I just bought an 03 Jetta and want to transfer over my stereo. I brought it to a place in the city to get an estimate and was told that its really hard on VW because there are lots of special clips and what not that are difficult to get off and break easily if you don't know what your doing. They want to charge me 700 bucks to do the install because its a special install and they have someone from out of town thast comes in once every few months to do VW installs. Is it really this hard or are the just trying to scam me. I've done quite a few installs but never on anything european so I have no idea.

 

They're probably ripping you off - I had an aftermarket (very basic, just a headunit) installed on my 96 GTI and it was very cheap. Had it done at Best Buy.