The ironic thing is that my daze in dubworld involved very few AA recoveries. Even those were not 100% the vw's fault. One was thanks to me trying to get round a locked gate in the New Forest, another was a burst oil cooler heading north out of London, giving the bay laldy before it had time to warm right up. (I blame my VW guru, he advised me to 'give her the boot' at least once a week.) One time I called the AA in the Lake District because it was dark and peeing down, but I had it fixed before they turned up. The other magic thing bitd was that you would never wait long before another vw nut stopped to help.
Once you work on a few of the old air cooled variety you tend to hear what is going to happen before it happens, or feel it. You also tend to know how to sort it.
I won't go near most things on a modern!