Used to own one myself. Very quick cars. Mine burnt about a litre of oil to every 1k miles.
However the engines are not very strong what so ever. Infact they revised the engine from the CAVE engine to the CTHE. CTHE is meant to be stronger with less problems re-occuring. IIRC they started producing this engine from 2012 onwards.
So theoretically if he didn’t mind the risk of possibly 1L oil every 1000 miles, and went for the revised engine, he might be problem free? He’s tempted by the quickness, the possible high MPG when he needs it (around 40-45 if IIRC) and the style of the car itself.
Yes theoretically. Mine wasn't too bad for oil consumption compared to what other owners were experiencing. If your mate is on Facebook get him to join the 'Team Boc' page/forum, plenty of helpful 1.4 TSI owners in there.
The revised engines dont use as much oil, but the biggest problem your mate will have is that they stopped producing the bocanegra from a 61 reg onwards IIRC. Only the Facelift CUPRA's will have the revised engine from new. Therefore getting hold of a Bocanegra with the revised engine will be quite hard as it will have had to of had problems with its original engine first before they put the new CTHE lump in. (Any Boc/Cupra experiencing engine problems before 2012 had a new CAVE engine put back in and any Boc/Cupra with engine problems after 2012 had the CTHE engine put in) Obviously the seller will know this and it should be stated in the for sale advert.
You'd be daft to own one without some form of warranty on the car IMO. There is plenty of horror stories on the internet too, not too hard to find either. I sold mine as soon as my warranty ran out and got myself my current ed30.
On the positive side though some Boc's/Cupra's out there havn't had any problems as mentioned above.
Hope this helps!