Sam.
You've hit a nerve
I've owned only 5 jeeps but the number of VW's is about 20.
My current perfect condition 2000 XJ has the best build quality of the 4 XJ's I've owned but it looks like every body panel has been replaced in some guy's garage and the other 3 XJ's were about the same.
I read that Magna (sp?) actualy assembled the Liberty bodies for Chrysler in the Chrysler plant. Maybe that's why things fit better on my CRD.
Back to VW's. Even the 78 Rabbit had better fit and finish then the XJ's and that ain't saying much. But from about 85 and on VW got their act together

I was given, bought wrecked or very high mileage 85-91 Golfs and Jetta's with diesel engines and only had one electrical problem. A 85 Golf blinked the glow plug light indicating water in fuel. But the 85 didn't have that feature. I replaced a three foot section of a wire in a harness to fix it. That golf had 225k when I bought it

I sold a 91 EcoDiesel jetta to a friend who drove it to 457k miles in 2002 and the head was never off

He sold it for $2000 to a guy who drove 150 miles to buy it.
In 1996 I bought one of the first Passat TDI's in the states. It was at a port in NC bound for Florida. I will not go into the long jurney VW put it through to get to Central Ohio

Boy are they messed up in some respects

I drove that car 107k miles in three years and 2 weeks. It had one problem, the same breather puck we have on our crd's started dumping huge amounts of oil into the intake system, sound familiar?? Next was a 1999.5 Jetta TDI made in Mexico. I was very leary of poor build quality but was pleasently supprised. I even put clear plastic over the paper sticker under the hood were a lady inspector signed her name and it's still there. I had one relay go intermittently bad. Since I bought a early production car and drove a lot of miles mine failed early. It was a cold solder joint in the load reduction relay and it was covered even thought it was out of the 24k warranty but well within the 24k months. I had a good VW dealer

My son has that Jetta now and has only switches on the door lock problems. That car has been in service for 12 years with nothing other then regular service. I almost forgot the MAF that went bad but that was resolved by a class action suite

It's still worth a third of what I bought it for new.
I'm sure if there were more CDR's produced and sold in the US we would have seen class action suits over the CRD's
I'm still waiting for my 93 EV sitting in my driveway to die

Everything still fits perfectly and yes I've resoldered the instrument panel twice and the rear window defogger currently does not work but nothing else electrical has failed and it has every option but heated seats if they were even available and that includes power windows!!! It lives outside in Ohio and was made in mid 1992 so it's almost 19 years old. Yeah I guess VW does have problems

If VW would sell a real VW van like the Eurovans, not a rebadged Chrysler, in the US with a TDI I would buy one today.
As a company they are as arrogant as the rest including toyota that has now lost it's crown. VW has a aggressive plan in place to be the worlds's largest car company so keep your eye on them
