I think many people in the market are tempted towards the FSI because so many of them were made with excellent spec'. So many people have joined the club and declared their search for a TDI but ended up looking at FSIs almost out of frustration.
"If owt goes wrong" perhaps ought to be replaced with "when owt goes wrong". I've made my sentiments about the FSI clear in various other threads, so I'll copy some text I wrote previously...
The FSI is a great engine when it's working properly. If I was looking to buy a car simply for the joy of driving it, the FSI would be a contender. However, I know you need an A2 not just for pleasure purposes but also as a functional, dependable machine.
The FSI is by far the least reliable of all the engines available in the A2. Whilst some have been lucky, I think even its biggest fans have to concede this to be true. It was VAG's first attempt at a direct injection petrol engine and therefore features the inevitable teething troubles of a new system. They are relatively rare, don't feature widely in other cars and are very poorly understood by a vast majority of garages. People have spent huge amounts of money just trying to get the engine management light in the instrument cluster to switch off. When you then take into account the troubles with fuel injectors, coolant loss, swirl flap actuators, coil packs, etc, you can understand why some owners keep an emergency fund. I'd suggest that a large majority of threads started on this forum about engine difficulties relate to the FSI.
Steve is a lovely bloke with impeccable ethics and I have absolutely no doubt that he'd declare any known issues with a car he was selling. However, that's no guarantee that the FSI he's selling won't rape your wallet; there are just too many fragile, expensive bits to go wrong.
I'm all in favour of people buying FSIs and keeping them on the road. Like all A2s, they're great! But if you're buying an A2 with low-cost motoring in mind, then it ought to be at the bottom of your list.
Cheers,
Tom