I talked to german transaxle of bend or, who rebuilts vw automatics.

They confirmed what john says to be true, except the vanagon has some "metal" piece that is plastic in the jetta//golf version.  They said this probably did not make  a difference, but showed the VW expected the tranny needed to be stronger in the vanagon.

For the record, they offered top quality rebuilt for 600. In the Portland OR area, the price for a used was 400, and I could not find many. None of use had any know/confirmable mileage.

I was replacing a so called "good used tranny", so I spend the money to get a rebuilt.

German transaxel of bend turned out to be a very good company. The only do german transaxels/tranny's and now a lot about them.