Oil Consumption or Oil Leaking Problems?

I'm thinking about buying a 2000-2003 Jetta TDI. A friend of mine told me the other day to stay away from them. He has some contacts in VW that tell him the newer TDIs have oil leaking / oil consumption problems. Apparently, VW is trying to squeeze too much performance out of the engines.

The older ones (99.5, 2000, etc) don't have the problem.

I didn't run across anything in the forums that supports this warning. It seems 2002-2003 are just more reliable versions of the 99.5-2000 engine.

Has anyone had experiences with the 2001-2003 TDIs that support "the warning"?

Have had my 2002 Jetta TDI for a year... never a oil leak and no oil consumption that I can see from driving.. I change oil every 5-6 thousand miles. Thats one problem TDI's don't seem to have.

We've had our 2003 for a year and a half... doesn't seem to lose even a drop of engine oil between changes... don't know where this person got their info... As for VW trying to "squeeze too much performance out of the engine"... well, take a look at the various mods that people have done to get substantially MORE performance out of their engines... VW has taken a typically conservative point of view in trying to "tune - upwards" their engines!

Guys, I have my '09 Jetta 1.9 (Mexican Bora) I got the oil light turned on with barely 10,000km since last oil change, I had to refill with 1.5 lt, a valve was changed at the dealer when I came back to town and did the 30K maintenance, 4,500 km later light turned on again and the dealership had to add 1.5L again, they talked to assembly plant in Puebla MX and asked me to have a 3,000km test drive, and suddendly the car does not have oil consuption at all (I drove about 2,600km) have you had any similar case? the car does not leak any oil it is just oil consumption.

I forgot to tell you, first time the problem occurred I got 29,000 Km on the odometer, I change oil every 7,500 Km @ the dealership