Hey everyone, new to the forums, new to VWs, and I have a few questions for you. First, a little background on the car in question. I have a 2009 Jetta S 2.5L 5-spd manual. It has just shy of 78000 miles on it. I bought it from a Honda dealer, I'm the 4th owner, and aside from the crack in the engine cover where a previous owner or the dealer's mechanic tried to remove it, it appears to be in good shape. The car isn't throwing any error codes, it doesn't stall out or fail to start, and aside from some very minor clutch slipping (which I attribute to a previous owner who bought a manual without really knowing what they were doing) it runs pretty smooth.

However, I have a few concerns.

1. I have read in several places that VW has pretty strict rules about motor oil. I'm fairly certain that the dealer I bought the car from did not go out of its way to procure the proper oil when they performed the oil change. Will this have any lasting negative effect on the engine itself?

2. When I first start the car, before the engine heats up, I can hear what I can only describe as a light tapping noise coming from the general area of the drive belts. It sounds like a loose piece of plastic tapping against metal, but I've ruled that out by visual inspection and by the fact that it stops once the engine is warm. Any thoughts?

3. This has been brought up before I'm sure, but fuel economy seems to be far less than EPA estimates. I understand that there are many factors that may cause this, to include but is not limited to aggressive acceleration, pushing high RPM before shift, tire pressure, etc. but even when I baby the accelerator and shift at <3000 RPM, I'm getting under 300 miles per tank and that's over 50% highway mileage. Can this go back to my first question about the oil? Or might there be some other culprit?

Thanks in advance guys!