I'm a big fan of the classic air-cooled VWs and perhaps some of the earliest liquid-cooleds (I do like their diesel engine of the early 80s) although an '80 Rabbit diesel is where the tide began to turn with my opinion of VW. The '80 was decent and I loved that diesel drivetrain, and it was still a pretty simple vehicle. Rust protection was non-existent. See any old Rabbits anymore??? Maybe outside of the Rust Belt but virtually extinct here. In '82 you could order for extra cost opening wing windows. The glass was GLUED on to the hinges. Of course, at some point when you go to open the window the whole damn thing falls onto the road. VW says "Tough isht" to you.
As noted by other posters, they design a lot of fiddly, damn near user unserviceable stuff onto their vehicles- unserviceable because you need special tools and/or you have to disassemble half the vehicle to get to the trouble spot. It doesn't have to be that way. They are just being dicks... on purpose. You are supposed to run to the stealership for every little thing. Of course the stealership is not exempt from having to disassemble half the car to work on it either, and that is reflected in the bill, which makes you wonder if you shouldn't have just scrapped the pile of junk.
VW execs have forgotten that "VW" stands for "people's car".