Hi all. I could really do with some sound advice. I've just brought a 2010 2.0t petrol vrs with 70k. I've just brought it from a independent dealer and get 3 month warranty How worried should I be about all this cambelt tensioner faults. Should I get the tensioner replaced regardless. Should I get in touch with the last owner or garage (farmers Skoda Leicester) and see if this one one of the cars affected. Should I be taking out a warranty direct policy straight away if something should happen. What's the best advice please.

Many thanks Trev

Unless the previous owner had it done, then yes, your car will have one of the earlier cam chain tensioners fitted, maybe even the first one which did fail more often. There have been 3 upgraded tensioners since. If you look through all the tensioner posts, I remember a member posted the dates of when every revised tensioner was fitted to the Octavia.  I think my car has the second revised tensioner. They can cause real problems if not upgraded to the latest tensioner. The word is "can", it does not mean "will", but do you want to take a chance? Will Warranty direct pay out if it fails, as it is a known fault with these engines. The decision is yours. Do you take a risk and leave it alone? Do you get a warranty and hope they pay out if it goes wrong? Or do you do what I am doing on the 6th of September and get a full new chain kit fitted, which does of course include the latest tensioner on the market at the moment. The cost to me at an independent garage will be £614, but I feel it is worth it due to more piece of mind.

To put it into some perspective, I once had a 2004 Honda Accord CTDI and they were known to have a similar problem. In that case I put an amount of money by in case it failed, but never upgraded the tensioner. That car went 106k miles before I sold it and it never did fail.