I am really surprised at BMW and VW being up there. I'm not a fan of consumer reports at all usually because they pull things out of their butt. Honestly many people I know that have VW's sell them because of poor reliability and high repair costs. Two of my uncles and one of my aunts have had passats- 2003 V6 4Motion, 2001.5 1.8T, and 2005 TDI. The 2002 had oil sludge issues and something wrong with the coils as well as many little electrical glitches. The 2003 had lots of electrical issues as well. The TDI apparently was ok but had parts fall of the bottom of it and cause damage to the car. That same thing happened to my dads co worker that has a passat- he sold it and bought a Hyundai and likes it a lot more. Another one of my dads coworkers also has a Touareg, he's had a lot of trouble with it as well and it has some issues where it eats through tires every 10,000 miles. My friends mom had an 03 Passat Wagon 1.8t, they loved it but the reliabilty was not there. They said literally every time they took it in for one little thing it ended up being $1000.They ended up selling it and bought a Highlander. VW's are nice cars, the quality is there, they're fun to drive, but reliability... lacking.
This is kind of a dealer thing, but I absolutely hate the VW Dealer. We've bought cars from the Saab, Land Rover, Jeep, and Volvo dealers which are under the same auto group and have never had issues. The VW dealer has rude people, the bosses treat their employees like crap over there, and they never clean your car. In fact its usually dirtier and sometimes there's grease IN THE CAR. One time my mom literally marched back in and said "the next time I take this POS in you are going to give it a full detail" (there was grease on the headliner). The Jeep dealer (which is the same umbrella dealer) are more than helpful, they wash your car, and ever vacuum out the inside every time you take it in.
I can't say much about BMW other than ours was a lemon and I know a couple families with X5's that loved them until ~50,000 when continuous troubles broke out.
My dad owned a 1993, 1996, and 1999 Suburban. He put many miles on them and never had issues with them. We know the owner current owner of the 1996 and in its 12 years and 218,000 miles the only work it has had done was a leaking power steering line, air conditioning compressor (@ 190,000 miles mind you), a radiator, an alternator, a fuel pump and thats about it aside from normal consumables. My dad also drives my Grandmas 1998 Cutlass to work daily (he has a 150mile round trip commute). He's had it for just over 2 years and has put 65,000 miles on it in addition to the 40 that my grandma put on it. In that time the only work it has needed other than brakes was a new antenna, alternator, and the switch for the A/C (total maybe $700 max).
If you were to add up all the work done on our Touareg, had it not been done under warranty it would probably be $10,000. American cars are honestly much easier to deal with. They're not as complicated, you can fix them anywhere, and they're not difficult. Go into Wal-Mart and look for an oil filter for a Passat or Touareg. I can tell you they won't have them. Or windsheild wipers for a Land Rover newer than 1999... nope- if they say they do, they'll be the right size but won't be able to attach.
I love European cars but they all seem very unreliable over here. American cars suck but they are cheap to fix and don't seem to have the expensive issues the imports do. Between the two, I would still take a European car.
