Are the new VW Beetles (2002 ) expensive to repair and maintain?

[25or6to4]

My friend's dad worked for VW many, many years ago and he said that the upkeep is expensive and I wanted to know if this is still true.

 

[hamn]

oil changes are 80 dollars per 5k miles, but its worth it to me. They rotate your tires, wash your car, check for other problems, and etc in the process too.

But other than that, they're fine cars.

I would not recommend buying one in the early 2000's though, 2000-2003 were bad years on reliability.