My dad has had 2 golf gti's, 3 passats, a t5 van and a seat leon. My grandad has had a golf gti and a skoda vrs. My step mum has had 2 skodas and my mum had a polo.
From all of these the only one to have any issues was the first golf gti my dad had as it had been in an accident, he found poor repairs after he bought it.
That's 11 different cars over 19 years, the second of my dads gti's he sold to my grandad, that was in the family from spring 1998 until autumn 2007 and did 97000 miles in that period with no issues other than general maintenance.