On 9/19/2015 2:21 PM, sms wrote:
On 9/19/2015 10:36 AM, Jan Alter wrote:

snip

I had one of the first VW Rabbits in 1978. After about 48,000 miles
and about 4 years later, I was noticing significant oil usage, about a
quart every 500 miles. VW told me it was acceptable. Finally, I couldn't
deal with that response and paid the $125 VW wanted to have new valve
stem seals installed when they gave me their diagnosis to what was
happening.

Was it a California Rabbit?

I had a 49 state Rabbit (1979) and never burned oil. I moved to
California and it seemed that everyone with a California Rabbit had
the oil burning problem. People driving around with cases of oil in
their cars.

As I recall, the issue was that VW did not change the valve stem seal
material when they went from leaded fuel to unleaded fuel. My Rabbit
used leaded gasoline. The lead apparently lubricated the valve stem
seals and prevented them from deteriorating.

VW finally was forced to fix the problem but the feds got them because
the excessive oil burning was putting the vehicles out of compliance
with emissions standards, not because of the oil burning per se. I
didn't get new valve stem seals since my car never burned oil.

Mine was a Pennsylvania Rabbit. I don't recall that the government was
suing because of out of compliance emission standards, but your
description sounds plausible.
From what I have seen of the practices of many car companies I
would say maybe it would be a good practice to buy our cars used, wait a
few years to see if any problems develop or what secrets that the
company new about become revealed.