I had a diesel 1.6 VW engine and I heard a lot of old mechanics in Karachi tell me that its lifters make noise no matter what you do.
I found the original oil filter is actually a MANN 940/25 - which was sold in Karachi for massey tractors etc. - excellent filter but I had a friend who sold donaldson filters, so I used that equivalent.
Never even a slight noise after the correct filter, btw - the MANN 940 - is cartoonishly large on the engine, its about 8 inches tall. The thing I loved about it was there were two ears welded to the filter hat, where you could use a screwdriver shaft to unscrew it as it was rather fat to grab with your hands.
the previous owner was using some variant of an old toyota filter.