ok so now that we have a very educated opinion coming from a kid with neons spread all over his pontiac, i guess ill chime in since i actually drive one every day and have personal experience with it.

ive been driving mine (the shittiest jetta you can buy, 2001 2.0 GL) since May, its made the trip from hampton, NH to Tampa and back. aswell as an extra 7k miles in commuting from hampton to boston. and the only thing that has gone wrong on it is the catalytic converter which is covered under an 8 year, 80,000 mile warranty. ive done normal oil changes and nothing else. the car runs perfectly, like new. its at about 50k miles and i bought it with 37k half a year ago, lots of miles short amount of time. still runs good. in my opinion its a great car. and ive had far less problems with it than many people have with their cars on this site. so idk, you can believe mr ricey grand prix. or you can listen to the people here who actually own them. granted there are vw's with problems, but youll find the same thing with every other brand. you just gotta treat your car right. as someone else said, check out vwvortex.com and the vw forum on this site. it'll be a lot more help then some of these guys.