The refreshed Jetta rides on the company’s excellent MQB platform, which underpins a bunch of other cars and crossovers with four-cylinder engines. Body rigidity is up, which helps both handling and ride. The GLI was always sharper than the basic sedan it was built on, and that’s still true as we tested the sedan on North Carolina’s amazing mountain roads.
The Jetta GLI has coil springs and an antiroll bar in front and a multilink rear suspension with gas-filled shocks tuned for sportier driving. The GLI sits about a half-inch lower than the regular Jetta too, and on the road that translates to quick changes of direction with minimal body roll. And it does soak up most of the crunched-up pavement around corners without affecting the steering adversely. VW’s VAQ front limited-slip differential puts power to the outside wheel, shoving the driver through corners without understeer.
It has an electric power-assisted rack-and-pinion setup with a speed-sensitive ratio. That means at speed it firms up while maneuvers at slower speeds are lighter. The Blue Ridge Parkway and the surrounding roads keep a limit of about 45 mph, which means we felt a good bit of weight in the steering through the turns, though most of the road feel was tuned out. Still, it’s a small car, which makes it easier to feel what the chassis is doing without having to get all of your information from the steering wheel.
The GLI comes standard with adaptive dampers, and modes for Eco, Comfort, and Sport, each changing the damping, throttle, and steering characteristics. We found Sport mode completely adequate for daily driving with the more sensitive throttle but without a lot of harshness from the suspension.
Keyword: 2022 Volkswagen Jetta GLI: Review, Trims, Specs, Price, New Interior Features, Exterior Design, and Specifications