Just started this morning, very loud cam chain rattle for about 2 seconds when the engine is first started then nothing. I know the TSI's had issue but i thought the 1.2HTP chain driven engines were indestructable?? i have it booked into the garage first thing friday morning, i am leaving it with him thursday night then he can start it from cold to diagnose the issue. Has anyone else had this issue the car is 61 plate and has only done 58,000 very disappionted :-( hoping its not a new cam chain and tensioners :-( out of interest can anyone advise on the total cost of this if its the issue. I have checked the oil and its fine and was replaced at the last service - August 2017

Edited 10 April, 20188 yr by timey74

Is there a possibility you left it parked in (forward) gear (brakes off)? If so was the car facing uphill? That can lead to the engine being forced to turn backward a bit and untensioning the chain.

 

I've had this happen on our 2009 1.2 htp a couple of times and the chain rattled very loudly until the tensioner was pumped out. But very much a rare occurrence. Once it happened randomly without it having been parked in gear, and I reckon the engine might have stopped near the top of a compression stroke and then ran back half a rev.

 

I've also learned with the two 1.2tsi camchain engined cars we also have to rapidly kill the ignition if there is loud rattle on start. That allows the chain to settle back in the sprockets and restarting is then always silent. 

 

Its down to flawed design.

 

Dont rush in to change the chain, unless you witness this as a regular thing.

Edited 10 April, 20188 yr by xman

i do leave it in gear on a hill but only when the hand brake is fully on and this is only very occasionally as most of the time its on the flat. strange thing though after getting the horrible noise for the last two days first thing in the morning i have come to start the car this morning and nothing so i am at a loss as to what is going on.

Best go see a good VW Mechanic maybe at a Independent VW Group Specialist rather than at a main dealers.

1 hour ago, AwaoffSki said:

Best go see a good VW Mechanic maybe at a Independent VW Group Specialist rather than at a main dealers.

Yep its at our local Mechanic on friday just to be on the safe side as i said in my first post i am leaving it with them thursday night then they can start it from cold on friday morning. Not looking forward to the cost if it is a new chain and tensioners. Do you guys know of a rough cost for this job

Edited 11 April, 20188 yr by timey74

Varies greatly depending on dealer/garage/time of day etc. Seen prices vary from £350 to £750.

 

Don't panic! As I said, the htp does on rare occasions untension the chain for various reasons. Not a reason to change it as that will make no difference. Only reason to change is when chain is stretched (rattle audible at idle) or the tensioner is not working as it should (rattle on many/most cold/warm starts)

 

 

 

35 minutes ago, xman said:

Varies greatly depending on dealer/garage/time of day etc. Seen prices vary from £350 to £750.

 

Don't panic! As I said, the htp does on rare occasions untension the chain for various reasons. Not a reason to change it as that will make no difference. Only reason to change is when chain is stretched (rattle audible at idle) or the tensioner is not working as it should (rattle on many/most cold/warm starts)

 

thanks for the info xman lets hope it isnt needed :-) if it does untension will it tension itself back up again??

 

Edited 11 April, 20188 yr by timey74

Its a hydraulic tensioner, as soon as engine oil pressure builds the chain is tensioned correctly, thats why the noise disappeared after 2 or 3 secs after starting.

15 minutes ago, xman said:

Its a hydraulic tensioner, as soon as engine oil pressure builds the chain is tensioned correctly, thats why the noise disappeared after 2 or 3 secs after starting.

 

thanks for information didnt have a clue how they work, i will keep you all informed over the weekend when it gets checked on Friday. Thank you for your assistance and answers as usual :-)

Edited 11 April, 20188 yr by timey74

thanks for all the advice i was worrying for quite a few days after hearing the noise earlier in the week. Mechanic has checked and says there is nothing wrong and as you said probably just a one off and it has now tensioned itself back up, as a procaution he has changed the oil and filter as i was really unsure if they did it when i bought the car last august. Advised me that the time to start worrying is if you hear it on every startup and if you are idling as you said xman :-) glad i took it in to get the once over just to be on the safe side.

Edited 14 April, 20188 yr by timey74

I have just had a  chain tensioner fail  on a Mk2 1.2 at 88K and the chain has jumped ,so I think that is the end for this engine at the least ,

if not the car (59 plate),

unless anyone else can give me a  their experiences of this situation I think this may be end of life for this vehicle

Edited 22 July, 20187 yr by tankie

On 11/04/2018 at 07:39, timey74 said:

i do leave it in gear on a hill but only when the hand brake is fully on and this is only very occasionally as most of the time its on the flat. strange thing though after getting the horrible noise for the last two days first thing in the morning i have come to start the car this morning and nothing so i am at a loss as to what is going on.

