Video: We Bought a 2013 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI

Now under the hood of the 2011 to 14 Sportwagen, TDIs are the EA 189 first generation turbo diesel four cylinder engine. That's the engine that will likely require the most extensive modifications to legalize its dirty emissions without cheating. Now Volkswagen's proposed fixes haven't gone over well yet with regulators, and so we don't know yet what the final fix is gonna be or how it's going to effect fuel economy or performance numbers for the TDI. And that's exactly why we bought one here. We're going to test acceleration, horsepower, torque and fuel economy for this engine now in its pre-scandal mode. And then when Volkswagen issues a fix, whatever that is, we're gonna get it. And we're going to test all of that over again. Now, TDI Sportwagens aren't exactly plentiful creatures on the used car markets. We were lucky to find this fully loaded example here with about 47,000 miles on it, plus a DSG six-speed automatic transmission, navigation and a panoramic sunroof, on sale in the Chicago area near cars.coms home offices. Nearly six months have passed since the Sportwagen went on sale at an initial price of around $20,000. We stumbled on the car with pricing reduced to just $16,898, and immediately went on a test drive. On the drive the car pretty much drove like new, riding on a fresh set of Michelin tires with good brake pad life leftover and a full service history. We sat down with a salesperson and negotiated another $835 off the price bringing the total to $16,063. That's about 19.8% less than the car's original asking price when it went on sale in August of 2015. The plan is to keep this TDI in our long-term test fleet for a few years, assuming that Volkswagen doesn't buy the car back and scrap it If its emissions fix doesn't pan out. Either way, that would change the direction of this experiment dramatically. But we'll see it through the end, so stay tuned. (car trunk slamming)