If I bought a Ferrari or other such super car I'd expect to need regular tinkering from a man in white coveralls with a mustache and heavy accent but in an age where I can by a Mitsubishi for $10k and just add gas and oil for a 100,000 miles it should be reasonable to expect the same from a more expensive pile of German engineering.
Last VW I worked on was my ex-roommate's '03 Beetle convertible 2.0 with the 6 speed Tiptronic trans. Guess what? Biggest POS I've ever worked on and that's saying something. The 2.0 in the Beetle Cabrio is different than the one in the Beetle sedan or Jetta or Golf or any other VAG product on this side of the pond. Everything was a pain in the arse to work on. Needed an injector replaced. Had to disassemble the intake manifold and even then, it was hard to get to them. The trans needed to be replaced as it didn't just have solenoids internally go bad, but it seems to have eaten itself where the shaft bearings failed. The trans cost as much as the car and that was a USED trans. The system that drops the door windows slightly every time you open the doors and then raises them again when they close went bad. The overly complex top mechanism failed. The dipstick broke and the hood latch broke. the soft plastics were peeling and trim clips would break on parts that were never touched... none of the problems it had were due to poor maintenance, either.
I loved my aircooled VWs and all my early watercooled stuff. Won't touch a newer VW now. Used to love the Audi B% S4 until my kid owned one. VAG products make BMW ownership feel like a nice spring walk in the park.
I've told the story every time the words Volkswagen and "dependable" come up... 
I leased a simple 8v/5mt 2002 Jetta GLS back when it was brand new. What a turd! By the time I turned it in at 30k, it was ready for the crusher. Some of it's "features":
-It would consume almost all its oil between oil changes from new. Oil changes were every 5k miles. I found this out the hard way when the oil light came on around 4k miles. It held 3.7 qts if IIRC, and it would burn through 3 of them before the oil change. Dealer said "This is normal for the 8V engines, they do that".
-Right around 5k miles, the driver's window regulator broke, causing the window to fall into the door and shatter. Just in time for a thunderstorm, too. Had to leave the car at the dealer for a few days because the parts were on backorder from the same thing happening to all the other VW's in the country.
-The Michelins that came on it were completely dry rotted by 20k miles. That's probably not VW's fault, but since the very same tires on my mom's Maxima didn't do that, I'm going with it's VW's fault.
-Exhaust system was rotting apart by 20k miles. The center hanger was a rusted nugget and fused with the body of the car.
-It made a terrible rattling sound around 30mph or 3000 rpm in any gear, like the flywheel was trying to leave. That started around 15k miles. Dealer couldn't figure it, so it stayed that way until it got turned in.
-I cannot count how many headlights and taillights I replaced in that thing, they just kept burning out!
-The gauges worked when they felt like it. You could be going down the highway doing 65mph, and all the gauges would flop back to zero. Then, at random, they would come back. Car never skipped a beat.
-Front seat heaters couldn't be turned up to full strength because they would burn your butt. No, really. There was a TSB and possibly a lawsuit or two because of this. I read somewhere that a lady had severe burns on her butt because the heater coils burned through the seat fabric and burned her! I believe it.
Only remarkable thing about the car is that the CEL never went on once. All of that stuff and more happened to it and it never went on once! 
If they couldn't get a basic 8V Jetta right, I can't imagine what a more complex turbo, VR6, or W8 one would be like to own. I've heard of similar quality issues with newer Jettas too, but then again I've hears good things about the newer GTI's too. All I know is that I'm staying the hell away from VW products based on the three years of hell I endured with mine. 
Chris_V wrote: VAG products make BMW ownership feel like a nice spring walk in the park.
Amen...I went through a VW phase, where I tried to be a dutiful VW enthusiast in the name of being different. Had an 84 Rabbit diesel, 92 Corrado SLC, and a 91 Passat 16v. Horrible, horrible cars.
Most VW enthusiasts have so much marque-specific experience that they don't even know how bad they have it. Stockholm syndrome? Codependency?
