Has VW's reliability improved?

Gotta chime in here. In 1971 I bought a 1961 VW Squareback. All white, lots of chrome, roof rack, the works.

That is still the car my wife drives exclusively. It’s her baby, and still looks almost brand new as it has always been garaged (at least since 1971).

She has become used to going to a parking lot and finding three or four folks admiring the car. Often gets request to buy it.

The reliability has been all that one could hope for. Of course, it helps that on a good day she might put three miles on it. And also we have an excellent VW repair shop within a mile.

The only major thing that has recently gone wrong was two weeks ago when the electronic fuel controller (fuel injection, dontcha know) went out and the shop had to search all over Washington State to find a replacement. But all is well again.

Not bad for a 42 year old vehicle.

Many short trips, with time to cool between tend to be quite hard on an engine. It spends all it’s running time warming up. Gas does not vaporize well in a cool engine, so it washes the oil off the cylinder walls, and tends to increase wear.

A 1961 VW is a far cry from a modern one. Once they started cutting corners to compete with the Japanese it’s been a long slide downward. VWs were much more expensive than a comparable Toyota or Datsun in the early 70s.