I suppose after a couple of days sitting, the oil has all drained down? Plus stone cold, so thicker.... maybe? Giving the oil pump a bit of a hard time until it's been for a short run?

I agree, it was only a tiny splash of oil that needed to be added to get it right back to the top of the dip stick though.

I just happened to stumble across PD camshaft wear videos...

http://www.myturbodiesel.com/1000q/multi/camshaft-inspection-replace-vw-tdi.htm (two vids on here)

Quite concerning, though my noise hasn't reappeared and seemed to disappear giving it a tiny amount of revs...

Mine never sounded that bad tbh, and touch wood it's not returned since..... famous last words!!

Mine never sounded that bad tbh, and touch wood it's not returned since..... famous last words!!

Yeah, not quite that bad but the same sort of noise.

Maybe we just had sticky tappets like stevobeano. I might have a go at removing the rocker cover just to have a nose though. I doubt anyone has had a look under there in 126k miles

This was a common issue on the pd150, my mate who has a leon pd150 had to replace his camshaf.

Old one caused this...

Sounds a little like the noise made when you start them up without the intake connected up; maybe check for a leak in your intake system somewhere? Could be a crack in the intercooler?

Left the car over the weekend again and it was back to making this strange noise, only now with some tappy clicking to go with it :( It still disappears after being driven for a couple of minutes or so, but I am guessing that I am suffering from the dreaded camshaft / lifter wear.

From my reading thus far, most people just replace with the standard camshaft? Is there any real benefit to one of the uprated Colt / KermaTDI jobbies?

I'd love to pull the valve cover off an confirm. It's supposed to be straight forward but:

1) I couldn't figure out how to get the timing belt cover off?

2) EGR is in the way and a PITA.

I started mine up today, not used it since Sunday and I too noticed something is not right.

Mine sounds louder than normal, with what I can only describe as a thudding sound to go along with the louder ticking noise. Just sounds odd to me, not running as smoothly as it normally would. I will take it for a drive later and see if it goes away after the engine has warmed up properly.

Here is a video off my phone, but you can't pick up the thudding that I can hear myself unfortunately

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrWfx6jkvyw

Any ideas?

sound possibly like your injecters, might just need a good clean mine makes a similar noise and thts what i think mine is

sound possibly like your injecters, might just need a good clean mine makes a similar noise and thts what i think mine is

What made you think injectors? (not being horrible, genuinely want to know).

Had a quick look at going about taking the valve cover off just now. I can't believe I got stuck over the upper timing belt cover haha. I just needed to take the top intercooler pipes off to get to the clip behind. The EGR doesn't seem too bad either. I'm feeling particularly lazy today (week off) so maybe have a proper go tomorrow or Wednesday.

To anyone who has done it before, can you see anything useful without taking the injector rocker levers off...? I don't think we have a torque wrench handy here...

Got a garage to remove the valve cover. I would have liked to have done it myself, but I couldn't get at the EGR bolt at the back (what a pain!). Somehow they managed to do it without moving the EGR valve..!

Anyway, confirmed camshaft wear, possibly caught early but a bit hard to see. Anyone who has a similar noise should get theirs checked out