Volkswagons are poorly built.
In comparison to Ford, GM and Chrysler/Dodge... No, no they are not. And it's Volkswagen. Not Volkswagon. As a matter of fact... VAG's are not poorly built at all, and have been innovative and setting standards for quite some time. Especially when a majority of those technologies go into their Porsche, Audi, Lamborghini, Bugatti, and Bentley frames.
My mid 2000s Passat was incredibly expensive to fix and ultimately was not very reliable.
Strange, because that's an Audi A4. And they aren't and weren't that expensive to maintain and are actually pretty reliable. They came in v6 and 1.8t variants which minus a couple independent part malfunctions (which every manufacturer has recalls or premature failing parts) I can say both engines which I've owned when maintained properly and on time, and taken care of... have absolutely no issues. Parts are cheap and repairs are relatively easy. Unless, you go to the stealer-ship... which again... for EVERY MANUFACTURER, this is the case. The only other way that it was incredibly expensive to fix is if you had the AWD W8. Which, I can assure you... you didn't have.
I've seen plenty of other issues with Audi/VW owners.
Such as? The mk4 water pump having a plastic impeller instead of a metal one? That's a $40 dollar pump you can do yourself in under an hour. Timing chain tensioner? going out around the 70k mark instead of the 100k mark as described in the use manual?
The engines in VW's are damned near bullet proof. Going to your year of experience the 1.8t's are good to 380whp turbo'd on stock internals as a daily driver. The VR6, upwards of 500whp as a daily driver. The metal used in the body is of higher quality and when you shut the door of a VW it's like shutting the door on a tank, instead of like most cars sounding like a tuna can. The interior materials, standard options, and technology inside of a VAG is always superior to anything the US puts out in the same class, and is usually between 3-5k less.
Did you buy your VW new? I'm guessing you didn't.
Maybe it's because automobiles have been a hobby since I was in elementary, or because I do my research, but just tossing blanket statements out there about an automobile because "I owned one once" does't make it true.