Should I be concerned that hose clips and the like under the bonnet appear with quite a bit of surface rust on? Also a cylinder that I don't know what it is has a lot of rust on the top. My former Octy Vrs has nothing like this.

Thats the fuel filter housing.

 

The design is poor and also affects the MkII Octavia so it sounds like you were lucky with your last car.

 

Any water that finds its way into the engine bay from the drive wheels or through the grill has the chance to pool in the recessed lid. Once there it will sit until the heat from the engine dries it out.

 

Fill it with WD40 instead, this should stop the corrosion.

 

Better to get on top of it now, eventually the pipes will leak fuel. This then drips directly on top of the cambelt, which then results in its failure, then quite often it's new engine time.

 

I had the one on my 2007 MkII Octavia vRS replaced for free under warranty - only after digging my heels in and kicking off a little!

Edited 25 January, 201511 yr by silver1011

When checking the oil level on my Octavia I occasionally used to drip a couple of drops of engine oil off the end of the dipstick onto the top of the diesel filter housing. It didn't look pretty but it stopped the damn thing rusting!

Think I will give it a good metal brush and give it a coat of hammerite. The hose clips in various places should be easy to change. I thought maybe the car had been through deep water for there to be that much rust under the bonnet.

Get it done asap, it will break the feed pipes eventually and leak derv everywhere, why VAG hasn't done something about this by now is beyong me having had 10 years of this design, oh yes that's it, £160 for a new filter housing that'll be why.