Gearheadotaku wrote: The turbo engines have a lot of sludge issues.
Only if you follow the factory recommended oil-neglect intervals.
Wall-e wrote: If I bought a Ferrari or other such super car I'd expect to need regular tinkering from a man in white coveralls with a mustache and heavy accent but in an age where I can by a Mitsubishi for $10k and just add gas and oil for a 100,000 miles it should be reasonable to expect the same from a more expensive pile of German engineering.
That doesn't sound like the experience of anyone I know who owns a Mitusbishi. :)
MadScientistMatt wrote:Vigo wrote: This isn't really VW specific but i kinda hate german wiring diagrams. But then, maybe if it wasn't a VW i wouldn't need to read them?VW wiring diagrams are also in a very different format from any other German wiring diagrams. They're probably the most logical wiring diagram format I've had to deal with.
Track wiring diagrams are AWESOME.
This is one of my beefs with ProDemand, the service manual package we switched to recently. They fold, spindle, and mutilate the OE service information, usually losing a lot in translation. They un-trackified the German wiring diagrams. Pisses me right off.
In reply to alfadriver:
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I bought my car with the understanding I would be working on it. To this day, nobody has turned a wrench on the car other than me. Maybe my car has been reliable because of that. Maybe I've just been lucky. Probably a bit of both.
My car is a German-built version (wagon), but I've read on TDI forums the country of manufacture isn't as telling as we would like to believe. You are just as likely to get a problem child born in Germany as one from Mexico.
But to answer the initial question of "why?" - hard to say. I think much of it comes from VW trying to build a premium car for a budget price.
My Ghia and the various bugs I have owned have all been rather reliable (not a lot to break really). Also of course, SUPER easy to work on.
What makes VW's unreliable?
Water.
Just say no people.
Don't really know why, but my friend had an '08 Golf and I liked it. He taught me how to drive manual in it and then one day he took it in for an oil change and they showed him that the front axel is completely messed up and took engine mounts with it, car had like 60 or 80k miles on it and it was more work than it was worth. That's my extent.
Side note but someone parks an older Jetta outside my apt. It's all stanced out but it's really darn nice. Not my style but i do like the way it looks. Great blue paint.
Coldsnap wrote: Don't really know why, but my friend had an '08 Golf and I liked it. He taught me how to drive manual in it and then one day he took it in for an oil change and they showed him that the front axel is completely messed up and took engine mounts with it, car had like 60 or 80k miles on it and it was more work than it was worth. That's my extent. Side note but someone parks an older Jetta outside my apt. It's all stanced out but it's really darn nice. Not my style but i do like the way it looks. Great blue paint.
By the same token, mid-2000s Camrys eat motor mounts and control arm bushings like candy. Find any with 100k on them and those items are all shot, and there's a good chance the steering shaft is worn out and starting to clunk too. But the owners tend to ignore these issues, or they just don't get pointed out to them, so the cars are perceived as "reliable" and "needed nothing but oil changes".
aircooled wrote: My Ghia and the various bugs I have owned have all been rather reliable (not a lot to break really). Also of course, SUPER easy to work on. What makes VW's unreliable? Water. Just say no people.
QFT!
Knurled wrote:Gearheadotaku wrote: The turbo engines have a lot of sludge issues.Only if you follow the factory recommended oil-neglect intervals.
My experience is with CR TDIs, but I too was leery of the 10K OCI, until I sent a sample off to Blackstone, 10K oil was still doing its job, and I could have stretched it to 12-15K.
bigdaddylee82 wrote:Knurled wrote:My experience is with CR TDIs, but I too was leery of the 10K OCI, until I sent a sample off to Blackstone, 10K oil was still doing its job, and I could have stretched it to 12-15K.Gearheadotaku wrote: The turbo engines have a lot of sludge issues.Only if you follow the factory recommended oil-neglect intervals.
It depends a lot on your driving style. People who do tons of short trips might shred the oil in 6k, while it's fine at 10k for someone else.
