I have had an ongoing intermittent problem with my Octy vRS for a number months now. Cold start noise and poor cold running. Following comments on this site I suggested to the dealer it could be the cam chain damper or the secondary air pump. The dealer checked all the cam related stuff out and said there was no problem there. They will not change or investigate the secondary air pump without authority from Skoda. Skoda have refused to give authority until the dealer wittness the problems themselves. This is causing me great problems because it is an intermittent fault. I have now left my pride and joy, overnight at the dealer's on 4 seperate occassions. Everytime they say they can't see the fault.

Tech question - is it possible to test or examine the air pump on the car? To date I don't think they have even looked at it, they just keep dismising me.

I think it must be a problem with the air pump as it is only a cold start problem and at all other times it still sounds great and goes like stink!!

Any comments would welcome.

You could try a Throttle Body Realign. This issue comes and goes for me. However the causes might not be the same, I found the TBA helps to cure it.

Feels like it's running on full choke?

Oddly mine does this, but not from cold in the mornings. Never then, but after 8 hours in works carpark. At which point I really struggle to get out of the car park.

The air pump can be activated via diagnostics iirc

But if its only noisy from time to time its not going to help.

on some rs the dump valve will stick when cold, also an induction pipe gave problems with a seal leaking, again when cold,

this fault usually appears when the out side temp is down around 5degrees and it will store a boost pressure fault, light may or maynot come on.

the secondary airpump generally only works on a cold engine to help with emission controls, if the engine is started and not driven for a few minuets the pump will run and the exhaust note will change,

other than that visualy check the rivets on the pump body as some can come loose causing all sorts of noises and cold running,