TDI or Petrol daily

[au00]

Hey guys!
I'm on the verge of buying a new vw, since my '96 passat has been giving me lots of trouble lately. It's had a stuck vnt actuator, and now it barely wants to start. Mechanic said that probably the injection pump is clogged/cant deliver the right amount of fuel=timing problem. He suggested buying a 1.6 or 2.0 petrol vw insted, for short commutes and daily driving, since lots of these problems come from short distance travels.
I would like to hear your opinions on the matter.
I know, iknow, this is a tdi forum, but i figured some of you at least tried a petrol before (I havent) and can give an experience based reply. Also I fell in love pretty hard with tdis so i'm just as biased towards them as you are, hence I posted here instead of a more general vw forum. I might just need convincing that a 1.9 is the way to go.
Also if anyone has more insight into which engine to buy (va/pd[100/130/150] tdi, 1.6/2.0) and whether a 4motion golf is worth the extra hustel and expenses (if any) or a simple fwd model is the way to go, please share it with me. There are just too many options and my head is starting to hurt.
I'm also interested in the difference between their reliability, fuel consumption, power, how hard is it to work on, any information that could help me decide is welcome.
I know i ask for a lot of information, but hopefully if enough of you reply i can piece them together.

 

[Lug_Nut]

What makes sense for you in your situation is going to depend on your situation.
Do you expect your next years' of driving will be closely similar to your most recent years of driving?
Use the data from those prior years to make a comparison of what your costs (fuel costs per km, insurance, maintenance cost, etc.) might have been had you been in a petrol powered version of your diesel. That comparison may help you sort out what makes more sense for you.

 

[oilhammer]

I think a lot of the Americans and Canadians on this site would so covet the diesel choices someone in Hungary has, that you may not get an unbiased answer. Not only that, but the sheer number of cars you can choose from, as well as all the more efficient gasoline engines as well as the fact that almost everything is also available there with a proper third pedal.

I'd be like a fat kid in a candy store.

 

[Sting]

I agree with LugNut... look at your current patterns and see what works better for you. Also consider if you're doing longer or shorter drives. Shorter drives aren't the best for the TDI. When I got my '03 (that's a VE, btw), I was driving A LOT. I did 150K km in the first two and a half years. Lots of highway driving, avg FE was 5.027L/100 km, and I put in just shy of 8000 L of fuel from Aug 2020-January 2023. In a petrol car, that would likely been 50% higher on the FE. It's a no brainer when you're doing that. I drove from Ontario Canada to British Columbia and filled my car the equivalent of 5 times. I was getting roughly 1000 km between fills.

Right now, my daily roundtrip commute is about 50 km a day. I can easily go 3-4 weeks between fills.

 

[nokivasara]

If you buy a newer TDI with a particulate filter, DPF, you really need to drive at least 20-30km one way every time to keep the DPF happy. We have had 1.9 TDI PD in a Golf 5 and a Octavia 4x4. Very good engine IMO. We now have a mk7 Golf with a 1.6 TDI and it has been great so far but we drive too many short trips with it so it goes into regen very often.
4wd or not is a matter of opinion, it is nice if you drive a lot on unplowed (or very slick) roads but otherwise it's better to have a 2wd with good winter tires if you get a lot of snow.

My sister has a mk2 Octavia with the very basic 1.6 MPI petrol engine. It is very simple, no turbo or anything. I think it's good in that way, there is not much that can fail, it has about 340 000 km on it now and has worked great. It's pretty slow but reliable. The FSI and TSI engines have had more problems, with cam chain and oil consumption.