The Jetta I have been looking at has a very light clutch pedal, much much lighter than the clutch pedal in my 96 Sunfire. Is that normal for a cable clutch pedal? The clutch in the Jetta grabs just a bit off the floor so I assume that means it's good. I'm going to be bringing the car home in the next few days and I just want to make sure I don't end up with a piece of crap basically.
I have an 86 Jetta that behaved the same way once. They have a self adjusting cable and the cinching mechanism inside the cable had let go for some reason allowing the clutch engagement to be very low on the pedal. It took some messing around to get it right. I would recommend that you go to a manual adjusting cable like the Golf comes with. They are about a third of the price as well. On the other hand the clutch may just be pooched but you can tell pretty quickly by the way it shifts and engages or slips??
It seemed to engage and shift fine when I drove it. Maybe it's just a VW thing? I'm just a bit nervous, just want to make sure I'm not getting in over my head
If you think that you are over your head then take it to a professional. I recommend changing the clutch cable. The manually adjusted cable is about $25 or so. A clutch could be around a $1000 or so if you have to pay someone to do it. The choice is yours. Get a book like the Bentley to inform you as to how to do these maintenance chores. Good luck!