Had the cambelt changed before Christmas with this kit. My local VAG specialist who's worked on my cars and who I trust, did the work. All was well until Sunday. Started the car and noticed a fairly loud metallic scraping that changed with the revs. Had a listen under the bonnet and defo was coming from the cambelt cover area. The car also had an oil service from Skoda the day before the cambelt.

The noise disappeared totally after a minute or two, but it happens every time I start the car from cold. I took it back to the garage. It didn't make the noise because the car was warm, but they had a look at the belts. The cambelt is sitting a little to the left and is doing so because the of tensioner/guide. My mechanic said he wasn't hapy with how far the belt is over, but was a little mystified as the tensioner and belt are both OE parts. They're gonna have the car next week sometime (when they fit my downpipe) so they can start it from cold to investigate.

I've done a little search and some alternative causes could be the cam chain tensioner and/or oil pump, or some general prob with the oil pressure, causing the cam chain to rattle from cold due to lack of oil.

Any tips or ideas before it goes back to the garage?

Cheers!

Edited 7 January, 200917 yr by AndyVR6

The belt on mine sits perfectly level with the outer edge of the cog, leaving about 3mm clear and visible on the inner edge. It lines up perfectly with the tensioner and pulley though so I've chosen not to worry about it

Cheers- that's good to know. I'll have another look myself tomorrow to check how far over it is.

There is a spacing washer that sits behind the tensioner, this must be fitted or it pulls the belt in.

Yeh, washer is fitted. The belt is actually on the outside edge, like Interphase's.

Any ideas what the noise may be? Could it be due to the cold weather and the oil being really thick?

You can get a scraping noise post cambelt fitting if the bottom cover isnt quite on properly. The aux belt tensioner rubs on it.

Ah, cheers, I'll mention that to my mechanic

noises are normaly covers catching . saying that years ago i had a tdi golf in with 8000 miles on the clock and they was a horrible nocking noise from covers it was the belt shredding so never take owt for granted .

Cheers for that. I'll use the Focus for a few days until the Octy gets sorted- I'm sure it's just the lower cover or something, but don't want to tempt fate!