Looks like I'm getting a VW Jetta SEL. I test drove 7 cars on Monday, and of the 7, the Jetta, outperformed all of them except the one car that I could not afford which was the Jetta TDI Premium. The only downside is the VW Jetta SEL is a 2011, it has really really low miles(lower than 10k a year). But on the positive side it is about $360 less a year to insure than the 2013 is. The reason I ultimately am going with the SEL is it has so many features that I would never be able to afford in the new car, and doing 75mph down 65 it was getting 38-40mpg. Hit 43mpg when doing 55mph on 231. Kinda cool considering the car is only rated for 35MPG highway. I was reading on a VW forum that many of the Jetta owners are reporting better than sticker gas mileage.
The cars I test drove are as follows:
Mazda 3
Mazda CX-5
Toyota Corolla S
Ford Focus
Honda Civic
VW Jetta TDI Premium
VW Jetta SEL with Nav and other goodies.
Well you know my fondness for the TDI version, but I don't think you can make a mistake.
As for the fuel economy, I'm not sure why, but the VW forums seem to have lots of members that report HIGHER than published fuel economy.
On my TDI we recently drove just a shade over 600 miles, with the AC blowing full blast, and had an "average" fuel economy of 42.5mpg for the entire trip, which included 1 full day of "city" driving in St Louis and highway speeds averaging about 72mph. I did the whole trip on 14.1 gallons of diesel.