Great point! There's no thinking about it. VW was and is still in a very hot spot. They slid down in American Auto sales drastically in the recent past (to the #7 importer last year) and were forced to give us the GTI/GLI's of today at the cost they are. And then it was said that for every GTI they sold in the States, they lost money on it. Not to good of a profit margin there. But they were facing a sink or swim scenario. There's even been subtle changes to the interior of the 07 in comparison to the 06 GTI. They now use cheaper plastics and moldings in a few places, eliminated the headlight washers, etc, etc...all in the name of trying to reduce their loses. I'm not complaining and I consider myself rather fortunate to own an automobile that VW didn't do to good of a job off of profiting from. The car takes twice as long to build as those in the same price range as it. So yeah, there's going to be perks to owning the GTI. But the perks went to the buyer and not the company (not what VW would have preferred). Then again most car companies do this when forced into a sink or swim situation.
That's just my 2 pennies, and the articles I've read on it. There's been a number of threads here talking about this before as well.
After spending the last month virtually disassembling my GTI interior completely to install an aftermarket audio system and really looking at the engineering details of manufacture it's in my opinion that the fact that VW takes twice the man-hours to build an MKV compared to its competitors is because of over-engineering for over-engineering sake than any "perks". In other words, bad engineering...
This is no Phaeton, much less a Rolls Royce to take twice the man-hours to build one car compared to others in this entry level segment. That's idiotic...
The best example: it takes around 15 pieces of trim and some 30+ torx screws to replace the cup holders for the Euro version with the sliding door. In my M3 it takes... nothing at all. You pull the cupholders out and clip the Euro sliding door there... done.
Another example of over-engineering to the point of lunacy: door panels snap on clips system is made out of 4 pieces. The clip itself is made of three parts and the receiver in the door panel is a separate part plastic soldered into its base. In the BMW: one piece, the clip. The receiver in the door panel is molded into the door panel.
If BMW can reduce and simplify these subassemblies and still charge almost twice the price of a GTI for an average 3 Series, and still the impression of quality and luxury is more than the VW, then VW really messed up the engineering design of this car.
This car has too many single parts, too many bolts, to many intricate subassemblies. That's not something that speak quality because the more parts an assembly has the more prone to rattles/defects can and will have. And of course, the more expensive is to manufacture and produced.
For me that's VW problem right now with the MKV and why it is costing them money to sell each one of them.
Ah, why I chose European over American cars? They drive better and look better inside and out, that's what I'm looking for. The Japanese are closer than the Americans in getting that feel of the road and interior ergonomics that the Eupeans have almost forever. Which it is ironic because I've driven Mazdas and they drive much better than the Ford versions, and the Mazda interiors are better built and look better than the Ford's... and Ford is part owner of Mazda.
I think that American cars were made for a particular customer, a customer that did not expect much out of a car other than regular maintenance and the occasional malfunction. The problem started when everybody else was offering excitement, luxury, styling plus lower price and better reliability. The Americans are coming back strong now after some really black holes for years, but they still have some road to go. Unfortunately, they lost me as a potential customer long time ago...