The timing belt on a $20,000 Volkswagen would have cost exactly the same.

Not to say that Volkswagen is the champion of reliable economy cars as they’re not, but, plenty of other cars have timing belts.

No the VW was more because the engines are transverse in those cars. But the parts are shipped from Europe and the labor is up charged because foreign car. Thanks to Denso, a lot of these parts are cheaper today but labor is still stupid.

Also Audi/VW had a stupid tensioner design which made timing belt replacements a requirement at 30k miles until they changed it. I think this is still a grand example of how luxury brands up charge everything because luxury. It costs 450 for the dealer to do the same job on my transverse Ford engine.