Up the hill in a VW

If you are going up a steep hill and your speed drops and you begin lugging the engine,you downshift to the next lowest gear.Repeat this process and you may find yourself in 1st gear going 5-10 mph if the hill is steep enough. There is no set speed or gear as the variables are too great. If you do hit 1st gear ,there aren't many hills that will stop a VW-they engineered a very short 1st gear to make up for the low power output. Fred67bug

At that point, wouldn't you be more concerned about your car flipping nose over tail for driving up a near vertical surface? ;)

On most highways going through mountain passes, I've never had to drop below 3rd gear, even with a moderate amount of luggage/passengeres in the car.

Even on the steepest streets in San Francisco I was able to cruise around in second.. I'd be terrified if I encountered a hill that was lugging me in second gear.