Amazing how you blame the car and its engineering when:
-You freely admit to beating the ***** out of it.
-You freely admit that the PO didn't have a clue about maintenance.
-You know that it was abused long before you got it.
-You admit it needs some parts to run right yet still blame the car.
Any car treated like this, even a MB would end up a worthless POS. I can understand killing the thing for fun, I too have done that a few times, but blaming the car doesn't really make sense. Besides, I am guessing you could buy 2-3 used Jettas for the price of ignoring the temp gauge in your SDL...
RT