Trying to decide what to buy

Exeactly: their reputation for reliability/build quality ensures they hold their value well, which is good. However, speak to people who actually own them and you find a different story when it comes to how reliable they are in reality.

Before there's a lot of posts from people saying how reliable their VW's are, I deliberately put this as "opinion" rather than fact (i.e. based on totally unscientific personal and other experience).