I'm gonna have to stand up for VW here. I've owned a 98 GTI VR6, and a 2K2 New Beetle Turbo S, and have had no major issues with either of them.
VW and Audi continue to develop great automotive technology, like:
DSG
Golf R32 - coming to the US next summer?
The Touraeg, looking suspiciously like a certain other German manufacturers truck:
Worlds most economical car
Cool stuff, and not just marketing hype.
In the past I have really hated VWs service - slow parts delivery, typically untrained and kind of rude techs, etc. But in the past year or so I've noticed an improvement, along with the corporate offices' push to get dealers up to speed before they start selling these much more expensive models (Toureg and Phaeton).