Hi guys,

Firstly thanks for maintaining such a useful wealth of information. I have recently bought an auto Fabia '05 1.4L with 56,000 on the clock full Skoda service history and new MOT. The car was sold to me as scrap value due to an unusual knocking noise coming from the engine. I realised the diamond in the rough and decided to take the plunge for £350 as most things are repairable (most things).

I did intend to drive it until it completely failed but I've come to love my little Skoda and would like to get it repaired. So this is my dilemma, Skoda want £66 just to look under the bonnet, I'm not willing to throw money at, but if you good people could point me in the right direction I could instruct my local garage on what to repair.

So the noise. It's a rattle / tapping coming from the aux belt or timing belt. It's linked to the RPM of the engine and gets fast the higher the revs.

There is no detriment to the driving of the car which is fully topped up with oil and driving like new. It had the toothed belt and tensionor replaced about 20,000 miles ago (4 years ago).

Could it be the Cam belt tensionor gone? Tapperts? Valves? I can't afford for my mechanics to start replacing things in the hope it solves the noise. So your help would be much appreciated. I'll try and post a video shortly.

As promised the video! https://youtu.be/LKESF0B9sYk

Firstly I would run the car without the aux. belt on to rule out the alternator etc., then have a butchers at the timing belt see if the tensioner, any idler pulleys and water pump look ok (may need to support engine and remove engine mount to have a propper look)

 

To me it sounds like the knocking is coming from the top end of the engine which is going to require a lot more work to investigate although the frequency seems a bit too low to be a lifter or a valve problem.

Edited 19 April, 201610 yr by SuperbTWM

Thanks superbTWM for having a look, the speakers didn't really pick up the location of the sound very well, but it's definitely originating from that side of the engine and yes high up. I took off the air box and top belt cover and had a good look / pull around. The tensioner doesn't appear to be touching the belt at all? Yet the belt appears to be tight on the pullies, I can twist and pull the belt relatively easily but the deflection appears to be fairly reasonable, say 10-15mm. I'm no mechanic so digging deeper might be disastrous!

Sounds valve gear related to me.

It's the hydraulic lifter, all the 16V engines are tappetty at higher mileages, nothing to worry about, an oil flush might help but it won't silence it, you could strip it and replace them all but it isn't worth it really.

Sounds awful to me for a 56k motor.  Mine's on 123k and you have to listen carefully to tell whether or not it's running when the bonnet's shut.

Hard noise! Hard to sey, but it hears like it comes from deep inside. If you are lucky it is av broken hydraulic lifter? I think you can change without head off? Harder than diesel engines...

But worse... some valves meet the pistons? I would check the timing. Much worse: broken piston and bolt, or connection rod. 

 

These engines has only tree main bearing, and generally this is weaker than five. In the old days the crank broke easy with only tree bearings. I reminds me about a vw 1200 with a broken crank.. But i don't think this is the problem... But I don't know this engine so much, so it was a little guessing and simulate to other engines...

 

So my first guess is valve timing and piston-/valve problem.

hope the best -most easy....

Edited 19 April, 201610 yr by Torbo

Mine was very noisy at first and that was 59K, much quieter now at 100K.

That is fecking awful sound for a 1.416V.......my 14yr old on a -14C cold start was quieter than that!!..

Jeez this all sounds costly! I think I've come to the conclusion that to repair it would cost more than what I paid for the car! Surely if it was piston / valve related then there would be significant performance issues, at least some smoke and oil lose? Thanks for all your advice though!

How long have you been driving it with this noise, and is it getting louder? If the answers are, "a little while", and "no", then I can't see it being a drastic, terminal issue. 

 

When I try to count the taps against the clock, I could convince myself that there's about 6 a second at idle? Multiply that by 60 and you get 360 taps per minute, which is about half the idle revs I think?

If it should happen to be 1 tap every two revs, it could just be one hydraulic lifter making this noise, 'cos the cams spin at half crank rpm.  That might be relatively cheap and easy to repair* if you can identify the offender. I think, the bust one will be easy to squeeze, all the rest harder.

 

*Edit, actually not that easy/cheap unless you can remove/replace the cambelt and cam carrier DIY.

Edited 20 April, 201610 yr by Wino

Hi, it's been like this apparently 2 years, but it's only done 4,000 miles in that time. It's not getting any worse, some days it also very quiet, usually when it's cold oddly enough??