This topic has been beaten to death here. Do a search and read all about it. I like VW diesels and have owned a few. Currently love our '03 Jetta TDI. The only 190 I would want is the turbo and they are rare. A TDI will cruise quieter, faster and more efficiently. Some will say you can't fix it yourself, but you can, you just need to become a little computer savy. Check out
www.tdiclub.com
Regarding the VW longevity, there are many, many VW diesels over the 300K mark, including a few TDI's. The Volvo diesels were in fact VW diesels. They had issues since VW just stretched the 4 cylinder to a 6 cylinder. Some of these issues can be remedied if you plan on keeping them up and running. So VW had a bad engine with the Volvo diesels. Big deal. MB is still haunted by the 3.5liter diesel. The VW 4 cylinders are good engines.
RT