One Of The Most Reliable Cars I Own Is Somehow A 359,000-Mile Volkswagen That Sat Under A Tree For A Few Years

It’s no secret that my wife and I have a rather large collection of cheap vehicles. Many of those cars are unsuitable for daily driving use, lest I invest in the futures of a mechanic’s children. I thought one of my unreliable steeds would certainly be my 2012 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI. It had all of the ingredients for a bad time, having spun 350,000-plus miles through its odometer before sitting unused under a tree for years. Well, surprise, my wife put the Volkswagen back into service, and 5,000 miles later, I’m legitimately shocked that, somehow, it’s proving to be one of the most reliable vehicles in the fleet. [Ed Note: I just knocked on wood on Merc’s behalf, lest this story jinx the car – Pete.]

This 2012 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen diesel has always occupied a weird spot in my fleet. I purchased it in the summer of 2020 from the original owner with 350,000 miles. I made the mistake of not checking where the signature was on the title, and it bit me when I tried to register the car because the signature was in the wrong place. The state wouldn’t touch the title, and I couldn’t get in contact with the seller, so I was sort of in a legal limbo. A temporary solution that worked was sourcing license plates from Vermont while the old registration loophole was still around.

But because the car has always been in a sort of questionable legal state, I never really drove it. I tried to cut my losses and sell it, but the only offers I got were basically just a tad over scrap price, and I didn’t have it in me to let a scrapper part out a perfectly operable car. So, I parked it in an outdoor storage lot for years while I tried to figure out the title issue. Somehow, the title became physically damaged during this time, which made it seem even more unlikely that the car would become properly legal.

In 2025, five years after I bought the car, I exhausted all “easy” methods of fixing the title issue. So, I went through the process to get a bonded title from Illinois. Amazingly, because I had a physical title – even if it was damaged – the bonded title process was painless and cost only $100. Sadly, the only reason it took me this long to get to that point was that, in years past, officials at my local Secretary of State office (the Illinois version of a DMV) told me that the process was going to cost me more than the car’s value. They were wrong.

I finally received the title for the vehicle late last year – the original title got lost in the mail – and it was a triumphant moment. Sure, it took over five years, but in my stubborn persistence, I beat the stupid title issue. Maybe I engaged in a sunk-cost fallacy, but I didn’t care. I felt powerful in beating red tape.

Knocking Two Stones With One Bird

The next question then became what to do with the wagon. Amusingly, the process of getting the title, my desire to keep the car had evaporated. During the eternity that the car was without a title, I had bought a 2010 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI, driven it for a few years, and sold it. The two cars even used to live next to each other, as seen above.

Also, I want to buy some more dream vehicles this year, including an Audi A2. I intentionally stopped leasing a storage property to prevent myself from collecting more cars than I feel comfortable with. Now, the only way I can add a vehicle is if I remove one first. That meant the VeeDub was on the chopping block.

In the six years the car was in my possession, I drove it only 3,000 miles. Almost all of those miles were in 2020 when the car was registered in Vermont. So, I had a car that hadn’t driven any real mileage in five years and had spent most of its time either under a tree or stationary in a parking space. The only repairs that I had done were a timing belt, water pump, and dual-mass flywheel replacement in 2023. That’s it.

I had the full expectation that whatever poor soul got this car next, they’d be in for a world of hurt. Cars don’t like sitting for years, and this one was already starting from a bad place with a crapload of miles and, you know, being a 2010s Volkswagen.

I started writing a Facebook Marketplace listing. My idea was to list it for $2,000 firm at first, and then take offers if nobody bit at that price. The listing was brutally honest that the car had a ton of miles, hadn’t been driven in years, and had deferred maintenance. My wife, Sheryl, noticed that I was writing the ad and had a question that stopped me in my tracks.

Apparently, out of all of the cars I have bought and sold over the years, this Volkswagen was one of her absolute favorites. As it happened, she was already looking for a car to replace her 2012 Scion iQ that apparently every person in Illinois hates. I was doubtful that a 14-year-old Volkswagen was going to be much of an improvement to her image, but I could tell that she adored the car and would have been sad if I sold it.

I told her that she could have the car. Besides, this was one of the first cars we bought together after we met in 2020, so we have a little bit of history with it. My only suggestion was to keep the Scion, at least at first. I told her that it wasn’t going to be if the Volkswagen would break, but when, and I put my money on it breaking within the first 500 miles of her driving it. I wanted her to keep the Scion, which was hated but functional, as a backup car. Keep in mind that she’s been struggling with our Miata’s manual transmission, so I just want to give her the least stressful options.

