Do you ever get tired of people telling us how 'reliable' their bland little Korean hatchback is? When you get down to it, they mean that it always starts, and is replaced every two years - not a real test of any car. By the time these cars are ten years old they are usually scrapped.
In contrast,our year 2000 GT-TDI has now covered 233,000 miles, and seems to still be in its prime. After a remap by AMD in 2004 it produces 165 bhp and 275 lb-ft, still manages 60 mpg on a run, of 50-55 in local running.
Under-bonnet replacements have been an engine ECU (known fault) and a turbocharger due to the use of a banjo bolt to feel it with oil, rather than the later straight-in connector. The A/C compressor was replaced when the shaft sheared (another known fault) one radiator fan (worn out bearings) and a clutch/flywheel/slave cylinder at 190,000 miles after the release bearing broke up.
Preventatives have been a duplex fuel/air pump, water pump, cam belt every 60,000 miles, Oil is replaced every year of 5,000, which ever comes first.
The head and unit injectors have never been touched, the EGR valve has been isolated from new, yet it still gets a 'Zero' exhaust opacity figure on its French MoT test. We invariably buy fuel from our local supermarket.
Oil consumption when new averaged half a litre every 5000 miles, but at about 35,000 miles it suddenly reduced to nothing, and has remained so ever since, on a diet of both Fuchs and Castrol oils to VW 505.01, with changes at 5000 mile intervals. No doubt the enforced use of a synthetic oil frm new (due to the narrower camshaft lobes) increased the running-in period considerably.
On the chassis front, it had two sets of pads and new front discs by 100,000 miles, the next pads and front discs lasting another 100,000 miles, no doubt due to the absence of speed humps and mini roundabouts in rural France. The front RH hub bearings became noisey and were replaced at 180,000 miles.
The original battery lasted for ten years, the replacement OEM item still being in its prime. The exhaust system is still the original.
We would certainly buy another VW, but with this kind of true reliability there is no point!