It’s literally that most VWs get pretty mediocre reliability and maintenance at least in the US. There are certainly very reliable VW models of certain years, and people certainly get good examples of a model that will just go be forever but also… there are a LOT of duds. At the end of the day it just comes down to the fact that German car makers (as well as American of course) can’t really hold a candle to a basic Honda civic or Toyota camry commuter car. They go forever, there are VERY few models and model years that need to be avoided, and they just don’t break down even if you don’t baby them like a car enthusiast would.

I drove a Honda Fit (Jazz in Europe I believe?) for most of my life, there wasn’t any space in that thing to work on either and I have met tons of Fit owners who love the shit out of their car in the US. I easily could have gone for a VW hatchback but honestly the Honda Fit just utterly destroyed the VW options along every practical metric including maintenance, reliability and usable interior space.

Look I am not saying Americans aren’t loud assholes who make stupid decisions, I agree with you there I hate my country lol. I think there are practical differences between maintenance, parts cost and availability and maybe even quality control for US sold VWs versus Europe so maybe we aren’t talking about quite the same thing really?