Is a 2000 VW jetta reliable and a good car to have?

Well I've just turned 18 and I bought my first car about 2 months ago. It was a 2005 dodge neon I bought on Craigslist with $2000 of borrowed money. Turns out it was a lemon, and won't pass inspection, and needs $1900 of repairs. Given that I work a minimum wage job, I don't have that kind of money and my first car is one I want to forget, already having trouble selling it at $800. So I've been looking around for a bit and found a nice 2000 vw jetta with 140,000 miles ln it for $1100. I went and saw it and thought it was very cool and nice, but it does need a new cluster programmed to it because it has trouble starting. I don't know volkswagens, and I simply can't afford to have another car that fails me. I get that Hondas and Toyota are usually the most reliable, but in my price range the only cars on those brands I can find have at least 200,000 miles on them, so I'm feeling pretty strong for this jetta. The guy even agreed to get it checked out first by MY mechanic, so I don't have trouble passing inspection again with a lemon car. Is this a good choice, will the manual transmission jetta be good enough to me? Let me know!

I don't recommend it for you. VWs are not bad, just quirky, and enthusiasts do better with them than people who don't know all the ins and outs. Things like the coolant, for example - putting "universal" coolant in the engine can seriously damage it. Is that bad? Not really - putting the wrong thing, like cement or tap water, in conventional cooling systems will damage them as well. But it *is* different.

A Ford Focus is a good choice for where you are in the wonderful (he he) world of cars.

In certain aspects yes, in others no. Very good family car, German engineering isn't to bad, only Audi really is pretty bad. I like the Passat personally, but the Jetta's are nice too. Ample horsepower, nice interiors, might burn up a bit of oil, and some of the outside trim goes bad quickly. But all in all a 7/10 easy. ) Good luck.