Love 'em both. Jill has been taking the TDI 3-4 days a week and has been getting insanely good mileage, low to mid 40's. The only thing keeping that car from being a perfect roadtripmobile is the lack of a DVD player for the kid. Thats going to have to come before we move this summer, 18 hours through the most boring parts of America isn't really something I expect a 3 year old to handle with grace. My only complaint about the Cooper is that it isn't a convertible. Both cars have had minor thais-and-that issues, nothing too bad, the Jetta was at the dealership for a couple hours earlier this year because the seat quit moving while the Cooper had some strange electrical thing pop up while it was being stored for a couple of months, when we pulled it out of storage, the windows wouldn't roll down. Everything worked fine. The dealership sent a flatbed to pick it, did some hocus pocus and she picked it up a few days later, everything working fine.
A couple of other car related notes from the winter. My dad's Beetle is finally out of my f'n garage. There is still a fair bit of body and interior work, but the car is practically brand new, mechanically. Its so cool, I want one for myself. Also, late last year Jill started getting nervous about driving the Cooper on summer tires in $h!ty winter weather (not sure why, when she picked it up she drove it home in a freaking blizzard) so we started looking at getting winter tires, and it was going to run about a grand for an acceptable wheel/tire combo. So instead, we parked it away for a little while and I bought a '91 Century for $300 and used it as a beater. It needed rotors/pads/rear shocks and front tires but in total the car was street legal for under $500. A guy I know through work was in desperate need of a car, but didn't really have the money to buy one, so I told him I'd trade him the Century for a copy of MLB 2K10 for the Wii. I even paid for the fresh inspection, so all he had to pay was the title/plate fees, so he got a car that will run just about forever for less than $80.