Also, most of the sludge prone motors were the transverse mounted 1.8t with a much smaller sump than other versions of that engine.
bigdaddylee82 wrote:Knurled wrote:My experience is with CR TDIs, but I too was leery of the 10K OCI, until I sent a sample off to Blackstone, 10K oil was still doing its job, and I could have stretched it to 12-15K.Gearheadotaku wrote: The turbo engines have a lot of sludge issues.Only if you follow the factory recommended oil-neglect intervals.
That's just it. They're testing the oil, they aren't looking in the engine. The engine could be a sludged up POS with rattling timing chains because the guides are worn out, but the oil will test okay.
Anything more than 6k oci is a push. On my 996 I change every 5k with redline
Javelin wrote: Sorry anecdotal people, my experience is not with heresay or groupthink. Again, I'm a sales rep for parts for all brands, and my stock of modern VW parts is both massive, and has a turn over rate that makes the CEO cackle with glee. This is across almost every year and model.
I will echo this. Slinging parts for used cars for 13+ years and VW was unrivaled on the "pos" front. SEriously. HAd one JEtta that had a connector unplugged off the intake. During PDI it was found, plugged in and instantly turned on the CEL. Every scanner in the shop hooked up to it and found nothing. Sent over to the VW dealer across the street, they scanned it, opened the hood and unplugged it. Charged us $150. When asked what that was they told us "We're not really sure. It doesn't show on any diagram and te engineers told us to unplug them and it'll keep the light off."
Seriously? No thank you. Also, friends that moved out from the east coast have a '14 JEtta Wagon TDI. 18k miles and needs a new wheel bearing already and has been in for issues 6 times in 2 years for warranty work
Knurled wrote: That's just it. They're testing the oil, they aren't looking in the engine. The engine could be a sludged up POS with rattling timing chains because the guides are worn out, but the oil will test okay.
That can only happen if it's been pushed too far in the past. If the oil is changed before the filter is full (which is rarely a concern) and before the oil has degraded too far, sludge doesn't form.
Sludged up nasty engines don't come from long OCIs. They come from OCIs that are too long for the engine, oil and usage patterns, leading to oil being in the engine beyond the point where the oil is worn out.
This thread makes me wanna buy a Saab.
Look. I like VWs. Yes, VWs have issues. There used to be a guy on one of the VW boards whose signature was "there will always be at least three things wrong with my car". There is a certain amount of truth to that. Opps, gotta go. I need to work on my Jetta. 
Fueled by Caffeine wrote: This thread makes me wanna buy a Saab.
Ouch!
My guess is company culture. Read up on Ferdinand Piëch and how he ran VAG in the 1990's and 2000's.
First off I'm a former VW tech both dealer and indie shop. I like them. A lot. But I can work on them and don't have to pay myself labor!
My understanding is that when Lopez was hired away from GM he instituted policies to squeeze the suppliers. VW would put out for proposals and quotes then choose a supplier. After which he'd go back to the supplier and demand they charge VW less. In response suppliers started building in room to lower costs by using lower quality materials and construction. See the fiasco with Siemens and Rockwell regarding window regulators in the Mk4 cars. What a nightmare. Not to mention the disintegrating water pump impellers and easily baked vacuum lines that shrink and split.
I've often said that if you want a May tag washer get a Toyota or Honda. VWs need care and understanding, but the drive is so worth it in my mind.
One caveat: I have little experience with anything Mk5 or newer beyond friends' experiences.
My two cents is avoid any vw motors with a snail on it. Mrs dx had a 2.5 powered Jetta and now has a 2.0 powered Jetta and no issues with either knock on wood
I don't get why VW or Audi are praised for the "drive". I thought it was OK when I learned stick on my friends VW,felt like a manual Honda to me. When I had money to spend I test drove a BMW 1 series manual, Audi A3 manual, Volvo C30 auto, and a GTI manual. The GTI was dead last next to the A3. Dunno after driving the manual 1 series I don't see how a GTI can even begin to compare.
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