I had a 96 jetta I loved the thing for the first month. I bought it at 82k, I brought it to my mechanic before I bought it and he said it looked solid. So about 30 days after the check engine light came on, ended up being some ignition housing somthing or other. They coned me into getting timing belt rods ect fixed so I did $$. My rear shocks went little after that. Check engline light came back on. It wouldnt start when it rained, new wires fixed that then eventually my coil went and the dist cap. The Tach would jump up in down and work when it wanted. eventually the odo, mph all stopped working along with the gas guage. the water pumped leaked pretty bad, the mounts had to be replaced. After a while the struts needed to be done and it started to pull really bad and killed the tread on the tire. the tire blew out, next week I bought my x. Those were not only problems. The back windows broke, the door locks chamber fell out and the passenger door only opened from the inside. So yes I had to shimmy down the back window to break into my car to drive it pretty bad, and my dash was ruined because of some people rippin out my stereo, ac worked for one summer. and the exhaust made terrible noises when i had weight in the back I sold it for 1400 just to get the thing out of my face.