Our Beloved VW Jetta 2003 GLS TDI...

Anyone else get a kick out of the "three hands" of the tow truck guy?

...or not so much beloved anymore? Oh, how we loved our VW Jetta 2003 GLS TDI when we first bought it at 2 years old (I'm generously including my husband but it was bought from my savings, which I was quite proud of!). Well, it's now 6 years later and we've had lots of repairs for the last year or so, the last one costing us over $800 only being 3 weeks ago.

Hubby went to get some groceries last night,calling me on his way home, saying that he hit a bump and now the car was making this God awful noise. He was actually afraid of it maybe blowing up, meaning the noise must have been pretty bad.

Today the Jetta was towed away to a nearby garage, who decided to call us soon after receiving it, saying that we'd have to take it to a Dealership, as their not qualified to deal with our Jetta's issue: the turbo might be going! Isn't that the diagnostic everyone wants to hear?

Here we are, on our journey of getting a new car and this time, it's for real! The only reason we have not gotten another vehicle already, is that it's so darn hard, maybe because we are too darn picky! We'd love to get another Diesel, but unfortunatley there aren't very many in North America and we're certainly not looking at getting a Jeep. The VW Touareg is definitely out of our league right now, so what options are we left with? I guess we'll have to settle (setteling is NOT our forte!) for a non-Diesel vehicle, which is unfortunate. We are hoping for a cross-over SUV type car, which hopefully will have the option of third row seating. Any suggestions?