On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:25:49 -0600, Swingman wrote:

Lew Hodgett wrote:
Subject

Having owned two (2) Beetles and a diesel Rabbit, POS comes to mind as
an apt description of VW product.

Once again ... yours was engineered for the American market, so you are
likely missing the point about my first post on the subject, which was
_clearly_ about the original, European version, which started production
over 60 years ago.

Some of you guys need to learn to pay more attention to what's actually
written.
I owned one of the "original" export models - a 1949 - and not export
to America either.
In my experience and opinion, one of the most reliable built. It
couldn't get out of it's own way downhill with a tailwind, so didn't
have enough power to harm itself and was still going strong with over
200,000 miles on it when I sold it in 1974.

It was an experience to drive, with 4 wheel cable operated brakes that
would pull strongly one way or the other on initial application and
were almost useless at speeds of over 50mph.

Anything over 1300cc displacement lost the reliability.