Kept my ‘03 ALH, after Buyback of ‘14; thinking of buying a ‘15

Lucky I kept my ‘03 Jetta ALH M01 (bought new in October ‘03) after buying a new ‘14 Jetta 6 speed manual. The ‘14 was bought back. I’m now looking at the buyback ‘15’s returning for sale- and stepping up to a Passat.
I’m using the ‘03 as my daily driver. Had all the usual small stuff, but really reliable and still fun to drive with almost 230k. I do my own maintenance.


Questions:
I thought my ‘14 had a lot more road noise than my ‘03, and the HVAC fan was really loud....any thoughts?


Are there any common “lot rot” issues as these cars sat for a couple of year?


I see common issues- heater core, DEF problems. Maintenance on the automatic seems prohibitively expensive & I don’t trust it for long term ownership. My ‘03’s M01 is known to be unreliable, but mine started to flare at 200k. A rebuilt valve body from Kansas City TDI cured that- now with about 30k on it. Any common automatic failures?


Any other caveats I should be aware of?

Only issue with the DSG is that it needs servicing every 40K, but if you've been able to keep a M01 up past 200K, you'll have no issues with a DSG.

Water pumps seem to be kind of soft on the 2015 and no one really has crazy amount of miles on the phase 2 software. IMO emissions stuff will start to go south of 150K and then you're into real expensive repairs if you want to keep it compliant.

Water pump... sheesh, might as well do a timing belt, pulleys and tensioner while you’re in there. Does TDIParts or anyone have a decent all metal replacement pump? I’ll research that. It took me 16 years to get 230k.... 150k is a long stretch till emissions warranties end.
Thanks!