Quote Originally Posted by Lucas_R View Post
Symptoms that you have a failing tensioner or a stretched cam chain will be rattling on that side of the engine. Obviously if the chain gets loose enough that it either comes off the sprokets or snaps then its going to cause the engine to go out of time and cost a lot of money to fix.

If you can hear some noise in that area then its probably something you want to look at getting replaced in the next 6-12 months or so just in case. You say its quiet - so it sounds like there is no need to rush to have this replaced. Also the EA113 is quite a noisy (ticky) engine at idle anyway, blame the direct injection system.

A lot of this wear and tear can be reduced with more regular oil changes. I know people think its great that new cars only need an oil change every 15,000km but in reality this is too long and causes premature wear on timing chains/guides/bearings etc. Obviously when people buy these cars 2nd hand with 80,000-100,000km they face some of these symptoms of too-long service intervals quite quickly.
Yeah, I've already had 2 engines in other cars fail because of not on time maintenance. Luckily this Scirocco I've picked up has full logbook services every 10,000km, including 2 dsg services and cam follower changes. The car idles quite nicely (minus the hpfp ticks haha). But yes, it is pretty quiet, and not a constant noise, comes and goes, and almost disappears when car warms up. Ill see if I can get a video of it and upload here, but might not be able to hear it on video, This is my first car with this engine so it might just be a "normal" noise. I'm also replacing the cam follower this weekend, will see if the noise persists.

Does the PCV make a rattle/tick when it operates?