Owned a 2001 Jetta. The number of parts I had to replace became more than the cars worth. I will never own a VW anything because of the terrible reliability.
The Bora was good, we had one as well, sold it and bought a Civic that had its share of issues. However I would not buy a VW electric, not after Dieselgate. They're cheaters and cheaters need to be punushed.
Who would you buy from? VW got the most attention, but it seems like every automaker has been caught cheating emissions tests going back to the 70s. Daimler just got caught last month.
Mainly from Japan. Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Suzuki, Subaru. Not Nissan since it's an overpriced Renault now, not Mitsubishi since they're expensive and plagued with issues.
I've owned many VWs and Audis, and the 2008 Jetta I bought (albeit with a manual transmission) is still going strong. Not a single service issue, to date. It must have almost 200K miles.
Tough... I agree with pedal placement. I was probably more prone to occasionally stalling in intersections, but then I took the car to SF and drove there and got the feel dialed-in real quick.
I've since bought newer cars and gave this one to a relative. It's still on the original clutch/transmission, so I guess I didn't do too bad.
Before I gave up owning a car all together a year ago, I used to take my car to an independent car mechanic. He is also the singer in one of Norways most popular rock band, The Dum Dum Boys. Compared to the car mechanics working for the car brands, he does not seems to hold any dirty details back. He claims that new german cars needs to have a lot more parts replaced more often now than they used to do 20 years ago. The cars have not become more expensive either. Wires, cables, casks, everything breaks faster than it used to not that many years ago. If you thought the car industry have become more disruptive and automated, you probably have to think again.
Heh, yeah people complain about that generation of cars from VAG quite a bit.
I had a MK4 Golf with the 1.8T that I raced every month for a few years and also drove to work. It broke a couple times, but wasn't unreliable. I think this was partly because I did preventative maintenance.
I think - the motors were fine for the MK4s, but everything around them had one problem or another.
That was a different 1.8T. But yes it seems every manufacturer has had a misadventure with coil packs. Not sure why.
The 1.8Ts in the Passats gave the transverse 1.8T a bad name. The one in the Passat is mounted lontudinally, like your classic American v8. To do that with the Passat (for the AWD system) they had to move the engine down and a crossmember was in the way.
So they wisely made the oil pan smaller. On a turbocharged engine. Doh! To add insult to injury lots of dealers used cheap oil. So engine failures happened.
Fun fact - you can take the engine from the Passat - turn it 90 degress - and bolt it in pretty much any VW from 1979-~1999. Even the waterpump housing was unchanged for like 20 years. These engines are commonly used as power upgrades for older cars (which is what I am doing with mine).
The 1.8T that was in the GTIs was a complete redesign and had less problems. Forged internals etc. But VW decided to use a timing belt instead of a chain and when owners forgot to replace the belt at 80k miles and the engines went kablooey it didn't exactly help customer relations. A great engine destroyed by one consumable component. Luckily VW isn't using belts anymore.