Originally Posted By: dishdude
I owned a '13 GTI for about 8 mos before I sold it for the ATS. It was a fun little car, and probably had the best shifter and clutch I have ever driven. If you want it, go for it. This is the car to own if you want to row your own gears.
Life is too short to buy a car because everyone claims it is the holy grail of reliability, when in realty it's totally average.
Mine had a VIN that started with W, so it was German built.
While the GTI did feel good, it is not anywhere near as enjoyable as my integra. The shifter throw was long and kind of dull and the clutch catches high and had no springy-ness to it. Anyways, aside from that, the car was pretty fun to drive. The way the shifter feels is just one aspect of the car that i can totally get use to.
When your water pump can fail every 7-15k miles, i would not consider reliability "average"
This is not a small sample size who had water pump issues either.