Um, Germans make the best guns, and the best knives, but as someone who sold cars for a few years, "German engineering" didn't create longstanding reliability in their vehicles. They may look better, and they may cost more, but their reliability and re-sale values suck.
Remember a guy who traded a 3-year-old Mercedes SL500 convertible (that he paid $88,000 for), and only got $33,000 on his trade. He basically kissed 55-Grand goodbye after only 3 years of driving. It was immaculate. We didn't even hang onto most of our VWs, choosing instead to dump them onto substandard lots, because of their low reliability rating after 50,000-75,000 miles ...
Best CarsBest Resale ValueI had 230,000 miles on an old 1999 Nissan Maxima ... and went from L.A. to Miami (and back again) ... nearly 6,000 miles round trip ... and didn't burn even 1 quart of oil.
Have about 247,000 on it now ... and would still trust it more than
any German car with half as much mileage.
Good luck getting that kind of life out of a VW ... or trusting it on multiple cross-country trips as a mile-eater
Jack
PS: Here's
a laughable indictment on the oxymoron of "German reliability"