I'm visiting in SE PA. The other day I ran into (figuratively) a guy driving a '96 Passat TDI with >100K miles. Still gives ~50 mpg - he said "50 mpg". His only remarkable failure was the speedo's mechanicals. It looked good and the engine compartment looked great. He too complained about his no-service/stealership monkey-chanics overfilling the crankcase. Are you familiar with
http://www.tdiclub.com?