The Allegedly Self-Healing Volkswagen

She happily agreed to my idea and took possession of the Volkswagen in February. Since then, the car has blown away my expectations. At first, the car had two trouble codes. There was P048E “Exhaust Pressure Control Valve ‘A’ Position Sensor/Switch Circuit High”, and a P2015 “Intake Manifold Flap Position Sensor – Implausible Signal”. Additionally, the engine ran rough on its first start in over a year, plus the starter seemed quite unhappy.

I warned Sheryl that it’s likely she’d have to replace the swirl flap and the exhaust flap. It was likely, I thought, that the car sat outside for so long that these parts got corroded and no longer work. I also cautioned about injectors in her near future. But the car has been doing its best to call me a liar. The swirl flap code disappeared within 100 miles, and the exhaust flap code disappeared at around 500 miles. The starter also stopped sounding bad, and the fuel system works great.

I watch a lot of Vice Grip Garage, and I’ve noticed that the more miles Derek puts on his rescues, they either get better or worse. I fully expected this Volkswagen to be in that latter category. Sure, I knew that the original owner went to the dealership for literally everything, and the car has service records galore. It was easily the best-maintained 350,000-mile car I’ve seen. But I was sure I had squandered all that mechanical goodwill by letting the car sit for years.

There was so much that could have gone wrong. The vacuum hoses could have broken, the boost hoses could have broken, or the turbo actuator could have gotten stuck. The high-pressure fuel pump could have blown up. Yet, none of that has happened. The car will hold 80 mph all day without issue and still return over 40 mpg doing it. This car gets better mpg at 80 mph than my 2010 SportWagen TDI did, and that car had 100,000 fewer miles and didn’t sit under a tree for a few years.

Sheryl has now surpassed the 5,000-mile mark since getting the car in February, and it’s perfect. Thus far, we’ve only had to replace the tires, change the blower motor resistor, and change the fuel filter. I even got the air-conditioner to work again. I will concede that 5,000 miles isn’t a lot. But that’s 5,000 miles in only two months after sitting for a long time. Sheryl is also extremely hard on her cars. She basically rides them hard, drives them fast, and puts them away wet. So, I’m genuinely impressed by this car’s apparent plan to prove me wrong.

Everyone Loves The Diesel VeeDub

The Jetta has even had a positive impact on my wife’s professional image (as opposed to what driving a Scion iQ did for her). A lot of her clients think it’s a new car and have no idea that it’s 14 years old. Not a single person has complained about the VW; opposing counsel takes her seriously, and she’s even getting paid more. Now that Sheryl might appear for her lawyering duties in any one of three cars, she’s seen as a car-enthusiast lawyer. Even my mother was impressed, even though it’s literally the same car I had parked in her driveway for a year. Maybe it was the detailing that Sheryl had done. I don’t get it, but I’m not complaining.

Weirdly, even though diesel prices are through the roof right now – the last fillup was $5.50 per gallon – the TDI’s high-speed fuel economy is so vastly better than the Scion’s that the wagon has been cheaper to run, too. Sheryl also appreciates that the Volkswagen can go well over 500 miles on a tank, or more than twice as far as the Scion. She also enjoys the much greater comfort of the VW’s seats, the far-nicer ride, a phone microphone that doesn’t sound like crap, fully-functioning cruise control, and good highway manners. Our mini parrots even fit in it so much better (the parrots are small; it’s the cages that are big).

Obviously, this car will break down at some point. Nothing lasts forever, not even this apparently magical Volkswagen. But for now, this car is exceeding all of my expectations. I would have bet actual money on a catastrophic failure by now. Ferdinand Piëch must be rolling in his grave at the thought of a reliable Volkswagen.

Sheryl will be keeping the Scion around as her backup car, but as a clear sign of how much she loves her Jetta wagon – which she named Gandy after Gandalf the White – she’s driven the Scion maybe 20 miles since February. The iQ’s gone 100 miles since February, and most of those miles are from me driving the car around so it’s not just sitting.

If the Volkswagen keeps working well, we even have plans for it. We want to redo our Route 66 trip this year to celebrate 100 years of the Mother Road. She also wants to show me the town she was born in. These are plans we wouldn’t have made with the Scion, which just shows how much neither of us wanted to spend too much time in it. Hopefully, we’ll get to do all of these drives, and you won’t read about how my unbreakable Volkswagen broke.

Oh, who am I kidding, you know it’s going to happen.

Top graphic image: Mercedes Streeter