Knighty66

Booked in this week already, felt like a good idea to get the local garage to check it over! Cheers

Thank you to everyone who helped on this one, I've leaned a great deal and, am pleased to report, fixed the problem. Timing had slipped ever so slightly so that, with the locking pin in the cam, the crank pin was about 2mm out (pic attached). Loosened the camshaft nuts with the pin in and turned the crank until pin dropped in. Tightened everything right up and running as normal and thankfully no evidence of black doom or metallic bits in the oil! Got lucky there!

Ahhhhh OK, that makes sense, although I sense I'm under prepared and under tooled to get the adjustment just right! I do remember getting the needle to align but definitely didn't torque it up to within an inch of its life, will make sure I do this time! I'll do a lot more reading up on this, I feel like I probably approached it a bit gung-ho last time which probably isn't the way to go about a cambelt change...

Thanks for all the advice and help, massively appreciated! Will be looking to get things looked at this weekend when the weather allows and will update this thread for any interested parties

Very good to know, honestly I hadn't checked that it was compatible but thankfully I've been lucking out with the recommended on my reg for a while. I take it it's to do with the additives? Holed cam buckets, from a bit of light research, looks decidedly full on to address so I think I have a course of action for the weekend. 1. Oil change - check for bad chunks 2. Timing belt - check timing for slip, correct if so 3. If all above fails, cry into an empty wallet and/or face a full strip down

Ah right, deathy as in bits of engine which shouldn't be in bits... will check that over the weekend, thankfully don't need the car very urgently!

Can't say I've paid that much attention on that front sadly! Thought going with a good brand and the right W was close enough but I'll check when I get home and let you know. Can you link a list of how to find which it might be?

Oil is fairly dark, but not super thick, figure that's probably par for the course due to the mileage but might be worth a few more frequent changes to clear things out a bit. Been on once a year around 12k-15k miles changes since I've had it which is probably a little too infrequent. I use castrol 5w30 and haven't mixed it

Yes, oil looked good, just under max fill and was changed in April. Would have been a nice quick fix if it was just low!

Thanks, just became a fair bit more tappity almost instantly so thought something might be up. Most likely culprit is the timing slip I think, it must have been that I didn't torque it all up to spec fully, did the job myself in April. I'll strip it down this weekend and report back.

Hi all, Looking for a bit of advice on some rough running that's suddenly occurred on my 2008 Octavia 1.9 tdi please. This forum has been brilliant over the past 4 years helping me maintain the car but sadly I'm a bit stumped on this one! Car has 200k miles on it but has been regularly serviced, did timing belt water pump etc around 2k miles ago. Running great but with the occasional tenancy to idle high around 1100 rpm when warm which is the only issue I can think of. On pulling into the drive yesterday the engine suddenly started to sound like a bag of nails (audio attached). No check engine light and no fault codes on the ecu either. I have a BT adapter so if there's further diagnostics I can do to check things please let me know! Checked the forums and found that the MAF may be the culprit so took that off and gave it a good spray out with some contact cleaner but that doesn't seem to have fixed it either. Seems quite happy to rev but reluctant to do any more miles in it if there's something really up with it, having worries that somehow I didn't torque the bolts up correctly (99% sure that I did) and that maybe the timing has slipped... Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Cheers Bagofnailsidle.mp3

This site has helped me maintain my rock steady 2008 octavia estate for nearly 4 years now. Driven 80k miles including South of France and North of Scotland and even slept in the back a few times. Thank you to all who post!