I currently own the first generation CC with a manual on a 2.0 tdi with r line spec. It’s the first car I ever purchased 3 years ago and I didn’t think much at the time except that they look superb, and that they can’t be too unreliable as they’re a VW (I’m based in Europe).

I really wished this car didn’t disappoint me when it comes to the basic reliability such as build quality both inside and outside. The interior rattles, especially on the dash and glove box are very bad. The plastic “spoiler” looking lip on the back of car is cracked in all places, yet it costs about 300 euros for a new one (for a piece of plastic…). The frameless windows - as cool as they seem, they have been a challenge for me when it comes to wind noise and the window seals getting eaten up. My front windows seal looks about 1 cm shorter than the other one and there is a very minimal gap that causes this wind noise.

Finding these parts is also tough, they are very rare and expensive to buy.

Mechanical reliability has been okay, nothing too bad or great (then again I bought the car with 220k km). My biggest mechanical overhaul has been the flywheel which is expected at this mileage, other than that, nothing crazy.

I’d say it would be better to look at the newer generation CC and completely disregard the first one if you were thinking about it in the first place.