 

I know this is from April but just a reminder - as @xman mentioned above you need to be careful not to turn the cam chain engines backwards - even just a bit - as the forces used between the crankshaft and cam shaft sprokets are also applied back onto the tensioner that tries to push it back.

 

Even with the handbrake on when you release the footbrake the car will roll down the hill a bit until the brakes/suspension takes the strain - thus trying to turn the engine a bit. 

 

In short if left in gear(good idea for other reasons) use reverse if pointing uphill(car would roll backwards) and first if pointing downhill(car would roll forwards) so that the engine turns in the correct direction if the car rolls down the hill a bit.

 

1 hour ago, tankie said:

I have just had a  chain tensioner fail  on a Mk2 1.2 at 88K and the chain has jumped ,so I think that is the end for this engine at the least ,

if not the car (59 plate),

unless anyone else can give me a  their experiences of this situation I think this may be end of life for this vehicle

 

Do you have a friendly reasonable independent garage - might be worth having the head removed to have a look. Just don't try and turn the engine over at all now.

 

Or how about a second hand engine?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 22 July, 20187 yr by bigjohn

Thanks John, really what I need to know what is the predicted outcome of this episode  ,

so  I can see if a viable repair can be done at a reasonable  cost

41 minutes ago, tankie said:

Thanks John, really what I need to know what is the predicted outcome of this episode  ,

so  I can see if a viable repair can be done at a reasonable  cost

 

A friend of mine had a cam belt fail on 1.416v Golf (cam belt 75bhp engine) where VW wanted thousands to fix with a new engine, this was a handful of years ago, but his friendly local mechanic fixed for a few(quite a few still!) hundred pounds ( head rebuild, new belt tensioners etc...)

 

On something like a tsi doing a head rebuild would be an opportunity to de-carbon valves etc. You'd also end up with the latest revision of chain, sprockets and tensioner. With the 1.2 3 cylinder the valves should be reasonably carbon free due to port fuel injection (not direct injection)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 22 July, 20187 yr by bigjohn

Ok ,I think this piece of crap has damaged the valves as a bare minimum , I was just trying to see if anyone on this forum had stripped  1.2 3 pot engine that had  had chain failure

Rebuilt htp cylinder heads are available at reasonable cost on ebay. Find a good independent and ask for a quote to fix.

Skoda dealers will be far too expensive.

 

Depends on how much you think your car is worth.

I want to Know the projected damage, as I really don't get a good warm feeling by stripping an engine which has probably destroyed itself.

No heads available , even if I did want one

11 minutes ago, tankie said:

I want to Know the projected damage, as I really don't get a good warm feeling by stripping an engine which has probably destroyed itself.

No heads available , even if I did want one

 

It's not that difficult to get the head removed to have a look see

 

The other thing you can do is inset and inspection camera into the plug hole - saying that I've had mixed results with this method unless the damage is really obvious

 

 

Edited 22 July, 20187 yr by bigjohn

I now know that no one on this forum  has done any work on this type of  engine,

it quite a lot of work to lift the top of this engine when  it's time and money,

if you read my first entry on this thread you should of realised that I must have already stripped off the front of the engine 

Someone on this or the mk 1 forum had a Htp cylinder head  fully refurbished for around £900 iirc. (He was told it had worn valve guides, but was a misdiagnosis). I think there is an outfit on ebay that change them for £999.

 

A good independent can examine the cylinder head, valves, pistons etc using a bore scope camera without removing the head. Then you can decide if its worth proceeding.

 

I finished with stripping and refurbing cylinder heads 35 years ago. Got better things to do with my life.

 

Bearing in mind your car if in good condition isn't worth much more than £1500 if that, it might be cheaper to sell it as is on ebay and get something else. You obviously don't love it anyway.

Edited 22 July, 20187 yr by xman

Thanks Xman, your right it, belongs to my  x ,

I just wanted to confirm my suspicions that it is the normal can of worms,

the normal routine of stripping and rebuilding is also a chore I do not want.

Smug mode on

I did need to find what it had done, the top had come off the fixed guide

It's also better when this info comes from an independent 

Edited 23 July, 20187 yr by tankie

Well this is the final part of this story,

The head did come off and what was found was 6 bent inlet valves,

no damage to the head or pistons at all,

so it would seem the chain had jumped on the inlet cam sprocket .

The repair was straight forward 6 new inlet valves @ £8 each , head gasket £20 , Timing chain kit £125.00 and 20 hours of time for the strip , repair and re fitting of the head