Looking at one today looks immaculate only 19000 miles one owner full history. As its done only 19000 should it of had a cambelt change as seen they should be done every 4 years? Anything else I should look out for ?

Sam

That is very low mileage for a 5 year old car.

You need to understand why it has only done 3,500 mile/year. It is rare for a car to cover such a low mileage, even if used by an elderly person for local runs only.

In my experience a car that isn't driven regularly is often less reliable than one that spends all day on the motorway.

Components wear or seize, such as the brakes and suspension. The engine rarely gets up to temeprature so is likely to be corroded and sooted/carboned up. The tyres are probably cracked/crazed unless they have already been replaced.

The DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) also won't have had a chance to regenerate so even after only 20K it may well cause issues.

Finding a pre-facelift vRS with 19,000 miles is potentially a good find, but for the reasons stated above you need to be happy that you know how the car has (or in this case hasn't) been driven, or more importantly where it's been sat/stored and why.

Generally a diesel is purchased over a petrol for it's economy and is therefore bought by people looking to cover bigger mileages. This one hasn't - why?

Skoda recommend that the cambelt changed is changed every four years (it is mileage based too, this will be listed in the manual) so it is overdue if it hasn't been done. The 4 year interval is controversial on here as some think it's a money making scheme as other markets don't have the same time based interval, however at less than £300 it's worth for peace of mind alone.

I guess also that a 5 year old cambelt that's done less than 20,000 miles will be worse in terms of its strength than a 2 year old belt thats done over 50,000 miles so I would want it changing if it hasn't been done already.

Check service history too. In theory if the car is set to variable servicing then it might even still be on the original oil. At this annual mileage it should have been on fixed (12 months, 10,000 miles - whichever is reached first) which would have seen fresh oil at least once a year for this particular vRS.

It can't be on original oil as even variable runs with a max of 24 months

Car previous owner had it as a second car for weekend (range rover day vehicle ) . Been used but not abused and car is on isle of wight. He traded in and I'm purchasing it with 6 month warranty and cambelt is being changed part of the service included in price.

Do you live on the Isle of Wight or do you plan to bring the car over to the mainland?

A lot of manufacturers actively discourage the purchase of diesels for use on the IOW due to the inability to meet the requirements for a DPF regeneration.

I live on iow but also all over uk too .. And there are plenty of routes to work It will get a blast to regen dpf. Service history has had every year annually including injector recall