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In my house at least, VW's have been rock solid. Don't get me wrong, I'm no VW fanboy. My wife and I had more than a few good arguments about the first one we bought. Obviously she became enamored with VW's along with many others in the early part of the 2000's. I tried to get her to choose ANYTHING but a VW because of all the nightmares I heard about them breaking down and the cost of repairs.
I don't drive a VW and probably never will (except for my 1970 Bug way back). But here's our experience in real world conditions.
2004 Passat 1.8T engine. My wife drove that car for about 4 years before my youngest son got his license then we handed it down to him. It only had about 35,000 miles on it at the time. In between we allowed our daughter to use it for her and her boyfriend to road trip to Key West. Somewhere in that trip the car when off road and there was some damage to the underneath. Of course they didn't know anything about that
Then the teenage son drove it, had one accident and it was repaired. The car has consistently delivered good gas mileage and only one break down in it's life (fuel pump). Now has 105,000 miles on it and even though it doesn't look great anymore, it's rock solid. We just put $1700 into it for maintenance (timing belt, water pump, idler pulleys and some CV boots).
2008 Jetta 2.0T-my daughter's car. Not one issue ever. No breakdowns. Only maintenance. Now has 110,000 miles on it.
2009 Jetta 2.5-Wife's car. No issues at all. First 3 years all maintenance was free. Since then only a couple of oil changes. 28,000 miles on it.
I have to say on average those 3 cars have probably been the best vehicles I've ever owned.
I drive Nissans and they have been as good too but I haven't put that many miles on them.
Its not a myth. Your one anecdote is not even close to a drop of the bucket of the actual raw data out there that shows VW reliability is well under industry standard.
And btw. 100k miles is NOTHING. Let me know how the next 100k goes in the VW. I know from experience what its really like.
Never had a VW. FWIW, I think reliability used to be quite good with the brand, key word USED to be. I know a couple who have an 80's Jetta, it's still running strong after over 300k. Same thing goes for the 80's Golf, they were also known to be very reliable. Fast forward to the 2000's though, and there's plenty of horror stories out there regarding reliability for their newer models.
Yes, you have several VWs - with quite low mileage btw, nothing to brag about - that are not representative of the entire statistical make reliability.
I can counterweigh and say - daughter in law had one, and all my son wanted was to rid of that car. Electronics. Then we discovered milk shake buildup in oil. VW dealer said "it's normal". Sure.
So son finally convinced her to part with the vehicle.
You know why she liked it? Quote: "has pretty lights inside at night".
I rest it here.
Sometimes it is past experience, whether or not it still applies. I had bad experience with VW many years ago when they were very slow to issue TSBs and be proactive in fixing flaws. It cost me time and money and as a result I do not recommend the brand and will never spend my money on their products.
It’s the nickel and dime stuff one these cars that just starts to **** you off after awhile. Granted I never broke down, but how many times does the glove box bust off or window regulator have to **** the bed before you just set the car on fire? I wanted to set the last one I owned on fire after the entire instrument cluster **** the bed and had to be sent in to be repaired. I’m still baffled as to why VAG can’t build a glove box that will last.
Then there’s the flip side. There are a lot of mouth breathing techs that for some reason just can’t work on these cars without messing something up. Have you ever seen someone install a timing belt tensioner wrong on an AEG engine. I didn’t think it was possible, but some mouth breather did it on a family members car. I was living a few hours away at the time. I warned this person to take it to a shop that only does Euro cars, instead they took it to uncle eds garage where we only specialize in 3800 and SBC’s. Never shop by price point for repairs on these cars, you will get burned.
The there's the parts supply, VW loves to make certain critical parts NLA like door clips.
Can't say much about VWs, but all of the Audis my family have owned have been great.
A big part of it is that these cars require strict adherence to the matinance schedule with the exact specified ingredients. They aren't meant to be as "Set it and forget it" as American and Japanese cars.
I think the "reliability" issue is perpetuated by those VW owners who don't take care of their cars and schedule regular maintenance on them.
VW's are exquisitely engineered and quite reliable, if they are properly cared for and maintained. I especially like the 2.5L inline 5 engine. After owning one for about 8 months now (2008 Rabbit) all I can say is I'm hooked. Love the car. Bought it used, have put 15K miles on it, not a problem to speak of.
Myth? I have never bashed VW based on "myth" on here but rather my own REAL experiences with the few VW's that I've personally owned. I would NEVER buy another VW again! They are pieces of junk based on my REAL experiences and in my opinion....
And to all of you VW lovers who claim we didn't take care of our VW's and that's why we had bad experiences with them... Try again. I am very particular with my cars and take extreme care of all my cars including all the VW's that I've owned over the years. I NEVER skip any recommended maintenance and never use any aftermarket parts etc... I always used VW fluids/parts and took extreme care of them. It's mind numbing that people just assume that folks with bad experiences with their darling VW didn't take care of them... Where does that come from?
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