I've never owned either, but both of my sisters have had a VW at some point... both were lemons. One of them was a newer ('98 or '99) Jetta, and it was a super nice car, but after a year it suddenly had a million little things go wrong with it that shouldn't normally be a problem with a new car, and she and her husband ended up selling it because of that. My other sister had a 1990 Cabriolet, and it had similar small things go wrong. It's been sitting in the same spot in our driveway for about 4 years now. She also has a few friends that have or have had newer VW's, one has never had a problem and is an exteremly nice car (Passat), but all the others (about 3) have also been lemons. So in my experience, VW can make a really nice car, but some have the potential to be troublesome. Maybe someone on here who owns a VW can weigh in here, maybe they only have problems in Massachusetts? lol The only experience I've had with a Subaru is one we had when I was younger, it was an early '80s GL hatchback, it's still on the road today, but I have no idea about anything newer than that. I hope this was helpful!