2026 Volkswagen Jetta Sport: The cheap car isn’t completely extinct yet

2026款大众捷达 Sport：廉价汽车尚未完全绝迹

As so many career counselors and lifestyle coaches have explained, first impressions matter. A bad one can set the tone for an entire relationship, whether that’s with a person, a novel, a restaurant, or a car. And the 2026 Volkswagen Jetta Sport and I did not get off to the best of starts. 正如许多职业顾问和生活教练所言，第一印象至关重要。糟糕的第一印象会为整段关系定下基调，无论是对人、小说、餐厅还是汽车。而我和2026款大众捷达（Jetta）Sport的相处，开局并不算顺利。

Picture the scene: You’ve been at home for a total of one night out of the previous eight, and you’ve just landed at the airport after an eight-hour flight. It’s 85˚F (30˚C) and raining. You could take the metro home. Sure, 80 minutes isn’t quick, but all you have to do is sit there, then walk home a block. But you can’t because there’s a car to be reviewed, waiting to be driven home. In rush hour. 想象一下这个场景：过去八天里你总共只在家待了一晚，刚结束八小时的飞行降落在机场。气温高达85华氏度（30摄氏度）且下着雨。你本可以坐地铁回家。当然，80分钟的路程不算快，但你只需要坐在那里，然后步行一个街区就到家了。但你不能这么做，因为有一辆待评测的汽车正等着你开回家，而且还是在高峰时段。

I will confess, I did not know VW made a Jetta Sport. For one thing, it’s not the Jetta GLI. That car has plenty of power and torque and uprated suspension, and it can even be ordered with a six-speed manual, unlike the Golf GTI, although based on our most recent GLI drive, you may regret ticking that particular box. 我得承认，我之前并不知道大众生产过捷达 Sport。首先，它不是捷达 GLI。那款车拥有充足的动力、扭矩和升级后的悬挂系统，甚至可以选配六速手动变速箱（不像高尔夫 GTI），尽管根据我们最近对 GLI 的试驾体验，你可能会后悔勾选那个选项。

There’s no special engine under the hood here, just the same 1.5 L four-cylinder turbo like all the other Jettas, running on VW’s modified version of the Miller cycle, where the intake valves close earlier than most engines during the suction stroke to boost efficiency. At 11.5:1, the compression ratio is quite high, even for a more modern turbocharged engine, but it helps generate 158 hp (118 kW) and 184 lb-ft (250 Nm), all of which goes to the front wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission. 引擎盖下并没有什么特别的发动机，它搭载的只是与其他捷达车型相同的 1.5 升四缸涡轮增压发动机，采用大众改进版的米勒循环（Miller cycle），即进气门在吸气冲程中比大多数发动机更早关闭，以提高效率。11.5:1 的压缩比即使在现代涡轮增压发动机中也相当高，这有助于产生 158 马力（118 千瓦）和 184 磅-英尺（250 牛·米）的扭矩，并通过八速自动变速箱将动力全部输送到前轮。

On that first hot, rainy afternoon, the power and torque delivery left a lot to be desired. There are no sport or eco modes, just one throttle map for all situations. And below 2,500 rpm, the engine was easy to modulate on a part-throttle. But keep that part-throttle and let the revs past that threshold, and the combination of gearing and turbocharger throws a giant slug of torque at the road, making you look like a moron who shouldn’t be allowed out in public as the car lurches and accelerates faster than you planned. 在那个炎热多雨的下午，动力和扭矩的输出表现令人失望。车内没有运动或经济模式，所有工况下只有一种油门映射。在 2,500 转/分以下，发动机在部分油门下很容易控制。但如果你保持油门开度并让转速超过该阈值，齿轮比和涡轮增压器的组合会瞬间向路面释放巨大的扭矩，导致车辆猛冲并以超出你预期的速度加速，让你看起来像个不该被允许上路的笨蛋。

That initial drive took even longer than the metro would have due to road closures and construction. Learning how to modulate the throttle in heavy traffic wasn’t helped by an alert that sounded every time I exceeded 20 mph, warning me about winter tires. The car was not, in fact, on winter tires, but I crossed that speed threshold plenty of times as I crept along I-66. The following day, a quick read through the manual revealed how to disable that alarm, though it offered no advice on smoothing out the power delivery. 由于道路封闭和施工，那次初次驾驶花费的时间甚至比坐地铁还要长。在拥堵的交通中学习如何控制油门，还受到一个警报的干扰——每当我超过 20 英里/小时，它就会响起，提醒我注意冬季轮胎。事实上，这辆车并没有安装冬季轮胎，但当我在 66 号州际公路上缓慢行驶时，我多次超过了这个速度阈值。第二天，快速阅读手册后我找到了关闭该警报的方法，但手册对如何平顺动力输出没有任何建议。

