What in the world should I buy?

[Ken]

Honestly my experience with VWs has been no worse than my experience with BMWs. My VW ate a waterpump at 70k, my E46 ate two power steering pumps before 80k. Weird little shit would go wrong with the VW like the throttle body wiring shorting out and requiring replacement. Weird little shit would go wrong with the E46 like one of the brake calipers seizing shut and needing to be torn apart and reassembled before it could be driven again.

If you want a dead nuts reliable DD buy a Toyota or something. If you want to drive something a little more interesting, buy something with a good warranty on it and drive it until something breaks, drop it off at the dealer when it needs something and pick it up when it's fixed. :dunno:

So, yeah, shit i never had to do on my Mitsu's. I know you guys are fully capable of dealing with it and consider it small stuff but most people don't and therefore, a GTI does not fit most people's definition of "reliable." Loved mine; but even during my ownership, with my brother before me taking it to all regular services, it still had coil packs fail at like 35K... wtf?

Suck it up, drive a stick. It's not that bad, I did it very, very frequently across the cross bronx which is some of the worst traffic you'll see around NYC. Get the Fiesta ST