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I think a lot of people's opinions on cars continue to be based on anecdotal experiences.

I owned 2 VWs in my life, my first, a 1999 Golf was an amazing car. It felt solid and was super reliable right up until I T-boned someone who made an illegal turn and it got written off. I drove an Acura Integra for years after that and had just tonnes of quality issues where it was needing constant maintenance. As soon as I was able to, I bought another VW, a 2003 GTI which I drove with only 1 major repair (AC Compressor) in the 200,000kms I put to it (sold it to a friend at 330,000kms, it still hasn't needed repairs).

I went to a Mazda most recently, but I can't say anything about its reliability since I just bought it in December and only have 5,000kms on it so far.

But my experience, and those among my friends (I was part of a local VW enthusiast club) is that the cars are fine. But the kicker is you need to stay on top of your maintenance. If you skimp on the regular work, you end up paying for it in the end. I had to do various work on the car merely due to its age, but ultimately I loved the VW GTI. It was solid and reliable for me.

"But my experience, and those among my friends (I was part of a local VW enthusiast club) is that the cars are fine. But the kicker is you need to stay on top of your maintenance. If you skimp on the regular work, you end up paying for it in the end. "

This is the absolute truth about most modern cars. The main thing I look for now in a used car is parts availability and how well the car has been maintained.

> Another problem is people don't know any better. It's not like the average person has owned cars from all the major brands for enough time for things to go wrong with them. Most people own only a few cars over their entire life. I think this is particularly true with brands like VW. People just don't know any better and think it's normal for a car to be a money pit.

This is odd coming from a person who is making a sweeping judgment based on owning one car. My family and I have owned mk4, mk5, and mk6 VWs. Never had to bring any of them in for anything other than standard maintenance. I have a newish BMW now and my folks have a lightly used Mercedes. So far everyone's happy there too.

VWs also have a pretty corporate, standard chassis of parts that's reused across almost all of VW's and much of Audi's cars. There should always be cheap parts available from third parties given the number of models interchanging the same parts under the hood. BMWs (and probably Mercedes too) definitely are more expensive to repair and maintain. IMO they tend to over-engineer, and that comes with both good and bad consequences.

you also have to ask "reliable compared to what?". my first car was a golf tdi. the only maintenance cost was the annual service. it never got close to 100k miles though because vw had to buy it back from me in the dieselgate settlement. statistically, I'm sure a toyota corolla is a much more reliable car, and I would have replaced it with one if that's all I cared about. but I've driven a few of those, and golfs are much more pleasant to spend time in, both behind the wheel and in the passenger seat.

there's an inherent tradeoff between performance, reliability, comfort, and price. once people find their preferred set of tradeoffs, they inevitably start making comments on the internet about how they don't understand why everyone doesn't buy their favorite brand.

Which Corolla did you drive as the new ones are pretty performant? I've got the 2 litre hybrid with 200nm torque from each engine and a combined bhp of 186 (could be ~305bhp and 400nm of torque if remapped as it has a 2 litre 200bhp petrol engine with 200nm of torque and a 105bhp electric engine with 195nm of torque but you'll lose linear acceleration and the fuel efficiency that Toyota equipped it with) with good mpg, MacPherson suspension at the front, and multi linked individual suspension at the back, lower centre of gravity and 52.5:47.5 weight distribution for better cornering (and cornering assist). All in all a nice car that is pretty performant and has good features.

last time I drove a corolla was several years ago, probably a 2017 model. it wasn't an awful car, but to me, it felt like a step down in driving dynamics over the tdi I was forced to get rid of. I believe that model made about the same peak power as my old tdi, but obviously at a much higher rpm. the steering felt vague, etc. I was also cross-shopping a gti (whose price was very depressed at the time), so it wasn't entirely a fair comparison.

2019 was the release of their first performance model. With the hybrid option there's no turbo lag (that gti's are notorious for) and the steering is very sharp in sports mode (can also create custom profiles to adapt steering, suspension and dampners to your own likings). The hybrid model is better compared against the gte which has very similar specs to the gti.

The gte when I tested seemed heavy and the brakes were spongy compared to the gti (regenerative brakes but the corollas aren't spongy like that) and it was evident when the electric motor switched off.

I didn't realize they now had a performance model, thanks for sharing. tbh I'm probably going rwd on my next car (very interested in the new brz/86), but I'll keep it in mind.