Hi, 

In general, when speaking about these small 3 cylinder engines, a lot of them are quite good. The latest revisions of the turbocharged PSA's 1.2L PureTech seem to be decent, the latest revisions of Ford's Turbocharged 1.0L ecoBoost, and the latest revision of Hyundai-Kia's 1.0L Kappa also seems to be a reasonable engine.

And that's the theme about them, they can be decent engines, but only in recent years, after their manufacturers have figured out all of their mistakes - no one managed to get them 100% right the first time.

PSA's crankshafts would just bounce (and they built it so it's won't be survivable, so you had to replace the whole engine) and "LifeTime timing belts" would snap leading to recalls, Ford's EcoBoost cylinder blocks would crack leading ford to cover all affected engines out of pocked (at least in the UK), and with Hyundai-Kia their engines are still vibrate like no other thing on the market - but with time, 5-10 years after it's initial release the manufacturer has managed to figure it out, and in some cases (like the 1.0 PureTech) they've even cancelled engines outright.

VW released it's 1.0L TSI EA211 engine in late 2015 and to me it looks like it has plenty of potential to turn into a nightmare, direct injection, complex sensors and control units, integrated exhaust manifold, cooled exhaust gasses. So far, this being a new engine, no one really knows how good or bad it's going to be but I wouldn't count on it being that great - it's take another 3-4 years to see when these engine's will begin reaching 150k miles in mass numbers and all of the electronics and plastics will begin to age.

Unlike other manufacturers, VW has a reputation for not owning up to mistakes. VW has failed to provide warranty coverage for owners who experience shift shock on their dry dual clutch transmissions (mostly due to bad design, although this is not applicable to your car, it just sets the character of how they treat costumers effected by their own mistakes) and on their older cars, they have failed to provide coverage for owners who had piston destruction on the 1.4 TSI (I'm seeing cars like that all over the place) - so I would be very skeptical.

So far, you want to replace the timing belt (if equipped, I hope it is. VW timing chains have proven to be more trouble than it's worth), replace oil every 7,500 - 10,000 km (I'm seeing some 1.2L TSI engines in the same EA211 family burn up to half of their oil just in 5k km), do carbon cleaning on the intake from time to time, and in general perform all recommended maintenance in advance - I wouldn't recommending waiting 115,000km (70k miles) for spark plugs, usually they get fouled way before that.

In general, with careful driving, and good maintenance - I think you can get quite a lot of life out of it.

There’s nothing wrong with buying a VW in Europe.

As with any 5yr old, it’s important to keep it entertained with regular maintenance, and well fed with good quality chorizo..

To your advantage, you chose one with a manual transmission. 

I’d say meticulously follow the maintenance schedule in your owner’s manual and change your engine oil (and filter) every 10,000 kms with full synthetic oil. The 1.0L TSi is a relatively new engine, so it’s long term longevity is still unknown - 

https://www.motorreviewer.com/engine.php?engine_id=130

Maybe @dan & @g-t have something more to add.

All the best!

Hello!

It is turbocharged petrol engine. Scotty has mentioned several times turbocharged engines wear out faster.

Don't accelerate hard, let the engine warm up and then drive above 3000 rpm. Before you turn off the engine, let it idle about 3 minutes. 

Unfortunately car makers go that way, so you don't have much choice among naturally aspirated engines if you look newer cars.

There is a video where Scotty speaks about difference between normal engines and turbos (inline 4 cylinder vs turbocharged 3 cylinder for European cars).

Good luck!