OT: looking to get a Golf TDI, any advice? Yea or nay? Options

[Jenny]

Below is a lovely cut n' paste from Brian.

Hi Everybody,
(....hi Dr Nick)

Jenny and I are considering buying a used VW Golf and wanted to get some feed back on some of the things we've been finding out. First of all we are interested in getting the TDI model which I'm well aware is slow as molassas. I like the TDI for a bunch of reasons but most of which is the better mileage and durability (we are also slightly green as our other car is a Prius and we just sold our other Prius). I believe the engine that we'd be looking at for a late model Golf would be the 1.9 L Turbo Diesel (manual transmission, which seems to be pretty rare but definitely in existence). I've been driving small cars my whole life so I'm not really affected by the cramped conditions (I'd prefer to have the Golf over the Jetta due to weight).

We are pretty much just going to use the car to get around town and as Jenny's daily driver.

My questions:

- Is the 1.9L TDI motor as is to be expected with most other Diesel motors (ie reliable, I'm expecting a life of 200-300k miles)?
- Is power (about 100 hp) sufficient for the chasis? We are used to pretty lack lustre acceleration in the Prius and in our 4cyl 4 runner. It looks like the curb weight is 2900 lbs which is about average for a compact car.
- VW has been advertising the safety of their cars, would this hold some what true for the Golf? It's smaller but should have a marginally comparable safety shell as the Jetta.
- Does anyone know anyone that runs them on biodiesel? Supposedly they are 100% ready to run, but I don't think any stations sell the real deal, maybe in Berkeley we can find a B5 mixture, but I don't think the US allows anything higher than B25 right now (and I believe it voids the warranty).
- Anything else that we should be weary of?

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions!!

TIA,

Jen

[ottox914]

Don't know this from any personal experience, but from what I hear from some other oil burner friends is that the new low sulfur fuels can mess with the seals on the injector pumps, requiring a re-build with newer, better seals. Don't know how serious of a deal this is, but the stations around me all have stickers on the diesel pumps saying that if you use this fuel in a pre 2007 diesel motor, they'll not cover you for any engine problems that develop. Apparently the sulfur content in diesel is not so far removed from the lead in leaded fuels, in that it functions as a sort of lubricant in the fuel system. Take that away from a system that was designed to use it, and who knows how long things will last.