Even after days, this truculent response to being driven gently remained, although it could be partially ameliorated by leaving the transmission in S rather than D. This holds each gear longer, leaving you at the mercy of the throttle map and turbocharger, albeit with a concomitant hit to fuel economy because the gearbox won’t shift to the next ratio so soon. By Friday, I was thoroughly underwhelmed with the Jetta Sport and ready for it to be gone. 几天之后，这种在轻柔驾驶下依然表现出的“暴躁”反应依然存在，尽管将变速箱保持在 S 档而非 D 档可以部分缓解。S 档会延长每个档位的保持时间，让你不得不受制于油门映射和涡轮增压器，尽管这会牺牲一定的燃油经济性，因为变速箱不会那么快升档。到了周五，我对捷达 Sport 彻底感到失望，只想赶紧把它还回去。

My decision to take the Jetta Sport to Cars and Coffee on Saturday morning was not entirely mean-spirited. In fact, it turned out to be revelatory. Traffic was unusually absent, and the roads were abnormally cambered and twisty. Taken by its scruff, the Jetta showed a different character. And I’m not talking ten-tenths tire squealing, either. But using the transmission in manual mode—pushing it to change up a gear and pulling it toward you to downshift, the opposite of a real sequential shifter—lets you keep the engine out of the “nothing, nothing, nothing—WHOA” section of the power band. 我决定周六早上开着捷达 Sport 去参加“Cars and Coffee”聚会，并非完全出于恶意。事实上，这次经历让我大开眼界。当时路上几乎没有车，道路弯曲且坡度异常。当你真正去“压榨”它时，捷达展现出了完全不同的一面。我指的并不是那种极限驾驶下的轮胎尖叫，而是通过手动模式使用变速箱——向前推升档，向后拉降档（与真正的序列式变速箱相反）——这让你能避开发动机动力带中那种“没反应、没反应、没反应——突然爆发”的尴尬区间。

It’s not particularly fast at changing gears, but it works. The steering gives you enough information about what’s happening at the front tires to let you know what a sensible cornering speed should be, and the car’s electronic brains will use the brakes as an electronic limited-slip differential, slowing a slipping wheel to allow the torque to go to the side of the axle with grip. I expected to arrive at Cars and Coffee ready to mock the four-door VW, but I arrived a little humbled at how much I enjoyed the drive. 它的换挡速度不算特别快，但确实有效。转向系统提供了足够的前轮路感反馈，让你知道合理的过弯速度应该是多少；车辆的电子大脑会利用刹车充当电子限滑差速器，通过减慢打滑车轮的速度，将扭矩分配到有抓地力的一侧。我本打算去聚会上嘲笑这辆四门大众，但到达时，我反而因为自己竟然如此享受这次驾驶而感到有些惭愧。

It helps that the Jetta Sport starts at just $25,305, which makes it the second-cheapest Jetta you can buy. In fact, this is one of the very cheapest cars of any make or model on sale today. So if you aren’t looking to spend more than that and absolutely must have a brand-new car from a dealer, this is what you get. And if you haven’t bought a car in more than a decade and $25K sounds like it should be BMW or Cadillac money, here’s a useful inflation calculator you can use to translate the Jetta Sport’s MSRP into numbers your brain can make sense of. 捷达 Sport 的起售价仅为 25,305 美元，这使它成为你能买到的第二便宜的捷达车型。事实上，这是当今市场上所有品牌和车型中最便宜的汽车之一。所以，如果你预算有限，且必须从经销商处购买一辆全新的汽车，这就是你的选择。如果你已经十多年没买过车，觉得 2.5 万美元应该能买到宝马或凯迪拉克，那么你可以使用通货膨胀计算器，将捷达 Sport 的建议零售价换算成你大脑能理解的数值。

Fuel economy is a combined 33 mpg (7.2 L/100 km), with 29 mpg (8.1 L/100 km) in the city and 40 mpg (5.8 L/100 km) on the highway, which is better than similarly priced rivals like the Toyota Corolla or Kia K4. But you’ll only see those high numbers if you stay out of the turbo’s power band. It’s not a combined high-40s like a hybrid, but you’re not buying a brand-new hybrid at this price, either. 其综合油耗为 33 mpg（7.2 升/100 公里），城市油耗为 29 mpg（8.1 升/100 公里），高速油耗为 40 mpg（5.8 升/100 公里），这比丰田卡罗拉或起亚 K4 等同价位竞争对手表现更好。但只有当你避开涡轮增压器的动力爆发区间时，才能达到这些高数值。虽然它不像混合动力车那样能达到 40 多 mpg 的综合油耗，但在这个价位你也买不到全新的混合动力车。