out all these other modes. I think my custom
Mode is actually faster than the sport mode. And I think Comfort mode is also faster than sport mode. I don’t know how it works out, maybe it’s just the way everything is set up and tuned. But who cares?
That’s just what I think, and I could just be in my head about that. So if you guys have a ’22 GLI or ’23 GLI, let me know down below if you experienced that too, especially the Comfort mode. And then something else about this car’s performance is that it just leaves you
Wanting more. Ever since I got this car, for some reason, now I want to get another car. Like, at one point, I wanted the Golf R, I wanted the RT, I wanted a BMW, what’s that called, 330, then the m340i. Now I want an m850i, which is a ridiculously expensive car I’m probably
Not going to get. But these are just cars that I’ve been wanting because I just want something more than what I have now. And I think that makes this like a gateway to real sports cars. The last thing that I can think of as of now for performance is that this
Thing needs all-wheel drive. The traction on this car is laughable. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to launch this car and give it all the power that’s available because this thing has the power to beat anything that’s right here right now.
It’s not until you start bringing out the sportier cars that you find yourself in trouble. And even then, sometimes you might be able to do something on that top end. I don’t know; a Dodge Charger is gonna have to have a good day to beat this car. And vice versa,
If it’s a GT or RT, y’all are both gonna need to be on your A game because all it’s going to take is for you to slip up, and the other person not slip up. You can be good, and then vice versa.
Now let’s move on to the looks. For this part, I think I’m actually going to wait until I park so I can show you the outside of the car while I talk about the looks. Doesn’t
That make more sense? Alright, let’s do that. Okay, so let’s see if I can finish this part of the video before the rain starts. It looks pretty crazy out here, see what we can do. Starting in the front, I do like the design language of the car,
But I do think it could be a little bit more aggressive. These vents down here could be a lot larger; this big white section in the center could have been more of this venting. Then you need to
Add a front lip on a car like this. I mean, it looks good the way it is, but just imagine how much better it could be. They could have given us 19s. Really, they could have given us 20s
For a car like this and a design like that. 19s would have been perfectly fun. Tail lights are one of my favorite parts of the car from the outside, but I think it’s still a shame that they have the same design since 2019. The overall design, I think, is pretty cool,
But it’s just in need of an update. The actual lighting technology has gotten so much better from Volkswagen themselves in these last few years. Look at the Volkswagen’s house, look at the Volkswagen Atlas. This is on that same plane with how the Passat used to be, how the Tiguan is now,
Maybe even still a little bit out of date in those categories too. All the red looks good here; the VW logo doesn’t come red like that. That’s the sticker I was talking about earlier, and I put this sticker on here too. I made a video about that, so go check that out.
Unlike most people who say they hate this section at the bottom, I’m actually a huge fan of it. I think it looks great. One thing they need to do, all this chrome that’s inside the light, they just need to make that black. Same thing with the chrome right here and the
Chrome around the GLI badge. Dude, I’m gonna hop inside because it’s starting to rain now. The steering wheel is probably the best-looking feature on the inside of the car. I love these gloss black buttons. Most people say they hate them. Honestly, ninety percent of the people who
Actually own a Volkswagen with these buttons have no complaints. It’s only the people who are doing reviews and use it for like 30 seconds to an hour, maybe. I don’t know, maximum an hour. If you actually spend time with the car and use these buttons,
You’ll find that they actually are very helpful. These swipe controls, I have never even once accidentally pressed or swiped one of these buttons on either side. The infotainment system is very easy to use; it’s very simple. Everything is labeled very good. That’s something that the reviewers have gotten right with the GLI.
The GTI, a much more difficult system to use than this one. I wouldn’t say it’s difficult overall just because I am a Volkswagen salesperson, so I know how to use this stuff. But I know there’s
Going to be like an 80-year-old man who wants to buy a GTI because he had one in the past, and that is going to be a killer for him. He’s probably not going to know exactly what to do.
The screen back here needs to be updated. Why is this screen still like this since 2019? The technology has gotten better; they should have just given it to us. The same technology that they have in the new GTIs is the technology they should put in this. When they did that update,
Physical climate controls down here, that is a huge plus. Mine didn’t come with the ventilated seats because I got that during the chip shortage. And then just look at this interior quality. A lot of people will hate on it because it’s plasticky,
And there’s the screen is a lot darker so it does get fingerprints. But that’s not a big deal, fingerprints on the touchscreen. That’s not a big deal. But what I was just looking at is I was just watching a POV video of a Porsche 911, and for some reason, after watching that video,
I’m appreciating this interior quality a little bit more. That car is, of course, in a league way beyond this one. But if you look at the actual setup, I mean, it’s not bad, not bad at all. There are some plastics that shouldn’t be
Plastics. This is plastic right here, but I actually like that. It’s very tasteful; it’s much better than the previous design from, let’s say, 2020, 2019 to 2021. Let’s see here. That design carries over on the doors. You got some leather padding with
Stitching on the doors, and then ambient lighting comes along here as well. I’m trying to talk over this rain. GLI badge on the steering wheel, along with some more red accent lighting on the gear selector. I do like the fact that they put the letters on top of here rather than putting
Them here. It just gives a cleaner look, and it doesn’t make this section so skinny. So, I mean, if you want to, you can pretend like this is a stick, put your hand over this, wiggle that stick,
And the person beside you in the car beside you is going to think you’re driving a manual. And I’ll just take a moment to cycle through the screens back here so you can see. You got options.
Dang, this rain is coming down. You got options here to customize it how you really want it. So you can have your music here, for example, and you can get album pictures and stuff. It’s not going to show it just because I just disconnected my phone for the sake of
Recording. It wouldn’t let me have Apple CarPlay and record at the same time. Look at the ambient lighting; it’s pretty bright. Like, do you see that? And, like I said, it comes on the doors too. It does not come on the back doors. I’m not going to show that because
My back seats are full of stuff right now. I should probably put that stuff in my trunk. But yeah, everything here, I mean, look at that. You’re touching the door handles every time you get in and out of the car, so you’re going to want to have a metal door handle like this,
Something high quality around here is plastic. But that’s okay because you’re not really focusing on that, really just because the main thing you’re touching is the metal door handle. So soft touch right here, soft touch up here. You can even see it wiggles a little bit; it’s that
Soft. Is in no way shape or form like a plasticky interior. 100 percent, I’d say it’s higher quality than, let’s say, Honda Civic SI’s, Subaru WRX’s, and cars like that. All of this up here is nice.
The only gripe I have is these are still not LED lights. It makes no sense. Everything else in the Volkswagen lineup has the LED lights GLI still has these yellow weird looking lights
4 Comments
Hell yeah !!
Nice car but Booo not a bmw
🤘🏾🤘🏾
You have my car